I’m working on a book called Subsistence Dissidence and you can read the first chapter here at
http://permaculturefiction.tumblr.com (just scroll down until you see Chapter 1: Life on the Moon)
Hello Permies,
I was first introduced to Permaculture in high school by a environmental science teacher. Flipping through his copy of one of Bill Mollison’s books, I came across a sweet little drawing of a bunch of chickens shitting in a pond full of fish. My teacher looked at me seriously and said that this was one of the most important books he had ever read. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked. That was seven years ago and since then I have tried my hand in many endeavors. I tried the college thing, bouncing around for five years until I realized I didn’t need a degree to plant fruit trees. Some buddies and I started a permaculture inspired landscape business in San Diego. Although installing mini orchards and vegetable beds, while drinking local beers and eating burritos for lunch, wasn’t a bad gig by any stretch of the imagination, I knew that, besides the odd homeowner that listened to us babble on about hugelkultur, we weren’t reaching that many people. At that time, I had been working on my first full length novel, one where Hell had spilled into the world and infected all the plants and animals in grotesque ways. Working and researching in the post-apocalyptic genre, I quickly realized that there is hardly ANY real issues being discussed, be it desertification, soil erosion, ocean acidification, fucking oil palms, nothing! Let alone any solutions. You would think that Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, being one of the hottest genres right now, would be a little more grounded in the real shit that's going on in the world. So I scratched the book I had been working on for four years and started working on a new book, one that takes place in the future in which the characters deal with real world problems, and uses real world solutions. My goal is to break the stereotype so that it's not just a horde of zombies (which isn’t to say that it's not entertaining), but a horde of super weeds filling environmental niches left open by successive years of drought and bad land management, so that it’s not an earthquake that destroys Los Angeles, but a real and calculable absence of water.
I am wondering if there are any others out there who feel the same way and have similar projects that they are working on. I think we should all talk, exchange ideas, and learn from each other what is the most potent way in which to move forward. I’ve nearly finished my book and am releasing chapters on tumblr to get some initial feedback. After some editing, I’ll release the whole book in ebook form somewhere with the final five chapters that no one will have read yet. Of course, I know there are legit books out there that deal with these issues, but I think they get sprinkled in with other genres and they are hard to find. Please, if you’ve got any thoughts or know people who I should get in contact with, let me know! Please read my book too! I’ve never taken a PDC but i’ve read plenty of book, that being said if i’ve missed the beat on a perm technique or anything like that, i’m sure you all will have a field day pointing it out to me, and in fact, I encourage it. Thanks!
-Joey
