Announcing our special edition zine for the UN Summit of the Future
Call for Submissions Open!
We are so pleased to open the call for submissions for our very first community-built digital zine!
The Why
The UN is convening in September for the first ever Summit of the Future, to discuss and negotiate a Pact for the Future, to rethink the UN system, and to review our climate and sustainable development goals.
This once-in-a-generation opportunity serves as a moment to mend eroded trust and demonstrate that international cooperation can effectively achieve agreed goals and tackle emerging threats and opportunities.
As part of the Pledge Network, we are concerned with the need for global governance infrastructure and policies that are long-term and futures-oriented, and that institutionalize the principle of intergenerational fairness and consider always the rights of future generations, of humanity and all of our other kin.
To flex our own futures muscles, engage our community and champion the voices and desires of this community, we’ve decided to pull together a collaborative digital zine, that we will be promoting on the ground in New York in September and launching at our own event later in the Fall.
The What
We will co-produce a digital zine (like a mini magazine, if you’re not familiar with the lingo). In honour of the theme of Future Visions, the zine will be organized according to three distinct time horizons:
2024-2030 (this time horizon will contain the deadlines for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement)
2031-2050 (this is the timeline that many corporations have agreed that they will meet Net Zero targets)
2051-2100 and beyond (this is the widest play space of possibility!)
Write/create about anything from climate anxiety, to climate action, to natural climate solutions, technological advancement, new visions of governance, of education, of anything at all!
Accepted formats:
Short/flash/micro fiction stories (150-1500 words)
Poetry
Visual artwork (painting, collage, etc)
Creative nonfiction/personal essays (max 1500 words)
Video (please only use original or royalty-free music)
Audio (music, performance, etc)
Our digital format makes it possible to include a wide variety of formats, which will also be included through QR codes and/or AR for any print copies.
[Stipend: $50 CAD]
The Who
Eligibility? Anyone, anywhere.
Literally.
We’re aiming for majority youth perspectives, but for a truly intergenerational approach, we need submissions from every single generation, vantage point and walk of life possible.
The How
Step 1: Review our very detailed submission guidelines.
Step 2: Submit online anytime on or before midnight PST on September 25th
Bonus: Spread the word! Sharing is caring, and all expressions welcome!
If this sounds exciting, but you struggle to see yourself as a writer or an artist, or you can’t even imagine what on Earth you would create about…
Then I have great news for you!
We’re hosting a free, public, virtual future visioning workshop to help folks practice their radical imagination.
This won’t be your typical storytelling workshop with prompts and writing time, but rather a collective community visioning exercise.
Together we’ll spark ideas, build off of each other’s ideas, mix them together and collectively dream a variety of roadmaps to better futures for all.
Join this workshop if you want clarity to help you define what a better future looks like to you, to open your imagination to new ideas, and to exercise your world-building and visioning muscles.
There will also be time held for more direct Q&A about the zine and your submissions.
DATE: Tuesday August 7th
TIME: 5:30-7pm EST
LOCATION: online [Details shared with registrants closer to the date.]
We’re so grateful to have you join us in The Climateverse, and hope you seriously consider submitting! Join the workshop or get in touch if you have even the slightest of doubts.
We are committed to compensating artists, and are limited by a very tight budget. If you’re able to donate to expand the number of submissions we can accept, or even increase the stipends we’re able to provide, please do get in touch.
Otherwise, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help us do our work of expanding radical imagination to enable better futures: