Reckoning Press Podcast

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Aaron: Welcome once again to the Reckoning Press Podcast. I'm Aaron Kling, audio editor for Reckoning and the reader for today's story. Hope you're having a good one. Our story today is Reckoning 7's "The Air Will Catch Us" by Rajiv Moté. As a flash fiction piece, it's a short listen. But Moté has filled every line with gentle worldbuilding, history, and most importantly, humanity. Follow a grandparent's day at the park in a setting with an atmosphere intensely thickened by a changing climate. But this is far from a world defined by apocalypse.

Higher leaps and soft landings, listeners. Let's jump in.

The Air Will Catch Us by Rajiv Moté

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Aaron: It's time once again for the Reckoning Press Podcast! I'm Aaron Kling, audio editor for Reckoning, and this story's audio producer—but our reader is Anna Pele. Today we have Nadine Aurora Tabing's wonderul "The Bright in the Gyre" from Reckoning 7. This one's got a favorite theme of mine: becoming. Our protagonist races against terminal illness to find a way to make a difference within a setting smothered by apathy and waste. Her world is poised for a change. Is it the right one? Will she live to see it? Listeners, don't miss this episode.

"The Bright in the Gyre" by Nadine Aurora Tabing

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Bernie: Hello again, Reckoning Press Podcast! I'm Bernie Jean Schiebeling, the reader for this episode, with Aaron Kling as producer. Today we're sharing C.G. Aubrey's "A Predatory Transience" from Reckoning 7. What I admire most about this piece is its grounding in a present moment. The rich imagery that C.G. brings to the landscapes of the South Carolina salt marshes as well as the embodiment of her narrator. This story asks us to consider the ways we change the world as we move through it, the way the world changes us, and what form we want those changes to take. In an interview with E.C. Barrett for Reckoning, C.G. had this to say: "Even just going out and picking up trash when you kayak, like my main character does, makes an immediate, quantifiable impact. We'll be so much better off if individuals feel like they can make a difference."

Enjoy your time in the salt marsh, everyone! Take only pictures, leave only footprints, and pick up any trash you find along the way.

A Predatory Transience by C. G. Aubrey

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Michael: Welcome back to the Reckoning Press podcast. It's me, your still-reeling host, Michael J. DeLuca. This will be our final episode of 2024, and I am afforded an unusual opportunity in that I'm actually recording this the week it'll be released instead of months in advance. Things may very well have changed a great deal by the time I get to do this again, so let me just say a very few words.

Please don't capitulate in advance the way all the billionaire-captured corporate media already seem to be doing daily. If you can help it, please don't support entities that do.

Please consider the advice of Fred Rogers: look for the helpers. Specifically: look around you, find the nearest helper, take them warmly by the hand, and help them however you can. Thank you.

Today we have for you Susan L. Lin reading her flash fiction piece, "Inclement Weather", from Reckoning 7. It's a story narrated by the earth itself, the soil, and it's about dealing with loss, grief, and catastrophic change, finding the resources to change with it. It ends with the COVID-19 pandemic, but I think those last lines apply exactly as well to this current moment as they did then.

Susan: Hi. I'm Susan L. Lin, and I'm going to be reading "Inclement Weather", my flash fiction piece that was inspired by the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Inclement Weather by Susan L. Lin

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We're here again with the Reckoning Press Podcast. I'm Aaron Kling, Reckoning's new audio editor, the reader and producer for today's story. How's it going, everyone? This time we have Ellis Nye's "The Last Great Repair Tech of the American Midwest" as featured in Reckoning 8. This one's a fictional obituary, but don't let that get you down. Since we're exploring the memory of a woman who held her community together, the way every great technician does, with a creative jury rig here, some duct tape there, and a whole lot of love everywhere else.

Enjoy, everybody!

The Last Great Repair Tech of the American Midwest by Ellis Nye

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Aaron: You're listening to the Reckoning Press Podcast. I'm Aaron Kling, editor for Reckoning's audio in general and this story in particular. Glad to be recording another one of these! Today, listeners, we have Monica Wendel's "A Shape that Has No Name" from Reckoning 8. In this story, we follow a young teacher as she navigates a difficult relationship in a world ravaged by disease and disparity. Give it a listen, and I'm sure you'll love it too.

Enjoy, everyone!

Monica: Hi, my name is Monica Wendel, and I'll be reading my story "A Shape that Has No Name". Thanks for having me!

A Shape that Has No Name by Monica Wendel

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Hi folks, this is the Reckoning Press podcast, and it's me again, Michael J. DeLuca, publisher. This month we have for you Naila Francis's poem "After encountering the grey whales in El Burbujon, Laguna Ojo de Liebre", read by the author. This piece originally appeared in Reckoning 7, our "oceans" issue. I'm of the feeling any preamble to this would be gilding the lily, so instead just let me say that if this poem speaks to you, you should absolutely go learn more about Naila Francis and her work on grief. There also exists a lovely piece of ambient soundscape by artist Paulito Muse featuring this poem among others, which for the right project would make amazing background music to write to.

"After encountering the grey whales in El Burbujon, Laguna Ojo de Liebre" by Naila Francis

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Welcome back to the Reckoning Press Podcast! I hope you've enjoyed these last couple of episodes featuring fiction from Reckoning 8 edited, produced and hosted by Aaron Kling, because there will be more of them! But for this month, it's me again, and we're taking a short interlude from fiction to run a roundtable conversation I had last fall with Reckoning contributor and editorial staff member emeritus Giselle Leeb and LCRW 33 alum Deb McCutchen, both of whom had new books out (and I had a novel forthcoming, which is now out). So as you'll see, some topical references here are a bit out of date, but the discussion of climate writing and its relationship to the state of the world very much continues to apply.

I hope you get as much out of this conversation as we did.

Michael J. DeLuca: Well, hello and welcome to an interesting discussion we're about to have about climate writing. I'm Michael J. DeLuca. I'm the publisher of Reckoning, a journal of Creative Writing on Environmental Justice. I also was the guest editor of an issue of Lady Churchill's in 2015, Issue No. 33, which featured both Deb McCutchen and Giselle Leeb, who are here with me today. And that's how I met the two of them.

And in that issue was an excerpt from Deb's novel, which has just come out, Jellyfish Dreaming, so 2015 to now. That's way shorter than it took me to finish the book that I have coming out next year. Meanwhile, Giselle has been writing short stories that whole time and has had her debut collection come out, Mammals, I Think We Are Called from Salt, and it's great.

The three of us thought we would get together and try and have an edifying and inspiring discussion about what we learned writing about climate, climate collapse, climate grief and all this stuff. But first, will the two of you introduce yourselves? Giselle, you could go first.

Giselle Leeb: Sure. As Michael said, I'm Giselle, but just explaining the obvious. So far, I've written a short story collection. I think about four of the stories in there are overtly about climate change. Some also have other storylines running within the story, two at once. I've actually written quite a lot more climate addiction stories and I found myself writing more. I couldn't include all of those in that particular connection because it wasn't specifically all about climate change.

But it's something that's I think about a lot. I'm sort of tentatively writing a novel about climate change at the moment. I think that's just in terms of writing. That's all I need to really say at the moment. I don't know if you saw my books. It's on the longlist for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.

D. K. McCutchen: Congratulations.

Giselle Leeb: Did I tell you about that?

Michael J. DeLuca: I did not hear that. That's awesome. Congratulations.

Giselle Leeb: Thank you. It's like the biggest—and only, actually—Short Story Prize in the UK and Ireland for a collection. So I was pretty, as they say in the UK, gobsmacked, to be honest, because the longlist is—

Michael J. DeLuca: That's awesome.

Giselle Leeb: It's 10 books and it's all connections. It's been won by really big writers, like Sarah Hall and Eddie Smith and people like that. Hilary Mantel, a shortlist and winner. So to be on the longlist is a major boost in terms of promoting the book and just, hopefully, being able to get some more funding at some point to write some more. Because it's always a struggle when you're writing and working, trying to do both at once, I find.

D. K. McCutchen: Yeah, that's true.

Giselle Leeb: I was also really pleased because I call my stories literary fantastical, but it's a lot harder sometimes in literary magazines to get stories of fantastical elements published even now. Someone like Kelly Link, who's one of my opposite hero writers, obviously George Saunders,

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It's time for the Reckoning Press podcast. I'm Aaron Kling, Reckoning's new audio editor, once again reading and producing for today's story. Hello, everyone. Today, we have Jeff Hewitt's "Where the Water Came From", as featured in Reckoning 8. This is a story about distance. From culture, from family, from labor. A man is forced from a stricken earth to colonize a world man has only ever viewed from a telescope. Our protagonist is lost to his loved ones by light years, forced to make a family out among the stars. Ain't capitalism grand?

"Where the Water Came From" by Jeff Hewitt

Enjoy the story, enjoy the show. Have a good one, listeners.

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Welcome back to the Reckoning Press Podcast! I'm Aaron Kling, Reckoning's new audio editor. I'm also the reader and audio producer for this story. Hi there. Hello! Today, listeners, we have David Holloway's "The Battle for Florida" from Reckoning 8. Holloway illustrates the beautiful tragedy of growing up in a place on the front line of climate change's effects, and how those effects might cause the world to buckle beneath your feet. If you've ever come back home to find something missing, something lost, then "The Battle for Florida" will be very familiar.

"The Battle for Florida" by David Holloway

Hope you enjoy the story, everyone. Take care.