Art is the oar that guides us through dystopian rivers
Mary Woodbury, dragonfly.eco
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Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia the ecofiction anthology edited by Lynn Hutchinson Lee and me and published December 2024 by Exile Editions, recently received another wonderful review from Mary Woodbury at dragonfly.eco. Here is an excerpt:
As the world teeters on disaster, what saves us ranges from graceful failure to full-fledged resistance and opposition. Through the Portal, an anthology of eco-fiction, offers 35 artful, provoking stories to propel us forward. The book serves to reconnect us with Nature in diverse storytelling, from cautionary tales to fiction that brims with hope while also helping us grieve what we’ve lost—described as solastalgia.
Mary Woodbury, dragonfly.eco February 2, 2025
The anthology is a stunning collection of short stories and poetry that address our most existential concerns through metaphysical, epic, solarpunk, mythological, and contemporary perspectives. From landscape and weather transformations to stars, fairy tales, parking lots, mermaids, whales, storms, bees, and much more, the reader is treated to a journey of colorful narratives woven into a chronology: imagination, after the fall, and Earth hour.
For the full review go to dragonfly.eco.
Hopeful dystopias are so much more than an apparent oxymoron: they are in some fundamental way the spearhead of the future—and ironically often a celebration of human spirit by shining a light through the darkness of disaster. In Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia, award-winning authors of speculative fiction Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu present a collection that explores strange new terrains and startling social constructs, quiet morphing landscapes, dark and terrifying warnings, lush newly told folk and fairy tales.—Exile Editions
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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 