“A Diary in the Age of Water” at the Memorial University Bookstore
Instructor Keif Godbout-Kinney has made my eco-fiction novel A Diary in the Age of Water required reading in their course Feminist Practices and Global Change (GNDR 3008) at Memorial University, Newfoundland. The book is currently selling at the Memorial University Bookstore.
The Gender Studies course examines connections between feminist theories and activism for social and political change on a global scale.
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My novel, told mostly through the diary of a limnologist, describes a world in the grips of severe water scarcity during a time when China owns the USA and the USA owns Canada. The diary spans a twenty-year period in the mid-twenty-first century of 33-year-old Lynna, a single mother who works in Toronto for CanadaCorp, an international utility that controls everything about water, and who witnesses disturbing events that she doesn’t realize will soon lead to humanity’s demise. A Diary in the Age of Water follows the climate-induced journey of Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to water. The novel explores identity and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.
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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.
Free Times Cafe venue at night (photo by Ashish Pillai)
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Appropriately, on the eve of Earthday, Exile Editions and Stelliform Press launched two eco-fiction books at one of Toronto’s oldest and established cultural/dining venues, Free Times Café, by Kensington Market. Both books were works of eco-fiction and climate fiction that focused on issues of environmental treatment and destruction. Both works focused on hope.
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Top left: Free Times Cafe venue at night (photo by Nick Wons). Top right: Michael Callaghan of Exile Editions, Lynn Hutchinson Lee, Selena Middleton of Stelliform Press, Nina Munteanu. Bottom: Lynne Sargent reads from Portal.
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Exile launched their anthology Through the Portal: Tales of a Hopeful Dystopia, edited by Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu. It was their twentieth in a series; this one focused on hope in a climate-changing world that is progressively becoming more dystopic. Short stories and poems were read by authors.
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Top left: Ursula Pflug reads from Portal. Top right: Michael Callaghan introduces the anthology. Bottom: Lynn Hutchinson Lee reads from her novel Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens.
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Stelliform launched Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens a novel written by Lynn Hutchinson Lee, who read several excerpts of her novel.
Both works have received much praise.
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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.
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 Dystopiathe 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.
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.
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.
A recent favourable review of Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia (edited by Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu, released by Exile Editions) appeared in On Spec Magazine. The review by Lorina Stephens applauded the anthology for its genuine Canadian perspective, excellent writing, and “remarkable voice of many.”
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Excerpts of the review follow below:
“What unfolds in these 35 stories is a quintessentially Canadian perspective on climate change, the probable dystopia of our own making, and how we as not only humans, but Canadians, may deal with the breakdown of environment and society, of how we construct mythology to interpret our experience.”
The stories, writes Stephens, “are filled with that remarkable pragmatism and resilience, little say a reverence for the land, which seems to be hardwired into a people who deal with constant change, and sometimes extremes, dictated by climate and geography.”
“…the quality of the writing from this enclave of writers is quite remarkable…I am steadfast in my praise of the skill of these writers, and the stories they’ve crafted, collected into this remarkable voice of many.”
“The stories manage that most adroit of transformations from genre fiction meant as escapism and consumable, to that other dimension which is provoking, illuminating, and exactly what good literary fiction should engender.”
Through the Portal has received other favourable reviews:
“Through the Portal offers intriguing and imaginative glimpses into the future.” – The Seaboard Review
“A stunning collection of short stories and poetry that address our most existential concerns through metaphysical, epic, solarpunk, mythological, and contemporary perspectives.” – dragonfly.eco.
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.
My guest today is Calgary author Simon Rose, who has published nineteen novels for children and young adults, eight guides for writers, more than 100 nonfiction books, and many articles on a wide variety of topics. Today, we’re going to chat about his Shadowzone series, which was first published in 2017, with a second edition in 2025.
Nina: So, what’s the Shadowzone series all about?
Simon: The series involves the discovery of a grim dystopian version of Earth that’s ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship, the threat of a deadly virus, and a race against time to save the lives of millions. Without giving too much away, here’s a synopsis for each of the novels.
While watching intense flashes of lightning during a violent storm, Ben experiences mysterious and disturbing visions of another world, one that’s very different from his own. In the chain of events that follow, Ben encounters Charlie, a girl from a dark version of Earth, a planet doomed by the effects of environmental catastrophe, where the leaders will stop at nothing to complete their deadly mission.
On a doomed version of Earth, the sinister schemes of the Ministry are moving ever closer to completion, with dire consequences for the inhabitants of two worlds. For Ben and Charlie, an unlikely alliance, unexpected reunions, and the mysterious prophecy of the Chosen One offer a glimmer of hope, with the ever-present prospect of betrayal, as they embark on an unpredictable journey into the unknown.
In a dark parallel world, following attacks by its most determined opponents, the Ministry has been forced to change its plans. Yet the ruthless Director-General is prepared to sacrifice anyone to achieve an entirely new beginning, no matter what the cost. In a deadly race against time, as events spiral out of control, Ben and Charlie must risk their lives in a desperate attempt to save two worlds from destruction.
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Nina: What inspired you to write these three books? What’s the story behind the story?
Simon: The original idea was about someone capturing mysterious images on a video camera of a person that no one else could see. It was around the time that a local hospital was about to be demolished. I imagined that my character was filming the event and captured the image of the person stepping seemingly unharmed from the rubble as the building came down.
For a while, that’s all I had, and it was one of those ideas that I was never sure would come to anything. It was early in my writing career, and I put it aside and worked on other stories, but I’d periodically add another element to the story about the camera and the mysterious individual. At one point, I decided that the person that the boy caught on film wasn’t a ghost but from another dimension or perhaps a parallel universe and they were attempting to contact him for some reason. I then began to add details of this other Earth and the reasons for the connection to our world, and it went from there. An initial concept involving kidnappings from hospitals didn’t quite work, so instead, and before the arrival of the recent pandemic, I developed the idea of a deadly virus, which was a good fit with the type of government running the other Earth. Once that was all in place, I was able to get to work.
Nina: Was it always going to be a series?
Simon: Shadowzone was originally only one novel, but once I’d finished it, I immediately realized that the story wasn’t over and that I need to write more. The final installment was written very quickly, and, in the process, I knew that I needed to expand the earlier sections too, so in the end I had a trilogy.
Nina: So of course, people need to read all three 🙂
Simon: You could certainly just read Shadowzone, but there’s a cliffhanger ending and hopefully most people will feel utterly compelled to read on and learn what happens next. Into The Web and Black Dawn also don’t make sense if you haven’t read the first book in the series. Taken together, it’s an exciting, fast paced adventure that I hope everyone will really enjoy.
Nina: So, is it a good idea for authors to write a series of books?
Simon: It can be, but only if you have enough material for multiple books. If readers are sufficiently interested in the story and the characters after completing the first installment, they’d usually like to read more. However, the story or theme has to be strong enough to warrant more adventures. The reader won’t appreciate a novel that’s overloaded with filler, just for the sake of creating a series, and might avoid any books by the same author in the future.
Nina: And you’re doing adaptations of the Shadowzone books for TV and movies, aren’t you?
Simon: Yes, I’ve created a synopsis for a three-season TV series based on the Shadowzone books. I’ve also created a script for the initial episode, based on the first novel in the series. The three books involve a dark parallel version of Earth, mysterious portals, and the threat of a deadly virus. The dystopian setting has proved popular over the years and will probably continue to appear on screen. There has been interest in the project from people involved in film and TV projects and I’m certainly open to working with others to bring this one to life.
I’ve also seen some TV shows recently in which although there were adult characters, the main ones were in their mid or late teens and the show could be watched and enjoyed by adults. The lead characters were the same age as those in the Shadowzone books and in the novels in my paranormal Flashback series. That encouraged me to work on adaptations of the stories for the screen, since it seemed that there might be a market for them. I’m continuing to work on further episodes for the first season of the Shadowzone TV series.
Nina: What are you currently working on?
Simon: I always have a few current projects and right now, along with the script adaptations, I’m working on another historical fantasy novel series, this time set in the early years of World War II. I’m also working on more books in the same genre as my previously published paranormal Flashback novels, a fantasy series, and a historical fiction novel. I also teach writing courses at the University of Calgary and am working with some authors in the Alexandra Writers Centre’s Author Development Program.
Anyone interested in keeping up to date with the projects that I’m working on is always welcome to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, which you can do at www.simon-rose.com.
Nina: You work with other authors looking to publish, don’t you?
Simon: Yes, I offer coaching, editing, consulting, and mentoring services for writers of novels, short stories, fiction, nonfiction, biographies, and in many other genres, plus do work with writers of scripts and screenplays. I’m a writing instructor and mentor at the University of Calgary and served as the Writer-in-Residence with the Canadian Authors Association. You can find details of some of the projects I’ve worked on with other authors, along with some references and recommendations, at www.simon-rose.com.
Nina: So where can people buy all the books in the Shadowzone series?
Simon: The books can be purchased at most of the usual places, as follows:
“It is a novel to learn from, and it is a novel to take forward into life as inspirational guide. Each of us is called upon to examine, not only our relationship with water, but with all Earth gifts.”
Jane Buchan, author & educator
Vermont author Jane Buchan recently wrote a review of my 2020 eco-fiction novel A Diary in the Age of Water. Here is an excerpt:
As climate, social, and political crises escalate, one source of guidance becomes essential to our continued optimism and activism: a Numinous Story… A Diary in the Age of Water by Nina Munteanu, is, for many of us alive in these terrifying times, a numinous story. It meanders through our consciousness with the enlightening science of fresh-water lakes and rivers and streams, sometimes heavy with sediment and toxicity, sometimes fast flowing and cleansing, sometimes terrifying with truths smacking us down with the force of a tidal bore. Its characters are story tellers and story receivers, and despite their diverse natures, all the stories they tell reveal the many threats to our source of life on Earth – our water.
Nina Munteanu’s novel structure is perfect for the weaving of human scientific and mystical relationships with water. It’s initial and final sections create a frame for the inner story of bitterness, despair, self-serving behaviours, and corporate rapaciousness described by a professional scientist, a limnologist named Lynna. In the outer story we meet Kyo and Nam, Kyo’s mentor, as well as Ho, a librarian and keeper of a remnant of rare books. These characters exist on the other side of a mysterious cataclysm, the causes of which are the novel’s key themes.
Kyo, a small, four-armed blue being whose story begins and ends the novel, introduces us to the characters who form the larger diary section framed by the opening Library section and final Seed Ship section. Kyo makes glancing references to Una, mother of Lynna, and Lynna, mother of Hilde. Only Lynna is fully realized through her own perceptions and thoughts, these expressed in diary entries beginning in the spring of 2045 and ending in the late fall of 2066. Her diary, taking up 250 pages of this 303-page novel, provides the chronological spine connecting our past and present to a possible future that is not the one most humans want to think about, let alone welcome.
A Diary in the Age of Water is best sipped and savoured rather than gulped. Gulping will lead to choking for most non-scientist readers, and this book deserves to be experienced as it is written, in slow, undulating, revelatory waves… Like all complex stories, A Diary in the Age of Water requires patience, something our video-oriented age does not foster. The richest stories ask that we learn to hold many apparently divergent story threads at once. One of my fears as I read the diary was that the darkness of greed and short-sighted thinking and feeling would win out over that wondrous mystical relationship with the world that Una carried. While Una does her best to pass the experience of the sacred on to Lynna, Una’s spiritual influence is eclipsed by Lynna’s oppressive dependence on scientific knowledge to the exclusion of all else.
Through these characters, Nina Munteanu offers a warning for our times. Science is vitally important to our understanding of natural systems but science best serves us when it is balanced with an experience of the responsiveness of the natural world, a responsiveness that evokes our reverence and respect. Every culture honours the spiritual nature of the greater-than-human world, encoding its reverence in mythology, folktales, and wisdom traditions. – all keepers of numinous stories that transform our relationships with one another and the world. When we live honouring the sacred nature of all life, we become partners and co-creators. When we do not, we are highly dangerous parasites…
Lynna is called to hold the science of water firmly in her mind as her heart slowly opens to water’s responsiveness, water’s intelligence, water’s generosity, water’s love. It is a huge transformation for her, because science has been her safe place, her refuge. But knowing how something works is only the first part of the journey for those of us alive on this watery planet; we must all experience the why – the joy of unbreakable interconnections that make our lives meaningful… It is not Una’s daughter, Lynna, who carries this numinosity forward. It is Hilde, Una’s granddaughter, whose name means, significantly, Warrior Woman. How Kyo fits in to this lineage is one of the novel’s most unique speculations, one best discovered by reading the entire novel.
This novel is rich with information about water’s evolutionary journeys; it also describes the horrors of human greed that directly impact our relationships with water. It is not an easy book, but it is an important one, especially for people ready to engage, to advocate, to stand against the corporate insanity currently destroying Earth’s delicate balances. It is a novel to learn from, and it is a novel to take forward into life as inspirational guide. Each of us is called upon to examine, not only our relationship with water, but with all Earth gifts.
Go to Jane’s site Winterblooms to read the full review, worth reading in its entirety for its rich and poetic narrative.
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Jane Buchan is a writer currently living in Vermont and originally from southwest Ontario. Her books include Under the Moon, Kinder Sadist and her latest, The Buttes. She is also an emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) coach, Master Trainer and educator.
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Jackson Creek flowing through ice formations (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
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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.
Apex Book Company (publisher of Apex Magazine) has extended their deadline for short stories to appear in their anthology “ECO24, The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction” edited by Marissa van Uden. They are looking to purchase non-exclusive world anthology rights for only previously published short stories of eco-fiction published in the last calendar year (Jan 1 to Dec 31 2024) to publish in their imprint Violet Lichen Books.
Here is their description of the eco-fiction anthology:
This anthology “showcases some of the most vivid, thought-provoking, and emotionally affecting ecofiction published in the previous calendar year. Speculative ecofiction is defined as stories that explore our place in the natural world and our relationships to non-human life (e.g. focused on themes related to ecology, nature, the environment, climate, conservation, wildlife and animal rights) and which also fall into speculative genres such as science fiction, fantasy, Weird fiction, New Weird, anthropomorphic fantasy, magical realism.
Ecofiction engages with some of the most urgent issues facing us today and also looks ahead to the possibilities of the future. Even when dealing with dark or tragic themes, ecofiction stories are expressions of our human connection to the most beautiful planet we know, and to all of earthlife.
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.
I recently participated in author readings from the eco-fiction anthology “Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia.” Co-editor Lynn Hutchinson Lee and I opened the session with some introductory remarks, followed by readings by four of the anthology writers: Annaliese Schultz, Jade Wallace, Isabella Mori, and Matt Freeman.
Co-editors Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu introduce the anthology at the reading; authors and moderator pictured above
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The readings generated a lot of discussion about the nature and role of eco-fiction and stories in general on how we view the world and how that, in turn, influences the choices we make in life. Below, I include a short story excerpt and audience reaction for each author who read.
Annaliese Schultz read from her story Water & Oil. “Bursting from months, maybe years, of inertia born of dismay (engendered by the unending disasters of the world), Zip is instantly galvanized and greater than himself and gone.” One audience member shared that her story “sounded horrifyingly too possible.”
Jade Wallace read from her story Pluck. “It was only after I started working at the florist a few months ago that I began to think of plants as things that move. I learned that algae may swim towards the light; sundew can catch insects in their stalks; the leaves of touch-me-nots will slouch when they feel rain.” A member of the audience shared that “with what we now know about the way trees/plants communicate with each other, it was a neat story of crossing over to try to tell humans something.”
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Jade Wallace reads from her story “Pluck”
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Isabella Mori read from her story Shift. “Red Nelly, that’s what they called my grandmother; always looked a little dishevelled. So did her living room. Four book shelves were squeezed into the small room, sagging with dark tomes, oversized coffee-table books, Greenpeace brochures, and video cassettes that even her questionable looking TV couldn’t play anymore.” Someone in the audience mentioned that the author had woven a very human story. “Stories are sometimes better teachers than all other forms available to us. I felt moments of warmness and reflection.” Another audience member added, “The wisdom of animals and plants—there’s hope for the planet. I’m ordering this book from my local independent as soon as I close his meeting!”
Matt Freeman read from his story Birdseed: “Near the end I began to devote the bulk of my time to what I believed to be a gregarious individual of the species Corvus brachyrhynchos—the American Crow. By then a chemical scythe had begun to carve up the clouds hanging over the lands of ‘Vancouver’ in a psychedelic frenzy, and the shocked blue skyline often bled in shades of lime.” One audience member shared, “I loved he way ‘birdish’ words kept appearing: perch, cage. This may be Matt’s first published story, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.” Another audience member shared, “I loved the connection with the wisdom and personification of your crow.”
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Nina Munteanu commenting on one of the readings
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The readings generated a lot of discussion about the nature and role of eco-fiction and stories in general on how we view the world and how that, in turn, influences the choices we make in life.
Audience members shared that they found the readings inspiring. One member shared, “I find stories and poems have a more transcendent or at least deeper connection when read aloud. I wasn’t sure what to expect. So glad to be a part of this reading. The book sounds amazing.” Another member shared, “Keep hope alive!”
For more about how this anthology came about go to my previous post on Through the Portal.
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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
“A stunning collection of short stories and poetry that address our most existential concerns.”
“Will ingenuity, love, and respect for the earth help us work through whatever changes might lie ahead? Through the Portal offers hope that these qualities, if not enough in and of themselves, will help us find our way.”
Farmer’s field at sunset, winter in Ontario (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
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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.
When I was little, I wanted to be a storyteller, a cartoonist specifically. I was reading graphic novels before I could read. That didn’t stop me from understanding what was going on. Being a virtual learner and an artist, I understood context: expressions, body language…
Nina, age three, pretending to read (photo by Martha Munteanu)
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I wrote and drew wild adventure thriller detective stories and stories about exploring other planets. While my first love was telling stories, I was called by the needs of the environment. This percolated through me as I grew up and wouldn’t let go. When I could read and write, I still read graphic novels; I wrote and illustrated short stories about the environment, dystopian tales that focussed on how we were destroying our planet.
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At school, I loitered in the hallways, pasting subversive posters on the walls. They were a call to action: Restrain … Reuse … Repurpose … Recycle … Remain true to the environment. I wrote in the school paper. I quoted global statistics, mentioned global warming (yes, people knew about it back in the ‘60s and ‘70s), and submitted cheesy emotional drawings of pollution and toxic waste.
By the time I was ready to go to university (I’d been accepted early into the fine arts program at Concordia University in Montreal), I switched my major on registration day. Like a horse bolting from a fire, I charged out of the arts and into the sciences. I’d heard environment’s call for help and had notions of becoming an environmental lawyer. I kept a few arts courses as electives but focused on a biology degree in the environmental sciences. I understood that the tools I needed to wield as an eco-warrior in law were rooted in science.
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A twenty-some old Nina exploring the forest
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I learned something about ecology, botany, animal, plant, and cell physiology, genetics and biochemistry, and limnology (the study of water systems). The sciences fascinated me and I became entranced in the study of how the natural world worked. I was particularly attracted by lichens, plant-like organisms called cryptogams that grow like miniature forests on substrates—trees,fence posts, rock, cement. My attraction was partly because these often overlooked organisms were actually more of a symbiotic community or mini-ecosystem: an intriguing community of fungi, algae, cyanobacteria, bacteria and yeast growing together. I felt that on some level, lichen had much to teach us on lifestyle and approach to living on this planet. They’d been around for millennia, a lot longer than we’ve been.
Having long abandoned law (I convinced myself that I wasn’t cut out for it; maybe I was but that’s another universe), I decided to pursue lichen ecology for my masters degree. But fate had another path in mind for me. The botany professor who I wished to study under was retiring and no one was taking her place. She referred me to the limnology professor and he got me interested in another microscopic community: periphyton (the algae and associated organisms that colonize plants, rock and cement in water).
Nina and son Kevin explore nature (photo by Herb Klassen)
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I’d come somewhat full circle to be an eco-warrior, pursuing environmental problems (and corporate mischief) through biology rather than law. I designed and conducted environmental impact assessments and recommended mitigation, restoration, and remediation procedures to various clients from lakefront communities and city planners to mining companies dealing with leaky tailings ponds and pulp mills discharging effluent into the ocean.
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Various reports, scientific papers and articles I’ve written or been interviewed for
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It worked for me. I consulted for twenty-some years. It was for the most part both satisfying and encouraging. I felt as though I was making a difference: mostly through educating my clients. But that became less and less the case as the consulting firms I worked for, and the corporations they worked for, seemed to have less and less integrity. They also seemed to care less about the environment and more about profit.
So, just as I’d done on the day of registration at university, I bolted like a horse in a fire and quit my job as a consultant. I never returned to consulting.
Nina photographing pollution of a small creek entering a drinking water source (photo by Matthew Barker, Peterborough Examiner)
My sights went back to storytelling, journalism, and reporting/interviews. Mostly eco-fiction. Creating narratives that would hopefully move people, nudge them to act for the environment. Change their worldview somewhat into eco-friendly territory. Make them care. I’m still an eco-warrior, but my pen and my storytelling is my tool.
The word is a powerful tool. And the stories that carry them are vehicles of change.
Nina Munteanu wandering the Emily Tract forest, ON (photo by Merridy Cox)
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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.
Through the Portal anthology continues to garner attention and accolades by reviewers, booksellers, and readers throughout Canada. Released December 31, 2024 and launched in several locations in Canada, Portal is celebrated for its hopeful lens on an otherwise bleak future with thirty-five unique short stories, flash fiction, and poetry and an afterward.
There are many faces for hope; this anthology has thirty-six of them. Each story in the anthology features a unique hopeful lens that draws from a diversity of authors from around the world and throughout Canada. Stories that touch on nostalgia to respect, enlightenment to endurance. In these tales that range from compassion and healing to cautionary warnings of dark insight, hope may wear a human face or the face of a tree, black crow, or leaf.
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
“A stunning collection of short stories and poetry that address our most existential concerns.”
Dragonfly.eco
“Will ingenuity, love, and respect for the earth help us work through whatever changes might lie ahead? Through the Portal offers hope that these qualities, if not enough in and of themselves, will help us find our way.”
The Seaboard Review
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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 