Write the World Climate Writing Awards 2023

WRITE THE WORLD

CLIMATE WRITING

AWARDS

2023

Read winning work by young writers in

Climate Poetry, Climate Flash Fiction, and Advocacy Writing

Climate Writing Awards 2023

PROMPTS Write the World invited young writers ages 13 to 19 to submit their pieces in response to three climate writing prompts on writetheworld.org.

From 33 countries across the world, young writers penned poems, stories, and letters—all speaking in their own way to the climate crisis we are living through. This collection is composed of the winning entries and a selected finalist in each category:

Poetry Poetry about climate change has the ability to inspire, activate, connect, “speak truth to power,” and so much more. Perhaps your poem will draw attention to climate change’s threat, bear witness to change, spark emotion, or inspire through connection.

Flash Fiction Cli-fi (climate fiction) allows us to inspire change through our words. Pen your own clifi story in 500 words or less.

What climate-related conflict will drive your plot?

Advocacy Writing Join young people around the world telling leaders how and why we need climate action now. In a letter of 400 words or less, tell a political leader, legislator—or even your school principal—why their focus on climate is vital to our planet and to your future.

CONTENTS 4 Poetry Winning Entry "To the daughter I may never have"

by Starlitskies (Sri Lanka) 6 Poetry Finalist Selection "Greenwashing and Greenbacks"

by Rohana Khattak (Pakistan) 7 Flash Fiction Finalist Selection "Memory of Water"

by Isabelle_ (Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China) 8 Flash Fiction Winning Entry "Swamped"

by GetalongRanchWriter (United States) 10 Advocacy Writing Winning Entry "No one mourns the dinosaurs"

by Luie (United Kingdom)

“

The responsibility for caring for our planet has the ability to give our lives meaning and purpose.

- Alexandria Villaseñor, Guest Judge

”

12 Advocacy Writing Finalist Selection "Dear Jeremy Rockliff"

by Ninja girl (Australia) 14 Thank Yous Q&A with Guest Judge Alexandria Villaseñor

Poetry Winning Entry

To the daughter I may never have

by Starlitskies (Sri Lanka)

For you at least, if no one else.

My darling daughter, 1) Today I drew the curtains closed at noon on a day only halfway gone but one that had begun to burn.

The April sun is merciless. I wash my hair twice a day until it feels like straw.

Still, the back of my head is sweating.

2) In the first nature poem I read, William Blake writes of Venus in the skies of seventeen eighty three, Thou fair-haired angel of the evening, and in my heart I know how fair she shines only because I have seen her.

Darling, there is no flood at my ankles, no wildfire burning in my backyard, but the curtains can't shut out the sun for long. Soon, the warmth will seep through the fabric into the room and sitting here, I will be taught how the earth arrives at ignition point, not by a teacher or a poster on the wall, but by my own skin, slipping with sweat.

Darling, in the dead metal heat of the city, the sky is all I have.

I want to guide your outstretched hand to the three stars of Orion's belt the same way Amma took mine.

I fear you'll search for the stars to find only darkness staring back at you.

Tell me, how can I watch you stand with your eyes wide open and still not see the light?

4 | Write the World Review

Poetry Winning Entry

3) In the first nature poem I will read to you when I say daffodils I want you to know with your heart, its golden head, open to the sun and bobbing on its long green stem.

I want you to know the black-purple bruises a storm leaves on the grey face of the sky, how to watch the thunderclouds float in and out of view, like great glaciers, unmoving in the sway of the sea only to retreat at our hands.

4) Behind the haze she will rise unseen And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon, the sea will drown my island, the smoke will cloud my sky, but the greatest loss would be losing you before you've ever known the stars.

When I show you Van Gogh's Starry Night, darling if you ask me, 'Amma, what was it like?'

How will I ever atone for my sin of holding a dying earth in my palms and doing nothing?

Footnotes The line, 'Thou fair-haired angel of the evening' and the line, 'And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,' are borrowed from William Blake's poem 'To the Evening Star'.

The reference of 'daffodils' is from the poem 'I wandered lonely as a Cloud' by William Wordsworth which is one of my favorite nature poems.

Amma means mother in Sinhalese.

The Starry Night is a piece of artwork by Van Gogh that eternally feeds my love for stars.

Write the World Review | 5

Poetry Finalist Selection

Greenwashing and Greenbacks

by Rohana Khattak (Pakistan) Your documents are stained with your descendants’ blood The inheritance you’ve left them is this mutilated mess you created Freezes and famine and flame and flood They’ll all know you just watched and waited Your oil and gas are the fuel For the blaze that’s scorching the skin off of our sphere Your refusal to agree to effective policy renewal Is sowing the soil’s parched fissures with fear Your boardroom meetings a couple continents away Inundated over a third of my country’s land Less than 1% of the blame is on our résumé Yet our people suffer at your hand When you’re trying to figure out whether to cut down on emissions Try spending a week in a tent with rising water at your feet Maybe you’ll find it simpler to make your decisions When you have to rely on UNICEF to get something to eat You only use discussion and diplomacy and debate to stall ‘2050’ just gives you time to relax We all know you were never really bothered at all All you deal in is greenwashing and greenbacks

6 | Write the World Review

Flash Fiction Finalist Selection

Memory of Water

by Isabelle_ (Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China)

Once again the waves are rolling in, soft as lacquered coiffure. Their plump, glowing, filmy heads swell and slip, laden with last night’s rain—their perfume a clear, coastal brine, crisp as fresh-picked fruit. The churr of bell frogs is still full-toned in the gloaming. Shadows darken in the east. I listen to the sea.

It is nightfall. The air throbs, drunk and spilling over with dull drops of rain, falling in the moonlight. All around me, I watch the waves ebb, their curls flowing. On occasions, the stirring grows spirited, as though tossed together in a fervent embrace, murmuring softly, wave to wave. My daughter stands ankle-deep in the ocean. I see her rosy palms splayed like starfishes, leaving wet hollows in the sand.

Inside, I brew tea, humming quietly. Sometimes the sea seethes, the water a string pulled tight, and I think the word home might split in two. But it remains upright— an anchor.

Moments fall away. It rains, shines, rains. ​Evenings are cool now, but the heat will come again. It always does. As the planet warms, the sea grows, bloats—heavy with swallowed homes, swallowed livelihoods. Somewhere in the ocean’s vast belly, bits of broken villages drift like gingerbread houses—gulped down by waves.

With every rising breath, the ocean glints. My father taught me as a child that when you paint water, value matters more than color. If I could paint anything, it would be this: families inundated with blue seawater, communities washed blue as lips in the cold, blue as veins knotted under skin. By the time the sea rises another inch, my home will no longer exist. It will be another chewed gingerbread house, another swallowed carcass in the grave blue of the sea.

I imbed into my memory the wood-floored bungalow we live in, with old-school bulbs of gold and honey. There is the settee and its pale white linen and its sunken hem that gobbles playthings. There is the oak-colored pantry shelf carrying spices and spoons—sea salt and cardamom, soup spoons and ladles. There is the climate. The day’s light that flickers, stretches into dewdrops. Rainfall slamming into the ocean, soaking our feet and hair and my daughter’s shriek as we spin and spin.

Upstairs, away from the lapping arms of the ocean, there is a framed photograph of my husband and son. They stand with shoulders touching, knee-deep in the sea—which hums and glows under the sun’s smite. The beryl water is nearly too brilliant to bear. You’d never know it was this glittering, sun-flawed sea that stole their lives, washed them away into frail memory.

Downstairs, a cake of bread rises in soft breaths, becoming lighter as it occupies more of the world. In people, we call this maturing, aging. In sourdough, we call it proof. In the sea, we call it Climate Change.

Write the World Review | 7

Flash Fiction Winning Entry

Swamped

by GetalongRanchWriter (United States)

It is mid-December in Washington D.C., and the algae slurping against the sides of my boat is steaming in the sun.

I, Andromeda Hisakawa, wipe sweat from my face and lean over the edge of my splintery dingy, plunging my hands into the water, only to emerge again, clutching a bronze plaque, emblazoned with the words: Lt. Snowy Johnson — 1989 - 2013 CE: he dreamt of a better future It's a gravemarker.

I tuck my hair behind my ears with tanned fingers, studying it.

2013, Common Era. Common Era, as in before the Melt.

As in, before the Floods.

Before coastlines drowned.

Before the world changed forever.

8 | Write the World Review

I sigh, chucking the plaque into the bottom of my boat with the rest of my finds, and grip my boat paddles as I push away through the shallow water.

I’m a MudSifter. This is my job: unearthing relics of the past to smelt down and make into a worthy future.

A quick glance at the darkening sky tells me it’s almost Shadesdown, and my rowing speed increases. I need to get back to the Recycling Center before SunsDay ends.

The rushes and lilies around me morph into trees and palmettos as I reach the TideWalls, standing tall and protecting what remains of D.C. Eventually, the water becomes too shallow, and my boat scrapes the trash-littered bottom as I jump out, boots sinking into the foot-deep water. I drag my boat over to the wall, which rises over my head: a hundred feet of cement, impenetrable by both hurricanes and humans.

Fortunately, I have other ways of getting in.

Flash Fiction Winning Entry

Five seconds till the curfew begins, I think, whistling loudly. Five seconds till power dies, and I’ll be trapped outside the city.

Suddenly, a crane arm swings overhead and a thick web of ropes plummets down and splashes beside my feet. I rush to secure the ropes around my boat and climb in.

Three seconds.

Another whistle, and I’m rising into the air and up, over the TideWall, and into the Recycling Center courtyard, dropping gently onto the pavement.

Not a moment too soon.

The second I step out of the rope harness, a huge, dark shape slides across the sky, and I can feel the temperature plummet as it covers the sky. The wind rises, and the light dims. One by one, the other SunShades join it. ShadowsDay has begun.

The crane’s solar generator dies, and the operator, Cygnus, hops out of the cab and runs over, his bare feet slapping the cooling pavement.

“You’re back,” He exclaims in relief, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“And not a moment too soon,” I sign in reply, relaxing and leaning my head against Cygnus’s shoulder to stare up at the darkened sky.

I think of the gravestone’s engraving, and everything humanity’s trying so hard to achieve.

SunShades, TideWalls, algae farms, climate refugee camps, MudSifting.

All drastic attempts insurmountable problem.

at

solving

an

Sometimes I wonder…

Is this all too little, too late?

Write the World Review | 9

Advocacy Writing Winning Entry

No one mourns the dinosaurs

by Luie (United Kingdom)

Dear Prime Minister Sunak, Please consider this honestly: what do you remember of childhood? What sensory memories come to mind? Foliage rustling beneath bird song, the sun melting into your skin? Perhaps the shock of a stream breaking to embrace you as you fall backwards. The smell of earth as you roll in a field. Ozone before a storm; petrichor after.

Our lives are sensory and more often than not, nature stands out.

You have two children, I believe. What will their memories entail? Their children's? Their children’s children's? Can you watch as your descendents are boxed further and further into burning grey with every year that passes? Memories full of heat, cold, snow in May and heatwaves, chased into walls by fire and floods.

Eighteen years old, I sound like a doomsayer. I am one. The universe isn’t afraid of extinction the way humanity is. It doesn’t flinch away from fact. The Earth once housed dinosaurs. We don’t mourn their absence so do you expect our replacement to mourn ours? Life will out so I believe something will flourish in the new Earth we are stamping, carving, burning out.

Sometimes that is comforting, but you must know that, if the status quo remains, we will not be there to see what that life looks like.

I wonder how many generations after your children we will get before we give out?

10 | Write the World Review

Advocacy Writing Winning Entry

That is, if you don't take advantage of your position and tackle the climate crisis now.

Implement new policies, switch to renewable energy, invest in research. Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels, yet the proposed Rosebank oil field will produce more C02 annually than the 28 lowest income countries combined. More than 7 million people in Bangladesh need help due to climate change caused flooding; the UK last year was hotter than California. No one is safe.

I mourn, Mr Sunak. And I am afraid because I believe that the lives we are losing, plant, animal, human, are precious and I do not wish to say goodbye to them. However, I am aware that if no one is there to mourn them, they may as well not have been lost. Can you miss something you never had? If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear, did it make a sound?

Mr Sunak, no one mourns the dinosaurs.

They will not mourn us.

Sincerely, Luie

Write the World Review | 11

Advocacy Writing Finalist Selection

Dear Jeremy Rockliff

by Ninja girl (Australia)

Dear Jeremy Rockliff, I’m a 14 year old Tasmanian. I live in the North-West of the state, and I love the cold clean air, the majestic trees and the wildlife that I share it with. But I am very afraid that it is in danger.

Last year, we lost hundreds of carbon-reducing trees to the most extreme wind event that anyone in our area had ever experienced. Months later, we lost even more to an extreme flood event, and who’s to say we won't lose more in the future, especially if these extremes are only predicted to get worse?

In Tasmania, 21% of our CO2 emissions come from the transportation industry, and 93% of that comes from road use. This, along with agricultural emissions is one of the highest emitters of CO2 in the state. And with 85% of Tasmanians traveling to work in private vehicles, this will only get worse as the population rises. This is largely because public transport in the state is very poor. While funding for road maintenance has actually increased this year from $700 million, to $2.7 billion, the funding for our railways (which are not currently being utilized for public transport) is only $229 million, and while its possible to take a bus from one end of the state to the other, but it's inefficient. All this considered, it's fair to say it's not easy for people to use public transport in Tasmania.

I propose that your government increases the funding towards urban planning and zero emissions public transport in our cities, such as trams, electric buses and bicycle lanes. To fund this, a private vehicle tax could be introduced to people with carbon emitting vehicles who live in a close proximity to public transport. For long distance travel, I propose a passenger train going from at least North to South . By doing this, we could not only make our cities better for 12 | Write the World Review

Advocacy Writing Winning Entry

locals and tourists who can’t afford private vehicles and reduce pollution in our urban areas, but we could also dramatically decrease our carbon footprint. But for it to happen, we need you. Not only to consider this proposal, but to fight for our climate in any way that you can.

Thank you for your time – my future, and the future of every other young Tasmanian is in your hands.

Kind Regards, Laura

Work cited https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/FactSheet-Transport.pdf https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/174076/Transport_Access_Strategy.PDF https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/recfit/tasmanias_greenhouse_gas_emissions https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/174076/Transport_Access_Strategy.PDF

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THANK YOU Climate Writing Awards 2023

Thank you to our young writers, community volunteers, guest judge Alexandria Villaseñor, and our sponsor Seventh Generation for making the Climate Writing Awards 2023 a success.

Write the World is a non-profit dedicated to developing the writing, critical thinking, reading, and communication skills of young writers (ages 13-19) to help them become global citizens and achieve success in school, career, and life.

Are you a teen aged 13-19 interested in writing and joining future competitions? Sign up for free to join the global writing community!

SIGN UP Q&A: Alexandria Villaseñor Alexandria Villaseñor is a youth climate activist and the guest judge for the Climate Writing Awards 2023

On finding a sense of purpose "Sometimes I wonder why adults would ever think it’s okay to leave a world like this to their children. These growing intergenerational inequities aren’t sustainable for humanity and a livable planet... but the responsibility for caring for our planet has the ability to give our lives meaning and purpose. "

Her top advice for writers "Just start putting words on paper. In order to get somewhere, all you have to do is take the first step."

Read Full Interview Copyright © 2023 Write the World, Inc. | All rights reserved. writetheworld.org