Project Overview: The all-student staff from the CU Program for Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) Hindsight Journal are launching an entirely new journal, Changing Skies. Comprising student writing on climate change, Changing Skies (to be published in Fall of 2022) aims to amplify student voices in the climate movement by publishing creative nonfiction writing on climate change — that is, true stories told creatively. But because climate change is not a local phenomenon, the journal is also accepting submissions nationwide, expanding the breadth of the stories being told in its pages. Changing Skies also includes interviews with, and profiles of, experts on climate change, as well as those suffering from the effects of this ongoing threat to the earth and all its inhabitants. Together we mourn what’s irrevocably lost, but we also look for the positive changes humans can learn to make more often.
Impact: Storytelling is an invaluable tool in promoting cross-cultural dialogue, in processing individual and collective trauma, and in mobilizing action around a common goal. This is the impact that Changing Skies is attempting to make by allowing writers to process how climate change has impacted them, providing a forum for calls to climate action, and connecting passionate writers and activists with one another in a common space.
Donor Benefits: In addition to accessing launch events and the like where donors can take home physical copies of the journal, they are thanked for their support on our webpages and in the first pages of the journal. As funding enables the journal to expand the range of content produced (e.g. podcasts, audio-visual content), donors involved in climate action can receive exposure through published interviews, profiles, and more.
Action Needed: Funding allows the publishing of the first volume of Changing Skies in the autumn of 2022, as well as the continued acquisition of climate writing for future volumes. The long-term vision is to create an annual Changing Skies journal, as well as to broaden the journal's reach nationwide.