Ashley Shelby

The world is screaming. Are you listening? Within these pages, you'll find a lot of dark humor-a very valid response to dealing with the grief, confronting the truth, and accepting that the U.S. government won't do enough to help with our irreversible tilting into the dark canyons of the Anthropocene, so we have to pull more than our own weight, do more than our fair share, tell our stories over and over again in the face of corporate, lobbying, ignorant, and misinformed adversity, while bracing ourselves for the worst to come. You'll even find in these pages some sparks of utter optimism among the grief. But mostly you'll find the horror, the shock, the devastation, the sadness you'd expect from such a heavy topic. There are the reoccurring subjects: fossil fuel overuse, wasted water, sinking backyards, disappearing whales, food shortages, new bacteria, carbon, pipelines, drought, the disproportionately affected based on race, religion, ideology, wealth disparity, circumstances of birth and location. Women talk about not wanting to have kids born into this dying world; immigrants talk about the refugee crises to follow; and everyone rages against the corporations taking advantage of the land's vulnerability in order to turn a profit. There are the horrifying ladies you know by name: Sandy, Katrina, Irene-and there are the obscurities and anomalies that are slicing us open by a thousand slow cuts. What will surprise you, though, is how much this devastation has caused people to pause and reflect on the absolute beauty of this world, even in its darkest hurricanes of chaos. Featuring 65 pieces of nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, and poetry by 52 authors, this anthology is a document of our times-from the anger and righteousness of those left behind, to the fear for the bleak world we're leaving in the hands of those still to come. It is our hope that this anthology becomes obsolete, but it is our knowledge of a greedy and careless humanity that knows, with sorrow and certainty, that these pieces will remain timeless.

A New York TimesBook Review Editors’ ChoiceA Shelf Awareness Best Book of the YearHudson Booksellers Book of the YearOne of the New York Post’s Best Books of the SummerOne of The Millions’s Most Anticipated Books of the YearIndieNext PickA Time Magazine “What to Read Now” SelectionA wry novel set at the edge of the earth about the courage it takes to band together, even as everything around you falls apart Unmoored by a recent family tragedy, Cooper Gosling is adrift at thirty and on the verge of ruining her career. So when the opportunity arises to join the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers Program in Antarctica, she jumps at the chance-and finds herself in the company of others who are just abnormal enough for Polar life, a group of eccentrics motivated by desires as ambiguous as her own. When they are joined by a fringe scientist who claims climate change is a hoax, the Polies’ already-imbalanced community is rattled, bringing them to the center of a global controversy and threatening the ancient ice chip they call home.

Eclectic, experimental, and wildly imaginative climate fictions from a familiar world hauntingly transformed Climate disaster–induced fugue states, mutinous polar bears, support groups for recently displaced millionaires, men who hear trees, and women who lose their wives on environmental refugee resettlement trips. In these dispatches from a weirding world, the absurd and fantastic are increasingly indistinguishable from reality. Exploring this liminal moment, Ashley Shelby’s collection of climate fictions imagines a near future that is both unnervingly familiar and subversively strange. Set in the same post-climate-impact era, these stories range from playfully satirical to poignantly humane, bending traditional narrative forms and coming together into a brilliant and unusual contemplation of our changing world. Featuring the Hugo-nominated novelette “Muri,” Honeymoons in Temporary Locations processes the unthinkable through riotous inventions like guided tours of submerged cities, Craigslist ads placed by climate refugees, and cynical pharmaceutical efforts to market a drug to treat solastalgia, the existential distress caused by environmental change. Shelby reengineers the dystopic bleakness that characterizes so much climate fiction by embracing an eclectic experimentalism leavened with humor, irony, and the inevitable bathos that characterizes the human experience. Unexpected and clever, this innovative collection confirms her status as a visionary writer whose work expands the forms, attitudes, and possibilities of climate fiction.

On April 19, 1997, in one of the most dramatic floods in U.S. history, more than 50,000 people abandoned their homes and businesses in Grand Forks, North Dakota. A nation watched as the heart of downtown, engulfed by a river, burst into flames above the water line. Like Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, Red River Rising is a compelling true-life narrative about the confluence of natural forces and human error that shaped one of the greatest natural disasters in U.S. history. Ashley Shelby tells the dramatic stories of the flood: the suspenseful, blizzard-filled spring; the difficulties scientists had in predicting the river's crest; the struggles of people who fought the rising waters and of those who marshalled the city's forces. Despite technological advances in meteorology, despite the brute force of hundreds of earth movers, despite the utter determination of thousands who built and walked the levees, the river won. This book is a gripping story of the terrific cost of natural disasters and a fascinating portrait of how ordinary people rose to an extraordinary challenge. It is also a clear-eyed examination of the disastrous aftermath: the second-guessing and blame directed at the National Weather Service, at city and federal officials, and at the people of Grand Forks themselves as they struggled to rebuild. With empathy and penetrating intelligence, Shelby uncovers the conflicts, conspiracy theories, and recrimination that tore at the community after the waters fell. Through the powerful stories of memorable individuals Red River Rising gives us new perspective on disaster and community.