Show #204 – The Last Migration: How Fiction can Help us Heal the Planet with Charlotte McConaghy

LISTEN TO THIS WEEK’S SHOW ON iTUNES, STITCHER OR SPOTIFY OR LISTEN RIGHT HERE:

Love our new show tune in the intro/outro? It’s talented Australian independent artist Melanie Horsnell’s song “Birds”. So proud to support this wonderful Aussie artist and have her grace the show with her wonderful words and song!

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And onto this week’s show!

I am thrilled to welcome our first fiction author to the show this week, looking at the power of fiction in a time when reality can be very confronting. It can give us strength, raise our levels of compassion and curiosity for all sorts of issues and we explore all that and more looking at Charlotte McConaghy’s new book The Last Migration. We talk about what Charlotte found while researching her book as well as how the process has impacted her personally. The Arctic Tern, in its lifetime, will fly to the moon and back three times. It has the longest migration of any bird

on the planet and flies from the arctic to the Antarctic and back again. Franny, the central character’s search for a sense of home, family and belonging mirrors that great trek of the tern. I won’t divulge more, you’ll just have to listen. 

The Questions I asked Charlotte:

1. How do you personally feel about extinction and change in our planet? 
2. How has this informed your creative process? 
3. I read a brilliant non-fiction book a couple of years ago “Field Notes from a catastrophe” And it tells the stories of all sorts of shifts, extinctions, climate changes in some of the most pronounced examples. How do you feel that fiction can perhaps help us feel more into the work we need to do as humans right now to create change and start listening to what nature needs? 
4. So… tell us about the Arctic Tern.
5. Why did you choose a type of bird perhaps that many didn’t know before reading your book? 
6. How have humans impacted their existence? 
7. Did you choose a tragedy or story of hope (or does this spoil things?)
8. How do you want readers to feel as they journey through these pages? 
9. When you look around at reality many who understand the magnitude of the situation we face in the 6th mass extinction happening right now, feel that we aren’t enough people: As someone who has studied wildlife and wild places on our planet to bring this book to life: What do you feel would best recruit more to the planet-repair/extinction-reversal cause? 

Other helpful links:

Know more about Charlotte and her work: https://www.charlottemcconaghy.com/

You can get a copy of her book, “The Last Migration” HERE.

Find her on Instagram @charlottemcconaghy and on Facebook

This Week’s Brand Spotlight

The Low Tox Spotlight this week is on pioneering Aussie low tox online marketplace, Biome and their awesome Textiles and Fashion section. Often it’s a bit of a minefield to buy a nice top or pair of casual sneakers., wondering if they’re an environmental or human rights disaster – or how you’re going to do it without breaking the bank, right? Enter a comprehensive one stop list of fashion brands doing great things by people and planet.

SHOP BIOME FASHION HERE:  http://bit.ly/BiomeSlowFashion

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