I���m delighted that The Daily Tomorrow picked up my sentient geology eco-apocalypse weird/soft SF short Geosapiology: a brief history of geogenesis, the Stones, and the Theory of Appeasement (releasing as a seven-part serial from Jul. 6-12).

There will be an exclusive authors��� note for subscribers following the final day of the story. But, as is often the case, there are limits to what and how much it���s possible to say about a story on a third party site.

And I have more to say.

I wrote this story in late November of 2023. It was a little over a month after October 7.

In Canada, in my memory and communities, shock, outrage, and mourning over the deaths and hostages lasted a couple of weeks before news started to filter through from Gaza. I remember feeling crazy for months. The cognitive dissonance between what national media and ���nice, normal��� people said and thought, and what I was seeing happening in real time, was beyond belief.

But October 7 happened only a week after the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation/Journ��e nationale de la v��rit�� et de la r��conciliation. (Earlier, and popularly, ���Orange Shirt Day���.)

Canada has a horrifying (ongoing) track record with First Nations/Indigenous people. While I had dug into local history and learned more about the ongoing harms over the past few years, including the persistent crises of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG), wildly disproportionate rates of Indigenous children in foster care (even after residential schools were closed), and Indigenous people disproportionately incarcerated and killed by police, because of the memorial holiday, I had the opportunity to engage in a focused day of learning hosted by the school district I was working for at the time.

Indigenous educators, authors, and activists, both at that memorial day of learning, and speaking out in the wake of October 7 and Israel���s increasingly genocidal response, really did amazing work in making the connections between historic and contemporary colonial violence at home and abroad explicit and in highlighting that none of us are free until all of us are free���a lesson we are still learning (with increasing intensity).

I���ve lost track of many of those earliest voices (blame the downfall of Twitter), but some sources I recommend today include award winning Cree/Iroquois/French Human Rights Journalist Brandi Morin, Palestinian journalist, activist, and filmmaker Bisan Owda, social justice journalist professor Steven W. Thrasher, L���nu���skw (Mi���kmaw) writer Tiffany Morris, trans Jewish lawyer Sheryl Weikal, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Canadian doctor Yipeng Ge.

Geosapiology was not written ���about Palestine������not exactly. It was written because I had a story prompt (���growth���) and a deadline.

But I think it took the shape it did because I needed to process the pain and horror of the moment, the awfulness of capitalist-colonial-white-supremacist violence across oceans and time, the madness of leaders who refuse to listen to science or people, scientists who operate under the pretense of detachment from historical and socio-political context, and nature crying out for healing.

I very rarely outline or plan short fiction in advance, aside from pieces that come out of creative workshop exercises, and this was 100% a ���writing into the dark��� (discovery/pantsing) creation.

The Stones came about organically and were not intended as a description of any one tradition, legend, myth, or known quantity.

But the story as a whole was inspired, in premise and setting, by the early days of Israel���s attempted and currently ongoing genocide against Palestinians.

The lack of specificity is deliberate. As we���ve already seen, with the violence spreading to Yemen and Iran, the dynamics of aggressor and victim changes over time. I wanted readers not to get hung up on the who/where/when, but to connect the struggle for peace to the conflict of their own moment, whatever that moment might be.

When the setting shifts ���an ocean away,��� I am referencing the west coast of Canada, where I live and set most of my work, and particularly thinking of the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley regions. (Though, again, with deliberate lack of specificity, to allow for broad readings.)

These are unceded Coast Salish territories of Turtle Island, home to a diverse and overlapping array of tribes, peoples, and language groups. The Coast Salish peoples actually do have a fascinating tradition of living stone. You can read about one example, Man Turned to Stone: T���xwel��tse from St��:l�� territory.

The link connects to the records of a multi-media exhibit, which was presented at a gallery-museum in Abbotsford, BC. A book was also produced. Some ideas that inspired me were the Stone in a protective/guardian, moral or educational role, the passing along of knowledge/understanding/ways of knowing, and transformation.

I also became familar with just a bit of the Halq���em��ylem language due to living and working on St��:l�� territory, and Xwelitem (hungry people) in particular is such a wonderfully powerful and evocative word/concept. It���s referenced explicitly in the MMIWG section of Geosapiology, but I feel it���s also a thread that runs through any good anticapitalist/anticolonial work. Darcie Little Badger���s YA Novel Elatsoe does this beautifully, as does Ryan Coogler���s film Sinners.

To learn more about the MMIWG crisis (and get involved in advocacy, petitions, protests, fundraising) visit APTN News��� dedicated section The list of people in need of rescue (or investigation into their deaths) unfortunately shifts constantly, but for a broad overview of the issues, you can Read The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Calls for Justice.

For more a more diverse and culturally authentic lens on some of the topics and settings referenced in this story, I recommend (the excellent!) work of Indigenous and Palestinian(-Canadian) authors such as Tiffany Morris, Sonia Sulaiman, Eden Robinson, Nadia Shammas, and Cherie Dimaline.

While I write from a specific perspective (white settler, in this context) and with specific hopes for readers (treat each other well & stop destroying the earth!), I also recognize and accept stories take on a life of their own.

I wrote about the idea in (Non)Fiction roughly a year ago, when I pulled the first sale of this story from a lit/foreign policy journal due to hinky (and apparently non-negotiable���) contract clauses and a difference of editorial vision.

The world���particularly the view of it from here in North America���feels like it���s only gotten worse. The death toll is mounting in Palestine (and spreading, as Israel is emboldened and funded to wage terror campaigns against its neighbours), Sudan, Congo, and increasingly freedoms are being stripped, reverted, inverted in colonial nations as well���incarceration in the US, anti-protest actions, racist and sexist hate, and the triumph of anti-science forces in the UK, US, and Canada, rising climate deaths and the drastic toll on nature as UK/US/Canada fold to oil/gas lobbyists���

But I feel the concept I was trying to get across in my original post is still important.

Books (art in general) may educate, motivate, enlighten, persuade. They certainly can be (strongly) political. Fiction can be deeply historical or fact-inspired (or wildly the opposite), and people can be deeply influenced by it either way.

Art (artists) can change the world, but it cannot be accountable for the responses or actions of those who engage with it.

Fascism hates artists, writers, academics. It hates our creativity, our freedom, our ability to inspire, to motivate.

But we���re seeing a whole lot of the worst people on the planet taking inspiration from art (and SFF in particular) right now in building their nightmare futures. They don���t hate stories and imagination when they���re stealing ideas from them! (Just when they���re asked to pay creators or respect literally anyone or anything.)

That���s in no way a failure of the creative works they got those ideas from, to be clear. The artist is not at fault if you mourn when your favourite character died, no more than they are when an evil billionaire is inspired by a fictional villain���s macguffin to build a deportation-facilitating panopticon.

Where am I going with all this? Readers gonna read and you can���t control what they read into fiction or what they do with that after.

Which is why I try to point toward nonfiction sources for timely, fact-based education (and motivation), and to other sources when relevant (historical, cultural, etc.)

The Tyee. Al Jazeera. Haaretz. South China Morning Post. Haymarket Books periodically offers free download ebook bundles on various social justice topics, as well as sales, and their site is a great anytime source for reading lists.

I love fiction. I love speculative fiction. I love the imagination, the ability to play with reality���exploring better and worse trajectories to dramatic effect���and yes, the escapism. I love that for you. You should be free to indulge in fiction with as many or as few brain cells engaged as you wish! Want to ignore or misinterpret what the text is saying, indulge in surface-level escape instead of textual analysis, or just choose popcorn reads over layered lit? That���s your prerogative as a reader!

But please, please, also read well-edited and fact-checked international news and nonfiction on occasion, too!

And then, if I can push the ask one step further, do something with what you learn. Talk about it in real life to the people around you. Build connections and community. Give money and share resources if you can. March, protest, engage in direct action as appropriate. Write letters and emails, call representatives, get involved in local/regional/national politics. Advocate for yourself and others.

Not all of the things, and not all at once. But something, sometimes.

I was raised to believe that good deeds should be done quietly, essentially in secret. But, in the interests of integrity and transparency, I will share that I have been donating in excess of a tenth of my gross income since 2023 to Gazan mutual aid, Islamic Relief, Crips for eSims for Gaza, and M��decins Sans Fronti��res, along with in-kind donations to Kidlit4Ceasefire and local campaigns. (Given the scope of my overall employment, this equates to well over 100% of funds earned by publishing.)

I recommend all of the listed organizations. Writer Molly Shah���s list of vetted Palestinian mutual aid fundraisers is also a fantastic resource.

I���ve gone to rallies/marches/memorial walks. I���ve worn kuffiyeh and tatreez and CeasefireNow! buttons and Peace4Palestine! stickers to teach (along with MMIWG and Every Child Matters wearables and a mask, because disability justice also matters, none of us are free until we���re all free!) I���ve written emails and postcards and signed letters and petitions. I���ve had IRL conversations and been the awkward buzzkill who reminds everyone about difficult realities, and used my platforms on and offline to signal-boost, organize, affirm, and motivate.

Was it enough? Never. There is more need. There are more causes. But it was all I could do���and I���ll keep doing all I can do.

I know the need is overwhelming. You can���t save the world. I can���t either. We can���t engage with everything all at once, all the time���at least not individually. But together, bit by bit, based on our individual abilities and capacities, we can make a difference. You���re not alone. Be brave. Don���t give up. Pick one thing. Start small.

Just start.

Finally: Free Palestine. Free all occupied and oppressed peoples. Freedom, dignity, safety for all peoples, everywhere. Land back, from Turtle Island to Palestine.