Nina Munteanu with Simon Rose and Suzanne Lieurance on Writers To Writers Podcast
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I was recently interviewed by Simon Rose and Suzanne Lieurance on Episode 4 of Writers To Writers June 2026.
We covered why I write about ‘green issues’ in my fiction, how I came to write eco-fiction and my aversion to littering—an aversion which Suzanne shared she also felt—which I ascribed to a disrespect for others and ‘the silent other’, represented by the natural world. We discussed my influences as a kid growing up and then later as an adult.
I shared how I have incorporated ‘green issues’ in both my fiction and non-fiction writing and short and long fiction. We shared how we started as young kids creating stories for our families and neighbourhood friends, developing our skills as storytellers.
We also discussed the strange world of writing and publishing and how a prequel to a prequel can come about. This then morphed into a discussion of morally gray characters and their evolution and why I find the character Loki far more interesting than Thor. If you want clarification on these, go have a listen!
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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. For the lates on her books, visit www.ninamunteanu.ca. 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.You can read her just released eco-fiction thriller Gaia’s Revolution by Dragon Moon Press.
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Nina Munteanu interviewed by Simon Rose and Suzanne Lieurance on Writers To Writers Podcast
Place ultimately portrays what lies at the heart of a story. Place as character provides an archetype that story characters connect with and navigate in ways that depend on the story’s theme, particularly in allegories that rely strongly on metaphor. Theme is essentially the “so what part” of a story; what is at stake for the character on their journey. Theme is the backbone—the heart—of the story, driving characters to journey through time and place toward some kind of fulfillment. There is no story without theme. And there is no theme without place.
When place is the environment—a forest, meadow, swamp or heathland—the author has an opportunity to go beyond simple backdrop, even beyond deeper metaphor, to intimately portray the voice of ‘the Other.’ Eco-literature brings awareness to environment as ‘Other’; eco-literature intimately explores humanity’s role in defining ‘the Other’ by portraying environment on a journey as character with agency and sometimes with voice—often through character coupling. Nineteenth Century author Thomas Hardy recognized the tenuous position of wilderness during Victorian Britain with increasing industrialization and urbanization. Taming Nature to achieve ordered beauty had become an obsession; Hardy recognized this and mourned the loss of pre-industrial agrarian landscapes to human greed and modernization.
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Thomas Hardy’s Heath: Return of the Native
For Victorian author Thomas Hardy, trees, meadows, winding brooks and country roads were far more than back-drop for his world and his stories. Elements of the natural world were characters that impacted other characters in a world dominated by nature.
Perhaps best known for his melancholic stories of fatalistic, ironic tyrannies, Thomas Hardy wrote with a tender and poetic sensibility about Nature, and particularly the heath where he grew up. All of Hardy’s writings embody a strong sense of place. Nature—like his omniscient narrative form—lies beyond the scope of humanity: vast, amoral, and unfathomed; and yet, inextricably linked to the feckless actions of its humans. Egdon Heath in Return of the Native remains one of Hardy’s most enduring characters and best examples of the power of place in story.
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Author D.H. Lawrence evocatively personified Hardy’s bleak heathland: “Egdon, whose dark soil was strong and crude and organic as the body of a beast.”
Egdon Heath is a metaphoric black hole from which no light escapes. None of Hardy’s characters escape the embrace of this behemoth. Dark, swarthy and associated with the night: “The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking dread.” Each character is touched by the heath’s brooding grip and each feels its power differently: hapless Wildeve; idealist Clym; desperate Eustacia and suffering Thomasin.
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Cixin Liu’s Forests: The Three Body Problem
Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem—set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution—follows Wenji Ye, disillusioned by the massive environmental deforestation in the labour camps she is sent to work:
Her company wielded hundreds of chain saws like a swarm of steel locusts, and after they passed, only stumps were left. The fallen Dahurian larch, now bereft of branches, was ready to be taken away by tractor. Ye gently caressedthe freshly exposed cross section of the felled trunk. She did this often, as though such surfaces were giant wounds, as though she could feel the tree’s pain … The trunk was dragged away. Rocks and stumps in the ground broke the bark in more places, wounding the giant body further. In the spot where it once stood, the weight of the fallen tree being dragged left a deep channel in the layers of decomposing leaves that had accumulated over the years. Water quickly filled the ditch. The rotting leaves made the water appear crimson, like blood.
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Frank Herbert’s Desert: Dune
Frank Herbert’s Dune chronicles the journey of young Paul Atreides, Duke Leto’s son, who according to the indigenous Fremen prophesy will eventually bring them freedom from their enslavement by the colonialists—The Harkonens—and allow them to live unfettered on the planet Arrakis, known as Dune.
But, as the title of the book clearly reveals, this story is about place—a harsh desert planet whose 800 kph sandblasting winds could flay your flesh—and the power struggle between those who covet its arcane treasures and those who wish only to live free from slavery. Place—and its powerful symbols of desert, water and spice—lies at the heart of this epic story about taking, giving and sharing. When he thinks of Dune, the newly placed Duke Atreides uses water metaphors: “He sighed, glanced back at the dry landscape where the flowers were gone now—trampled by the dew gatherers, wilted under the early sun.”
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“The desert stretched out like a static ocean. [It] lay there full of moon-silvered waves—shadows of angles that lapsed into curves and, in the distance, lifted to the misted gray blur of another escarpment.”
The immense sandworms of Frank Herbert’s Dune are strong archetypes of Nature—large and graceful creatures whose movements in the vast desert sands resemble the elegant whales of our oceans:
It came from their right with an uncaring majesty that could not be ignored. A twisting burrow-mound of sand cut through the dunes within their field of vision. The mound lifted in front, dusting away like a bow wave in water.
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Annie Proulx’s Forest: Barkskins
The opening combines subtle to obvious images of an “unwelcoming” wilderness—as dark behemoth—and foreshadows the forest’s eventual destruction by settlers intent on conquering Nature. Proulx’s 300-year saga starts with the arrival of the Europeans in Canada’s pristine forest
Within the first ten pages we gain a rich and potent collage of first impressions by the settlers of “the moody darkness” of the New France forest, previously only seen by the “sauvages.” The barkskins “tramped up the muddy path toward a line of black mist … In a few hours the sodden leaf mold gave way to pine duff. Fallen needles muted their passage, the interlaced branches absorbed their panting breaths … evergreens larger than cathedrals, cloud-piercing spruce and hemlock. The monstrous deciduous trees stood distant from each other, but overhead their leaf-choked branches merged into a false sky, dark and savage …They walked on through the dim woods, climbing over mossy humps, passing under branches drooping like funeral swags,” hearing pines hissing in the wind,” and crossing “snarling water,” and “swarms of mosquitoes in such millions that their shrill keening was the sound of the woods.”
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These bleak impressions of a harsh environment crawling with pests such as bébites and moustiques underlie the combative mindset of the settlers to conquer and seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource. By page seventeen, we know that mindset well. René asks why they must cut so much forest when it would be easier to use the many adequate clearings to build their houses and settlements. Trépagny fulminates: “Easier? Yes, easier, but we are here to clear the forest, to subdue this evil wilderness.”
For them, the vast Canadian boreal forest was never-ending and for the taking: “It is the forest of the world. It is infinite. It twists around as a snake swallows its own tail and has no end and no beginning,” Trépagny claims.
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Richard Power’s Forest: The Overstory
Richard Powers’s The Overstory follows the life-stories of nine characters and their journey with trees. At its heart is the pivotal life of botanist Patricia Westerford, whose work resembles that of UBC’s Suzanne Simard. Westerford is a shy introvert who discovers that trees communicate, learn, trade goods and services—and have intelligence. When she shares her discovery, she is ridiculed by her peers and eventually loses her position at the university.
Like the marcescent beech, Patricia finds herself asynchronous with the rest of the forestry department at Purdue, in fact with the entire forestry discipline in the country. She disagrees with their edict of needing to “clean the forest of snags and wind throw to improve forest health.” She disagrees with their use of terms like thrifty young forests and decadent old forests, mean annual increment and economic maturity—not ecological but economic terms based on exploitation and human utility.
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Patricia’s early conviction that these silent trees are social creatures, sets her on a singular path that will push the boundaries of doctrine and a hegemony of human utility. She assiduously sets out to prove her premise of social trees and in so doing, becomes the forest. “She works all day in the woods, her back crawling with chiggers, her scalp with ticks, her mouth filled with leaf duff, her eyes with pollen, cobwebs like scarves around her face, bracelets of poison ivy, her knees gouged by cinders, her nose lined with spores, the backs of her thighs bitten Braille by wasps, and her heart as happy as the day is generous.” Like Ovid, she is becoming.
Patricia writes in her book The Secret Forest:
There are no individuals in a forest, no separable events. The bird and the branch it sits on are a joint thing. A third or more of the food a big tree makes may go to feed other organisms. Even different kinds of trees form partnerships. Cut down a birch, and a nearby Douglas fir may suffer … Fungi mine stone to supply their trees with minerals. They hunt springtails, which they feed to their hosts. Trees, for their part, store extra sugar in their fungi’s synapses, to dole out to the sick and shaded and wounded. A forest takes care of itself, even as it builds the local climate it needs to survive.
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Delia Owens’s Swampland: Where the Crawdads Sing
The swampland is beautifully and evocatively portrayed as a living character; its ‘journey’ is closely linked to the Kya, the main protagonist, as development encroaches both swamp and girl through commercial logging, and wetland drainage to build resort hotels. Kya lives with an unbiased understanding of a quiet biological life, surviving through natural instinct in a circle of life and death: a swamp knows all about death, and does not define it as a tragedy or a sin, thinks Kya who sees the swampland as her mother, teacher and sanctuary, embracing her with a protective mantle of natural beauty and wonder. Whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. When the town marginalizes Kya, calling her “The Marsh Girl”, the swamp shields her from the prejudice and cruelty of the human world, providing an intimate protective barrier. In turn, Kya uses her book advance to buy several hundred acres of marsh as a protected wildlife refuge.
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In her article on Great Ecology, Liz Clift writes, “During the period in which Where the Crawdads Sing is set, wetlands were typically seen as a nuisance—and that comes through in the story-telling, when developers want to drain the marsh for a development. Wetlands were also seen as mosquito-infested, buggy, smelly, or even an eyesore. A significant number of wetlands around the world, including in the US, have been lost due to land development and agriculture, which is unfortunate because wetlands are rich with biodiversity and play a key role in maintaining both freshwater and saltwater fisheries, support water quality, and protect against flooding.” This is not a phenomenon or attitude of the past; it unfortunately remains prevalent, particularly in North America.
What Delia Owens achieves in Where the Crawdads Sing is two-fold: 1) the reader knows more about the value of the marsh but also gains a sense of its beauty as seen through the eyes of Kya; and, 2) through the strong connection with the main character and use of evocative metaphor, Owens transforms the marsh into a real character.
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Why Make Place a Character…
Why is this important? Think of a place you know. I’ll use the house I grew up in. To any passerby, the house is just another two-storey cornflower-blue house with veranda on a quiet residential street, lined by trees. But for me, the house carries memories of my childhood, of running up and down the creaky foot-worn stairs, or sharing ghost stories with friends on the back porch as the waning twilight revealed the winking fireflies outside. Playing dolls with my sister in the stuffy attic. The sweet pungent aroma of my father’s pipe smoke in the livingroom and my mother’s thrush-like voice resonating from the kitchen as she baked German sugar cookies. I loved that house, with all its idiosyncratic groans and whistles in the wind and the echoes of cheerful laughter over the years. That house was a character.
Once this happens, once place becomes a character, we find ourselves caring for it.
In story, it is the characters we care about; it is the characters that we cheer for and follow on their journey of loss, redemption or victory.
This is why writers of eco-fiction depict environment as a character. We must first relate and connect before we care; we must first care before we act. Eco-fiction authors also use the device of character-coupling to help readers care. The examples above provide this method through their ‘othered’ characters, who, in turn, relate to the ‘othered’ environment. In another article, I provide more examples of character-coupling in the literature that enable readers to connect to otherwise arcane aspects of their environment through their connection to a character they can relate to.
Beaver Pond just before a rainstorm, BC (photo 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. For the lates on her books, visit www.ninamunteanu.ca. 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.You can read her just released eco-fiction thriller Gaia’s Revolution by Dragon Moon Press.
I love using the em dash. Along with the semi-colon, it’s my go-to punctuation. And before you ask—no, I don’t use AI in my writing.
Lately, I’ve discovered that use of the em dash has come under criticism by writers and discerning readers, given its apparently overwhelming use by AI. The appearance of em dashes in script is now considered a “tell” that a written work was AI-generated.
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I’m told that em dashes were deeply embedded in the AI learning algorithms—they were everywhere in human-generated training data such as books, articles, essays because we used them so often. Because they weren’t flagged as risky during training, they became a default. AI learns through pattern mimicry by sifting through massive text datasets (that have included my own works of fiction and non-fiction;by the way, I use the em dash a lot because I love what it does for a sentence). One theory suggests that em dashes are preferred by autoregressive models for waving tokens or providing structural breaks. Its use has its own name: the “ChatGPT hyphen.” The discussion alone has brought more attention to the em dash, mostly negative attention.
As a result of em dash’s association with LLM-generated text, some writers have started avoiding the use of em dashes altogether to prevent their work from being labelled fake—despite its legitimate appearance in human writing for centuries.
This is a real shame.
Because, the em dash is a visual and versatile tool to achieve an emphasized pause, the equivalent to a raised eyebrow, a dramatic mid-sentence shift in thought, or a noteworthy point to consider. Used correctly and with intention, the em dash provides depth, contextual complexity and three dimensionality within an otherwise unidirectional sentence. The em dash singles out a thought, raises it above the script to show its merit amid the greater sentence concept. What is often achieved is more complex and layered with additional meaning and clarity. The visual nature of the em dash—how it looks in a sentence—is also important. Because, as writer Bill Zinsser says, “Writing is visual—it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.” There’s a kind of aesthetic nature to how writing sits on a page; this is also why paragraphing—breaking up long text into shorter paragraphs on a page—is so important. The white space created by these breaks subliminally signals the reader, giving them a chance to breathe as they read. The presence of an em dash similarly signals the reader to read the enclosed phrase apart—yet remaining an important part—of the sentence.
Here’s how The Chicago Manual of Style explains it:
“The em dash has several uses. It allows, in a manner similar to parentheses, an additional thought to be added within a sentence by sort of breaking away from that sentence—as I’ve done here. Its use or misuse for this purpose is a matter of taste, and subject to the effect on the writer’s or reader’s “ear.” Em dashes also substitute for something missing. For example, in a bibliographic list, rather than repeating the same author over and over again, three consecutive em dashes (also known as a 3-em dash) stand in for the author’s name. In interrupted speech, one or two em dashes may be used: “I wasn’t trying to imply—” “Then just what were you trying to do?””
After announcing that the em dash is their favourite punctuation, Bavesh Rajaraman listed the several ways you can use this punctuation:
1. use it like how I regularly do, with bridging sentences, kind of like a longer comma, or a semicolon.
2. use it like a colon: “Some examples of transition metal atoms are — Co, Ni, Fe”
3. use it like a parenthesis, to add extra detail, or clarify. “The Wheel of Time has been an incredibly strong fantasy series — till book 6 where I’m currently at — with size and scope incomparable to its contemporaries”
4. use it to interrupt a speaker: “Melissa, I’m gonna be leaving for work, make sure to keep the door — “ as Klein heard the door thud, “I guess she understood the assignment,” he lampooned as he headed for work.
5. use it as something more important than demarcated in parenthesis. Here’s a snippet from Brandon Sanderson’s Essay “Outside”: “When you’re very young, it’s proximity — not shared interests — that makes friends. This often changes as you age. By fourteen, John had found his way to basketball, parties, and popularity. I had not.”— Brandon Sanderson, 2023
Celebrated poets and writers—including Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Stephen King—have used the em dash for emphasis, as bridge or interruption, or to set off parenthetical thoughts, create unique rhythms and cadence in their writing. The poet Emily Dickinson was known to use dashes instead of commas or periods to create pauses, express emotion and link ideas in her poetry. These celebrated authors used the em dash for emphasis and interruption, drawing attention to a phrase or to intentionally break a sentence’s flow. They used the em dash as appositives, to set off additional information with more impact. They used the em dash to create rhythm and pacing. They used the em dash to create a unique voice and style. The em dash is an uber-punctuation! And it’s been around since the early 1800s, adding style, pizazz, rhythm and depth to all types of writing.
I wish I had this quote from Rajaraman when I was submitting my fiction to editors, who seemed to like to remove most of my em dashes and replace them with boring commas:
“The em dash is a fiction writer’s spell-casting focus, it’s their ultimate pacing tool; used to fix the flow of a sentence. There’s no such thing as too many em dashes in literature.”
Canadian journalist Clive Thompson wrote, “Writers worry they overuse it. They shouldn’t—it’s awesome.”
All to say forget the internet conspiracy theories that em dashes are a telltale sign of AI writing; forget that ChatGPT can’t stop using them even when users tell it to stop. The em dash is not a sign of AI, but that AI was trained on good writing—good human writing. FVR at WellVersed.com adds that it’s “not a robot glitch—it’s a writer’s signature.”
So, I for one, will continue using the em dash liberally, as I have for the past forty years—long before ChatGPT hiccupped into our writing lives and long after.
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Robot copying the em dash
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References:
Csutoras, Brent. 2025. “The Em Dash Dilemma: How a Punctuation Mark Became AI’s Stubborn Signature.” Medium, April 29, 2025.
Rajaraman, Bavesh. 2025. “An Era to its Knee: An Em-dash Retrospective.” The Jabber Junction, July 29, 2025.
Nina Munteanu is an award-winning novelist and short story writer of eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy. She also has three writing guides out: The Fiction Writer; The Journal Writer; and The Ecology of Writing and teaches fiction writing and technical writing at university and online. Check the Publications page on this site for a summary of what she has out there. Nina teaches writing at the University of Toronto and has been coaching fiction and non-fiction authors for over 20 years. You can find Nina’s short podcasts on writing on YouTube. Check out this site for more author advice from how to write a synopsis to finding your muse and the art and science of writing.
It was several years ago, in 2020, that Terry Birdgenaw approached me as a writing coach to look at his first novel. When he described its premise, I was hooked right away and agreed to give it an editorial review. It was the beginning of a wonderful and rich experience with Terry’s books, now a series entitled The Antunite Chronicles. From the start, I was impressed and fascinated with his imagination and accurate use of science to produce a diverting allegorical CliFi series about cyborg insects on a far-away planet that serves as metaphor to developing autocracies on Earth.
Terry has three books out, with a fourth upcoming. The three books in this YA series take place on a far-away planet and moon, serving as a political and environmental allegory of an evolving technological society and failed democracy. They include: Antuna’s Story; The Rise and Fall of Antocracy; and Antunites Unite. The theme of induced climate change and environmental destruction runs deeply through the first three books. The fourth book, soon to release, is Cyborg Contact, which returns us to Earth. I’ll let Terry describe the series in the following interview I conducted with him on November 26:
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Nina: Your background and expertise is in neuroscience and psychology with over 150 scientific publications. You are Harold Griffith Professor of Anesthesia Research at McGill University in Montreal and your main research focus is on the mechanisms underlying neuroplasticity and its influence on the perception of pain. What got you started writing this incredible series, an adventure story that embraces ecology and entomology? What gave you the idea to create this imaginative modern allegory on the evolution of a technological society using insects as your main characters?
Terry: Oddly enough, I was not originally planning to write fiction. My inspiration came from my school librarian wife, Ann Birdgenaw, when she began writing the second book of her children’s chapter book series, Black Hole Radio. Her series features fifth-grade kids who travel through a wormhole to different planets, aiding the inhabitants they discover. She was considering what kind of planet and civilization her explorers would encounter, and I gave her some ideas about a giant cyborg-insect world that she ran with. Having some skin in the game, I participated beyond my welcome, offering plotlines that were far too advanced for her 7- to 11-year-old readers. Graciously, Ann suggested I take my ideas and write the backstory for her book, Black Hole Radio – Bilaluna, but target my book at young adults and adults. Thus began my fiction writing adventure. It was a rough start, but with the help of a tolerant book coach, my planned novella rapidly expanded to a trilogy. Perhaps a quick study because of years of scientific writing, I still credit Nina with opening in me an imaginative creativity I never knew I possessed.
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Nina: The narrative of your stories is from the POV of various insects and in some way, the stories are dramatizations of real and accurate ecological relationships of insects with their environment and each other. How did you prepare for this—both in relaying accurate ecologies and in realizable dramatization and characterization of your main characters—all insects? How did you avoid what I would call the Disney-effect: anthropomorphising insect characters into human archetypes to achieve reader engagement? How did you create that balance between realistic representation and empathic portrayal?
Terry: Although my books are parodies with characters who face political and ecological problems and anthropomorphise human dilemmas, I did not want them to be simply furry or slimy stand-ins for the humans they satirize. Thus, I drew on my long-standing expertise as a scientific researcher to delve deeply into entomology, ecology and environmental science. Fascinated by the richness of insect activities and interactions and the similarity between insect and human behaviour, I endeavoured to exploit my newly acquired knowledge within the pages of my story. I was inspired both by Orwellian dystopias and works such as Bernard Werber’s Empire of the Ants and Laline Paull’s The Bees. But more than that, I learned to let myself be taken into the world my insects lived in, experiencing both their instinctive realities and the human predicaments I intended to lampoon in equal measure.
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Nina: I noticed some fun metaphoric descriptions and expressions that incorporated insect terms to represent human counterparts. Did these come to you easily or were they a lot of work over time? Can you describe the process you used? For instance, did you spend a lot of time watching ants on the sidewalk?
Terry: Some phrases like ‘she shook her antenna to tune her attention’, ‘I took that as a back-clawed compliment’, or ‘he is such a hindgut hole’ came easily to me as differences in insect and human anatomy necessitated them. Others, like the expressions explained in my dictionary of pheromonal insect emotions, took much more reflection. This literary technique was inspired by your writing guide, The Fiction Writer, when you described how to add colour to one’s writing by using word pairings that mix up the senses, like the well-known one ‘biting cold’. This excellent advice led me to develop an extensive lexicon of insect emotions/non-verbal speech, including word combinations such as abrasive aroma, bitter bouquet, frosty fragrance, and vacillating vapour. They were not all alliterations, but some, like ‘she emitted an effervescent essence, were clearly intended to be. I didn’t watch ants walking, but I thought a lot about how they might communicate their emotions pheromonally.
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Nina: One of the things I enjoyed throughout your series is how you seamlessly imparted interesting facts about insects on our planet in the storytelling. I learned a lot about various insects! Tell us a little about the process you used to achieve this so effectively.
Terry: As a long-time researcher, I have learned how to find and use facts from scientific literature and reliable web-based information on many subjects within and outside my scientific field. Insect behaviour is little known, but often fascinating, and I enjoyed both discovering many details and incorporating them into fiction scenes. Sometimes I was required to dig even deeper than I initially expected to make my stories scientifically accurate. One of these cases had a very significant impact on a critical component of my book’s key plot. In Antunites Unite, ants are separated into a hierarchy of castes based on exoskeleton colour. Although clearly an anti-racism story, I originally wrote it with black ants as oppressors of both brown and red ants. Perhaps influenced by previous literature and movies, where the bad guys are often dressed in black, I had a feeling that some readers might interpret my choice as having a racist underpinning. I convinced myself that readers would not take the colour choice as representative of human ethnicity. However, the last beta reader to comment on the book made such an interpretation and confirmed my fear that some readers might see it as the opposite of my intention. So, while I debated altering the colour schemes, I dug deeper into the entomological discovery of a phenomenon my story paralleled, involving what entomologists call slave-maker ants. When my extensive research confirmed that red ants are more often the ants using raids to steal the eggs of other ants to be raised as slave-like workers for the dominant reds, I knew I had to reverse the colours. And this was no easy task, because all the characters in each caste took names that reflected their colour, like Ruby and Obsidiant. There were also many humorous references to colour, such as black widow spiders and lava fields, that needed to be reworked. It was an editing nightmare: Rose became Raven, and Raven – Rose, while Cole gave way to Clay, and Jett morphed to Jasper, etc., etc., etc. But in the end, it was true to nature and avoided any unwanted racial interpretations.
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Nina: In your first three books—a political modern satire on developing autocracies and human-induced climate change—you explore the technological and biological evolution of an insect exo-community in which certain species—ants for instance—acquire the ability to become cyborgs, ANTs, growing in size and abilities to navigate their world more effectively with related achievements—and consequences. As an ecologist, I was fascinated by how you portrayed the changing relationship of these beings to their environment as they evolved. Do you see a parallel with human society? Can you elaborate on this?
Terry: Yes, on a macro level. That is, technology can benefit society immensely, but it can also cause significant harm when coupled with greed, wilful ignorance of scientific warnings, and leaders misleading the public. I highlight one line of poetry written by my narrator in The Rise and Fall of Antocracy: “Like Peter and the crows, tis science, truth and reality denied ere climate is crucified.” Cyborg insects were created to enhance the production of honey, which was their currency. Cyborg ants, who most craved both power and honey, deceived the public to the detriment of the environment and ignored the science that provided evidence of environmental changes, which most insectoids on the planet denied. Perhaps an obvious cataclysmic message to those in our world, but many on this Earth apparently need to be hit over the head to see where this all may lead.
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Nina: Tell us about your latest book, the fourth in the series, Cyborg Contact, in which one of the cyborg ANTs returns to Earth through a wormhole with an important mission. I found that, while the first three books served as satirical allegory to a developing technological society through the evolving insect communities, the fourth book—being a first contact—shifts into more of an exploration of ‘the other,’ its perception and treatment by humans and their civilizations. Can you expand on this? How does humanity’s perception and treatment of the ‘other’ factor into our treatment of our environment and the growing phenomenon of climate change?
Terry: I might disagree and point out that ‘exclusion of the other’ is a dominant theme in all four books. The difference is that in Cyborg Contact, the main character embodies ‘the other’, so it hits home more strongly. What could be more ‘otherly’ than an alien (from another planet) who is treated like an illegal alien and hunted by ICE agents? And, too, aside from being hunted, many other dangers the alien experiences on Earth, including hurricanes, droughts, mudslides, and forest fires, are all caused by climate change, which has accelerated in the near-future North America our hero traverses. It seems that for some world leaders, a lack of empathy for others is paired with a disregard for the environment.
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Nina: Who is reading your books? And who should be who isn’t?
Terry: They are read by both young adults and adults; sometimes by parents reading to their pre-teens. They are not New York Times best sellers, but are highly celebrated by those who have read them. They should be read by all sci-fi and fantasy readers aged 13 and up who enjoy a thought-provoking read, except those who support fascism.
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Nina: How have your books been generally received? I understand that your trilogy has won the Firebird Book Award. Congratulations! What are people saying about your books?
Terry: Editorial reviews have been stellar, and the books have received awards from most of the contests to which they have been entered. Awards for all three books include Gold Medal/Badge (Readers’ Favourite, Literary Titan), First Place Prize (Firebird, Entrada Incipere), Silver & Bronze Medal (Firebird, Bookfest), Honourable Mention (Readers’ Favourite), and Finalist (American Writing Awards, Chanticleer, The Wishing Shelf). Most notable review comments describe the books as: “soon-to-be a bestseller”, “takes speculative fiction to a new level”, “fantastical to a degree not seen elsewhere in any Sci-Fi dystopian fiction”, “as big in spirit as any literary giant in the genre” and “holds its ground next to Brave New World, Dune, Animal Farm, and 1984”. These reviews have “blown me away”, like an enthusiastic reader’s comment on Antuna’s Story.
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Nina: What’s next for Terry Birdgenaw?
Terry: Finish editing Book 4 and writing a dystopian novel featuring humans for a change.
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Nina: That sounds very intriguing! Thanks for coming out for the interview, Terry.
Terry: My pleasure, Nina.
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The first three books of the Antunite Chronicles series by Terry Birdgenaw
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You can find Terry’s books all over the place, including Amazon. Find out more about Terry on his website and check out Terry’s interview on SF Canada in which he talks more about his heritage and interests.
Terry Birdgenaw and one of his fans
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Terry Birdgenaw with Narrant at award ceremonies
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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.
Today, I’m sitting down with authors and writing coaches Suzanne Lieurance and Simon Rose to talk about their brand-new YouTube series, The Law of Attraction for Writers Podcast, which you can find at: https://www.youtube.com/@LawofAttractionforWritersPodca.
The show blends mindset, creativity, and practical writing advice — a combination that’s resonating with writers who want to manifest success and write with more ease.
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Nina: Welcome, both of you!
Suzanne: Thank you! We’re so excited to finally share this project.
Simon: Yes, it’s been in the works for a while, and we’re thrilled to see writers already responding so positively.
Simon Rose and Suzanne Lieurance
Nina: Let’s start with the big question. Why create a Law of Attraction for Writers podcast?
Suzanne: Well, over the years, I’ve coached so many writers who say things like, “I’ll feel successful when I get an agent,” or “I’ll write when I have more time.” But the Law of Attraction teaches us it works the other way around — you become the person who already feels successful, and the opportunities follow. I wanted to create a podcast that helps writers understand how their thoughts, emotions, and energy shape their writing lives.
Simon: Exactly. So much of writing is mental. You can have the best outline and still feel blocked if your energy is off. We wanted to show that aligning your mindset with your goals isn’t mystical — it’s practical. You’re essentially training your brain to focus on what you want instead of what you fear.
Nina: How would you describe the podcast to someone who hasn’t tuned in yet?
Simon: Each episode focuses on one key aspect of the Law of Attraction and how it connects to the writing process. We might explore a concept like visualization, vibration, or inspired action — and then show writers how to apply that directly to their writing routines.
Suzanne: We wanted to make it accessible. It’s not just theory or motivation. We give writers clear steps they can take right away — ways to shift their thinking, attract new ideas, or rekindle their excitement for a project.
Simon: We also share personal stories. Between the two of us, we’ve seen these principles in action — in publishing, in teaching, and even in everyday creative decisions.
Nina: I love that you connect mindset with the craft of writing. Can you say more about how that works?
Suzanne: Sure. A lot of writers separate the two — mindset on one side, writing craft on the other. But they’re intertwined. You might know every writing technique out there, but if you’re doubting yourself or constantly telling yourself you’re behind, you’ll block the creative flow.
Simon: That’s why the Law of Attraction is so powerful for writers. It’s not just about “thinking positive.” It’s about intentionally setting the tone for your writing sessions, deciding what kind of writer you believe yourself to be, and letting that belief guide your actions.
Suzanne: In one episode, we talk about “energetic alignment” — how your emotional state affects the words you put on the page. When you write from frustration, the writing feels heavy. But when you write from joy or curiosity, the story expands.
Nina: You’ve both been writing coaches for years. How has it been working together on this project?
Simon: It’s been wonderful. Suzanne brings a very intuitive approach to writing and mindset, while I tend to look at things through a more analytical lens. Together, we strike a balance between the spiritual and the practical.
Suzanne: Yes! We complement each other well. Simon often grounds the big ideas in real-world examples, and I love exploring how energy and focus shape results. It’s a true partnership — and we both learn from each other in every episode.
Nina: Without giving too much away, what are some of the themes or takeaways that keep coming up in your discussions?
Suzanne: One theme that runs through everything is trust — trusting yourself, your ideas, and the timing of your success. The Law of Attraction reminds us that everything unfolds when you’re ready to receive it.
Simon: Another recurring idea is momentum. Writers often stop when things get tough, but energy builds through consistent action. You don’t have to write for hours every day — just focus on showing up with intention. That small shift can open the door to much bigger results.
Suzanne: We also talk about how to handle resistance. Every writer faces doubt or creative slumps. The podcast offers ways to turn those moments into opportunities instead of roadblocks.
Nina: You’ve chosen YouTube as your main platform. Why that format?
Simon: We wanted to make it easy and engaging. YouTube allows us to connect visually and energetically with our audience. Writers can listen while they work, which adds a more personal connection.
Suzanne: And YouTube’s format fits how writers consume content today. Many of them already use it to learn about craft and publishing. This podcast adds another layer — the inner work behind writing success.
Nina: What’s ahead for the Law of Attraction for Writers Podcast?
Suzanne: We’ll keep releasing new episodes every Tuesday. Each one will build on the idea that your energy, focus, and beliefs create your writing experience.
Simon: We’re also exploring live Q&A sessions, where writers can ask questions and share how they’ve applied the principles we discuss. It’s exciting to see a community forming around these ideas.
Suzanne: Ultimately, we want every writer to realize they’re not powerless. They can create not only their stories but also their success.
Nina: That’s such an inspiring message. Any final thoughts for writers who might be hesitant to explore this side of writing?
Suzanne: Just start listening with an open mind. You don’t have to “believe” in anything right away — just try applying one idea and see what shifts.
Simon: Yes. Writing is already an act of creation — you’re manifesting something that didn’t exist before. This podcast helps you see that same creative power working in every area of your writing life.
Follow Suzanne Lieurance and Simon Rose for practical, inspiring ways to align your mindset, energy, and creativity — and manifest the writing life you’ve always imagined.
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Nina Munteanu is an award-winning novelist and short story writer of eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy. She also has three writing guides out: The Fiction Writer; The Journal Writer; and The Ecology of Writing and teaches fiction writing and technical writing at university and online. Check the Publications page on this site for a summary of what she has out there. Nina teaches writing at the University of Toronto and has been coaching fiction and non-fiction authors for over 20 years. You can find Nina’s short podcasts on writing on YouTube. Check out this site for more author advice from how to write a synopsis to finding your muse and the art and science of writing.
The Greenling by David Booram is an exploration of an intriguing ‘Nature evolving’ premise, told through a coming-of-age narrative.
Responding to continued human tampering, a growing sentient Nature calls a young environmental activist to action in a planetary reset. The main character is Noah, ostracized by her peers due to her unique perspective on the world and her activism for Nature. This makes her a candidate for Nature’s planetary reset.
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While I felt that the story used over-simplified fantasm and eco-terrorism in a way not to my liking, I found most intriguing Booram’s use of biosemiosis, the notion that all life finds meaning.
Coincidently, I had agreed to read Booram’s eco-fiction novel (without knowing much about it) after a social media conversation we’d had during a time when I was working on my most recent novel, tentatively called (Re)Genesis. My novel relied heavily on the concept of biosemiosis. Its premise of dark karma—when Nature learns to reflect back what we send out—made use of real examples of learning, pattern recognition, anticipation and adaptation in non-human life. (Another coincidence at this same time occurred when another author approached me to read their work on coincidence, which I am currently reading).
In the 1930s, Jakob von Uexküll coined the term Umwelt (species-specific reality or subjective environment) to define a life process that involved semiotic interactions. He argued that an organism’s behaviour results from activity that attributes meaning to the world around it, rather than merely mechanically reacting to stimuli. Building on this notion, Friedrich S. Rothschild coined the term “biosemiosis” in 1962 to postulate that life has its subjective interpretation of the world around it (its Umwelt), a segment of the world that has significance and meaning based on that life’s biology and needs. Developing biosemiosis further, Thomas Sebeok later contended that all organisms are enveloped in a cloud of messages about themselves and their situation, which they constantly transmit, receive, and interpret. Life itself is a process of signification and meaning-making, from bacteria and plants to mammals and birds. Biosemiosis involves pattern recognition, anticipation, flexibility, goal-directed movement, memory, and learning.
Perhaps most intriguing is how The Greenling touches on humanity’s growing zeitgeist of not just planetary awareness but of sensibility, a sense that we are interlinked with all other life and nonlife, that we are all more than the sum of our parts. And only then—when we make meaning of our Umwelt—can we transcend from our toxic insecurities and bullying ways.
The Greenling is worth reading for how it weaves climate facts into compelling personal story. I also find refreshing that Booram gives full agency to the environment, Nature, and its nonhuman representatives.
I have been writing, reading, and studying eco-fiction for several decades and what I found noteworthy is how agency of the environment, as character, has changed over the years and how Nature’s portrayal has evolved from ‘other’ with little agency to ‘not other’ with much agency. For more on this concept and change, I urge you to read my two essays on this evolution:
David Booram is the cofounder and director of Fall Creek Abbey, an urban retreat center in Indianapolis, where he and his wife Beth lead The School of Spiritual Direction and offer individual and group spiritual direction. He is the founder of Direction 4 Life Work, through which he is a career counselor.
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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.
On March 20, 2025, in an article in The Atlantic entitled “The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem”, Alex Reisner disclosed how META pirated millions of books and research papers to train their flagship AI model Llama 3 to be competitive with products like ChatGPT. Reasons for this illegal action is simply time; asking permission and licensing takes too much time and is too expensive.
On the same day, The Atlantic provided a link to LibGen (the pirated-books database that Meta used to train its AI) so authors could search its collection of millions of illegally captured books and scientific papers. I went there and searched my name for my novels, non-fiction books and scientific papers and discovered several of my works in their AI training collection.
Two of my many scientific papers appeared in LibGen under my scientific author name Norina Munteanu. The first scholarly article came from my post grad work at the University of Victoria on the effects of mine tailing effluent on an oligotrophic lake, published in 1984 in Environmental Pollution Series A, Ecological and BiologicalVolume 33, Issue 1. The second article on the effect of current on settling periphyton came from my M.Sc. ecology research published in 1981 in Hydrobiologia, Volume #78.
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Three of my thirteen novels appeared in LibGen under my fiction author name Nina Munteanu. I found it interesting how their bots captured a good range of my works. These included two of my earliest works. Collision with Paradise (2005) is an ecological science fiction adventure and work of erotica; Darwin’s Paradox (2007) is a science fiction medical-eco thriller that features the domination of society by an intelligent AI community. The bots also found my latest novel, A Diary in the Age of Water(2020), a climate thriller and work of eco-fiction that follows four generations of women and their relationship to water.
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Each of these works has been highly successful in sales and has received a fair bit of attention and recognition.
When Genevieve Dubois, Zeta Corp’s hot shot starship pilot, accepts a research mission aboard AI ship ZAC to the mysterious planet Eos, she not only collides with her guilty past but with her own ultimate fantasy. On a yearning quest for paradise, Genevieve thinks she’s found it in Eos and its people; only to discover that she has brought the seed of destruction that will destroy this verdant planet.
Recognition: Gaylactic Spectrum Award (nominee)
“Collision with Paradise is ideal for readers who enjoy dark, introspective science fiction that explores complex moral dilemmas and psychological depth within a lush mythologically-rich setting.”—The Storygraph
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A devastating disease. A world on the brink of violent change. And one woman who can save it or destroy it all. Julie Crane must confront the will of the ambitious virus lurking inside her to fulfill her final destiny as Darwin’s Paradox, the key to the evolution of an entire civilization. Darwin’s Paradox is a novel about a woman s fierce love and her courageous journey toward forgiveness, trust, and letting go to the tide of her heart.
Recognition: Readers Choice Award (Midwest Book Review); Readers Choice (Delta Optimist); Aurora Award (nominee)
“Darwin’s Paradox is a thrill ride that makes you think and tugs the heart.”—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Rollback
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This gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto in the grips of severe water scarcity during a time when China owns the USA and the USA owns Canada. 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 diary spans a twenty-year period in the mid-twenty-first century of 33-year-old Lynna, a single mother and limnologist of international water utility CanadaCorp, and who witnesses disturbing events that she doesn’t realize will soon lead to humanity’s demise.
Recognition: 2020 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award (Bronze); 2020 Titan Literary Book Award (Silver); 2021 International Book Award (Finalist).
“If you believe Canada’s water will remain free forever (or that it’s truly free now) Munteanu asks you to think again. Readers have called ‘A Diary in the Age of Water’ “terrifying,” “engrossing,” and “literary.” We call it wisdom.”—LIISBETH
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The April 3, 2025 article by Ella Creamer of The Guardian noted that a US court filing alleged that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg approved the company’s use of the notorious “shadow library”, LibGen, which contains more than 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers. According to Toby Walsh, leading AI researcher at the University of New South Wales: “As far as we know, there was an explicit instruction from Mark Zuckerberg to ignore copyright.”
This begs the question of the role and power of copyright law.
“Copyright law is not complicated at all,” said Richard Osman, author of The Thursday Murder Club series. “If you want to use an author’s work you need to ask for permission. If you use it without permission you’re breaking the law. It’s so simple.”
If it’s so simple then why is Meta and others getting away with it? For its defence, the tech giant is claiming “fair use”, relying on this term permitting the limited use of copyrighted material without the owner’s permission (my italics).
It would seem that just as Trump trumped the presidency, Zuckerberg and his AI minion bots have trumped the copyright law—by flagrantly violating it and getting away with it—so far (on both counts).
The actions of Meta were characterized by Society of Authors chair Vanessa Fox O’Louglin as “illegal, shocking, and utterly devastating for writers.” O’Louglin added that “a book can take a year or longer to write. Meta has stolen books so that their AI can reproduce creative content, potentially putting these same authors out of business.”
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Three of my novels pirated for AI training
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Reflecting many authors’ outragethroughout the world, Novelist AJ West remarked, “To have my beautiful books ripped off like this without my permission and without a penny of compensation then fed to the AI monster feels like I’ve been mugged.” Australian Author Sophie Cunninghamsaid, “The average writer earns about $18,000 a year on their writing. It’s one thing to be underpaid. It’s another thing to find that [their] work is being used by a company that you don’t trust.” Bestselling author Hannah Kent said, “If feels a little like my body of work has been plundered.” She adds that this, “opens the door to others also feeling like this is an acceptable way to treat intellectual copyright and creatives who already…are expected to [contribute] so much for free or without due recompense.” Both Kent and Cunningham exhort governments to weigh in with more powerful regulation. And this is precisely what may occur. Nicola Heath of ABC.net.au writes, “the outcomes of the various AI copyright infringement cases currently underway in the US will shape how AI is trained in the future.”
According to The March 20, 2025 Authors Guild article “Meta’s Massive AI Training Book Heist: What Authors Need to Know,” legal action is underway against Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthopic, and other AI companies for using pirated books. The Authors Guild is a plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against OpenAI, along with John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, George R.R. Martin, and 13 other authors, but the claims are made on behalf of all US authors whose works have been ingested into GPT.
The Authors Guild suggests five things authors can do to defend their rights:
Send a formal notice: If your books are in the LibGen dataset, send a letter to Meta and other AI companies stating they do not have the right to use your books.
Join the Authors Guild: You should join the Guild and support our joint advocacy to ensure that the writing profession remains alive and vibrant in the age of AI. We give authors a voice, and there is power in numbers. We can also help you ensure that your contracts protect you against unwanted AI use of your work.
Protect your works: Add a “NO AI TRAINING” notice on the copyright page of your works. For online work, you can update your website’s robots.txt file to block AI bots.
Get Human Authored certification: Distinguish your work in an increasingly AI-saturated market with the Authors Guild’s certification program. This visible mark verifies your book was created by a human, not generated by AI.
Stay informed. The Authors Guild suggest signing up for the free Guild biweekly newsletter to keep updated on lawsuits and legislation that could impact you and your rights. The legal landscape is changing rapidly, and they are keeping close watch.
*as delivered by James Holden in Season 3, Episode 7 of “The Expanse”
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Aspens in fall, ON (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.
I teachscholarly writing at the University of Toronto through several writing centres; I’m helping students with their assignments in engineering, the health sciences and humanities. All are generating scholarly papers on various topics with various purposes; anything from a critical assessment, literature review, position paper, or reflection essay to a lessons learned document, research proposal, or thesis chapter. Everyone is using some kind of AI when generating, writing and editing their works. And there are plenty of AI tools to choose from. Some of the most common AI tools used by my students include: Grammarly for grammar; Perplexity as a research tool, text summarizer and conversational AI search engine; Paperpal for editing, Google Scholar as a search engine, ChatGPT to summarize works, brainstorm ideas, provide quiz questions, or even generate human-like text in a first draft.
All these assignments are purpose-built and students must successfully address their assignment requirements to succeed. In some ways, the idea, topic and handling of the topic are assigned; the student need only carefully and clearly address it.
But, when creating something new, like a piece of fiction or even a non-fiction article, professional writers are essentially walking into a new world, not restricted by “assignment guidelines or requirements”; they truly must face the blank page.
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The blank pages of a notebook (photo by Nina Munteanu)
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There’s no precedence for creating a piece of fiction. Yes, certainly inspiration is involved, but the work of something unique must start with a blank page. Professional writers often dread facing the blank page. It even has a name: blank page syndrome, or writer’s block, the feeling of being overwhelmed or even paralyzed by the prospect of starting. Alex Elkjær Vasegaard tells us that “it may come from the fear of not being good enough, of not knowing enough, or of the vastness of the potential ahead.”
I recently read a post on LinkedIn by writing colleague Erik Buchanan, which resonated with me. I asked his permission to quote it here and he gladly gave it:
Just got a recommended post from a marketing person claiming that using AI allows you to get past the hardest part of writing: “the blank page.”
I blocked them, and I’m putting what I was going to reply to them here instead, because they are not a person who will be open to this rant:
If you cannot get past the blank page, you are not a writer.
If you use AI to get past the blank page, you’re still not a writer, and now you’re a thief.
You’re using other writers’ words, fed into an information aggregator and splatted out like a drunk’s meal vomited onto the sidewalk. And you’re scooping it up and claiming it’s fresh food.
You want to write? Write something.
Speaking as one who has written 18 novels (more than half ghostwritten for money), 150 articles, short stories, instruction manuals, sales copy, website copy, commercial scripts, short films and now a feature film (currently being re-written) it’s not that hard.
Using AI means you’re too lazy to learn the craft.
Don’t do it.
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A blank page is more than a simple page that is empty. It offers something new, without precedence to write, draw or create. Whether it’s a physical sheet of paper in a notebook or a white space in a digital document, the blank page represents a fresh beginning and wonderful potential for unique creation.
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Erik’s point is so Germaine to the creative writing process. The blank page is an open door to possibility; it is a writer’s first step in creating something uniquely their own. Plot, character, setting and language—such as technique, style, words and phrases—certainly make a novel wonderful to read; but it is the unique idea, the spark, the premise and theme that carry that novel into greatness and keep it memorable.
Coming up with first words on a blank page (photo by Nina Munteanu)
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Poet Alberto Blanco challenges our notion of the blank page being blank: From the tree it was made from, the rain and sun that allowed the tree to grow, and the people that created it, it soon becomes clear that a blank page contains the whole cosmos.
In “The Blank Page: A Meditation on the Creative Process and Life’s Journey” Alex ElkjærVasegaard describes the blank page as “an expanse of white, unsullied by ink or pixels. It’s the void that calls for creation. It’s the challenge that every artist, writer, and thinker faces. But isn’t that just a beautiful metaphor for life itself?”
Erik, I too would have blocked that marketer. I doubt they are a writer…
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“Who then … tells a finer tale than any of us? Silence does. And where does one read a deeper tale than upon the most perfectly printed page of the most precious book? Upon the blank page. When a royal and gallant pen, in the moment of its highest inspiration, has written down its tale with the rarest ink of all — where, then, may one read a still deeper, sweeter, merrier and more cruel tale than that? Upon the blank page.”—Karen Blixen, Last Tales
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Maple beech forest in early spring, ON (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.
I recently ran across a list posted on social media of the 20 most popular AI tools for productivity in writing. I only knew two of them. This heightened my anxiety about what I know and am prepared for in the use of genAI, particularly in academic settings, where I teach writing at university. And it got me thinking why I was so anxious…
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I shared the list with my colleagues at the university writing centre and one instructor who was actively following AI tools admitted that they knew only a few of the listed tools as well. They further shared that they were feeling increasingly apprehensive about genAI’s impact on higher education. “It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed,” they ended.
(Photo: Nina writing her novel at a cafe)
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This was my exact sentiment: a kind of apprehensive excitement. An understanding that all communicators stand at the precipice of a major paradigm shift in tool use. The ramifications this will have on all aspects of effective and efficient communication will span from redefining plagiarism to reinventing creativity. As with all powerful tools—aside from the obvious threat of misuse—there is always something lost with the gain and I wonder what we are losing with all this. I have some ideas, and they do bother me from time to time.
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Applications of Generative AI (image by Neebel Technologies)
I do think it important for me as a communicator and writing instructor to understand the trade offs and to work with them.
When the world adopted the portable calculator, rote knowledge of basic math suffered. I know; I tested it during a lab exam when I was teaching college biology many years back. I forbid the use of calculators in the test and many students, who had lost the ability to do long division or multiplication by hand, lost marks. For some reason, I’m still not sure of, it was important for me to insist on students doing math longhand (a basic skill fast becoming obsolete like cursive writing) and punish those who had lost the art. Perhaps I was drawing on Isaac Asimov’s possibly prescient 1957 short story satire The Feeling of Power, which explored the limitations of a future world that lost its basic skills to machines. The corollary, I suppose, is that more complex and conceptual math gained some ground through this handy and efficient tool. Machines have their advantages, certainly. And generative AI is just one sophisticated aspect of machine use.
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Consequences to Creative Writing
In my world of professional fiction authors, there is a palpable fear of being replaced by AI as story creators: a version of the ultimate science fiction horror plot of being taken over by the machine world (I’ve even exploited that in my SF thrillers Angel of Chaos and Darwin’s Paradox).
Given our unique powers of imagination, I don’t think that will happen (very soon, if ever successfully). Though, as we dummy-down and simplify complex stories for fast-paced multiplex audiences addicted to fast-paced bite-sized and easy to digest entertainment, AI-generated narratives could get by. How is all this affecting the publishing industry now? I recently learned that one of the top five online science fiction magazines, Metastellar, accepts AI-assisted stories with the proviso that “they better be good.” And Metastellar provides some convincing reasons. This has become a hot topic among my fellow professional writers at SF Canada. One colleague informed me that a “new publisher Spines plans todisrupt industry by publishing 8000 AI books in 2025 alone.” On checking the news release, I discovered that Spines is, in fact, a tech firm trying to make its mark on publishing, primarily through the use of AI. The company offers the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish, and distribute books. They are, in fact, a vanity publishing platform (essentially a service for self-publishing), charging up to $5000 a book and often taking just three weeks to go from manuscript to a published title. The quality of what they will produce is unclear—and questionable.
All to serve as metaphor for what I and my colleagues at university are striving to achieve with students in their academic writing: excellence in communication, particularly in conveying complex scenarios that require creative solutions where clear, concise, and convincing writing is requisite.
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I still find myself reluctant to use AI in my writing and communication, though I’ve at times slid into using AI for research and initial summaries to save time. I do this rarely because I absolutely enjoy doing research. I enjoy challenging my brain to summarize key points and write a good line. I enjoy the thrill of unanticipated discoveries, which always happen on these forays. I also recognize that many people do not share my enthusiasm for these brain exercises.
(Photo: Nina writing in another cafe)
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I think that AI alone will not replace human mind for unique creativity. I didn’t say “can not.” It could; but it won’t. This is because even as genAI becomes infused in many aspects of life pursuit, there will remain those like that rare mathematician capable of doing math by hand in The Feeling of Power, valued not just because they are rare, but because in that rarity, they fulfill a critical role. When the machines stalled in their ability to move society forward in The Feeling of Power and all seemed lost, this archaic mathematician presented new innovation with basic math. I’m not suggesting that the technology will all break down, plunging the world into darkness (though this remains a possibility and is still a great plot for science fiction); but I submit that diversity rules over monopoly when it comes to survival.
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Five Mass Extinctions
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This may seem a rather dark projection of the future, but consider that over the millennia, after five mass extinctions and with the sixth mass extinction underway, diversity has always saved the world. Within that necessary diversity, it is the nurtured rarities, the outliers, the misfits and nonconformists that survived the destruction of the previous world. Each time, diversity made that possible. As though engrained in Nature’s world building.
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Mass Extinctions (image by National Geographic)
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Ecologists call it ecological succession, others use the term “creative-destruction” to describe the recursive pattern of living and non-living things of the planet. Both describe how the oligarchs of an established climax ecosystem fail due to change or disturbance and are replaced by a previous rare misfit or immigrant better suited to the new environment.
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Primary and secondary succession in two different ecosystems
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I think AI is part of our succession. Our use of AI in all its forms will represent a diversity of reaction and action that represent our own diversity and potential to survive in a changing world. All to say: relax and embrace the outliers.
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Writing in nature (photo by Nina Munteanu)
As William Gibson so famously said in 1993: The Future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. And maybe that’s a good thing…
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So…
…To AI, or not to AI, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of terrible writing, Or to take arms against a sea of scribbles And by opposing end them. To think—to write, No more; and by writing to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That tech is heir to: ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To think, to write; To write, perchance to create—ay, there’s the rub: For in that creation of unique thoughts what others may come, When we have shuffled off this genAI…
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Writing in Nature (photo 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.
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.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 