Urgent Climate Stories and Fiction
Emma Pattee on climate journalism and her debut novel, Tilt
“I read it cover-to-cover!” is something I’ve heard multiple people say about Emma Pattee’s forthcoming novel, Tilt.
Admission: I am not someone who has ever read a book cover-to-cover in one day or night. I’m a slow reader, and when I really love a book, I like to linger with it. Perhaps that’s why I felt a swirl of urgency and resistance to finishing Tilt. I loved it, and I wanted to take my time with this story. I also desperately needed to know what happened next at every turn.
Ultimately, I spent three days with Emma’s protagonist, Annie, who is nine months pregnant and shopping at Ikea when a massive earthquake strikes Portland, Oregon. Page after page, I was stunned by the mix of unthinkable horror and relatability I found in this fast-paced story of survival and longing for another version of your life—or just the day prior.
Having lived in Portland for a decade, I’ve shopped a dozen times at the Ikea where this story starts. I know many of the streets and landmarks the very pregnant Annie is shuffling past while trying to reach her husband. And I’ve imagined the horror of this specific disaster that is certain to happen eventually in the Pacific Northwest. (If you’re not from the region, and you missed this blockbuster 2015 article about the impending Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, you should read it.)
But Emma gets at something with Tilt that is relatable regardless of your connection to Portland, because we are all living in crisis times these days. And I’d venture to say that many of us are giving serious thought to how we’re responding to these crises, however distant or acute they may feel within our specific circumstances. If they still feel distant, then you might be thinking about how you will or would respond to disaster when it inevitably leaps out of the headlines and into your home. Tilt urged me to think about crisis response in logistical, emotional, and existential terms. It also made me think about how motherhood makes all of that more terrifying—and also, maybe more hopeful? If that sounds exhausting, I agree. And yet, this book is a thrill and strangely comforting.
Emma is also a climate journalist, which makes her a kind of expert in disaster response. Earlier this week, I wrote about how the urgency of world issues are distracting me from work which is distracting me from life etc. etc. Emma’s commitment to using her work to address big issues related to climate change is so inspiring to me. From article to story, fiction to nonfiction, her writing all seems tied together while covering so much ground. So, I was very excited to ask her some questions about how fiction writing—especially the enormous commitment of writing a novel—fits into the importance and inevitable exhaustion of climate journalism.
Geez, I could go on and on about this. But let’s get to what Emma has to say! Writers, meet Emma Pattee—and then go order her book, which comes out March 25!
B: Let's start pre-Tilt. When in your writing career did you decide you wanted to focus on climate journalism? And how did you start pursuing that niche?
E: I had a very sudden wake up to climate change (like in the span of a couple hours). I'm still not sure why, but I've interviewed dozens of people about their "climate wakeups" and it seems like quite a few people have almost instantaneous wakeups to climate change. Because of how intense that experience was, I felt that I almost couldn't care about anything else. And since I was already working as a freelance journalist, it just made sense.
Before you had established relationships with editors, how did you approach pitching climate stories? And how did you stay on top of climate news in a manner that gave you ideas without completely wearing you down with dread?
I have always been a very aggressive cold pitcher. I have no issue cold pitching a story 25+ times until it finds a home with an editor who is excited about the idea. I do not stay on top of climate news. I often find one topic that really interests me and go deep into it, and there will be like 5-8 pitches just from that topic.
When did fiction become a part of your writing life? How has the balance between fiction and nonfiction changed for you over the years of professional writing?
I was a fiction writer before I was a copywriter and before I was a journalist. I have a degree in creative writing (lol) and that's always been my primary interest and passion. But something I've taken to heart and that I often share with others is that writing fiction isn't really enough to be your whole life. That's why a lot of people teach writing. Or get deeply involved in activism. Or open bookstores. And when you do make fiction your whole life, I think it can create an unhealthy pressure and a way of starting to take the work, and yourself, too seriously. It's a very isolating, self-absorbed practice. It's incredibly enriching, but I'm so grateful that I've always had other interests taking up my time and attention.
This one might be tricky, but can you describe how writing fiction makes you feel, compared to writing nonfiction? Do the two endeavors sit differently with you emotionally?
To me, they are so different I almost don't think of them both as writing. I am very interested in the craft of creative writing, and constantly trying to improve my craft skills and learn new skills. My end goal is to achieve a kind of mastery of my craft. But with journalism, I am very interested in the end goal (sharing a story, creating change, investigating potential wrongdoing). I don't need to be the best journalist, I'm just trying to do my part in the climate crisis! (And this really only applies to my experience. There are many journalists who are incredibly stylistic and have achieved a mastery of the craft. That's just not my goal or my passion). This is also pretty specific to the type of journalism I'm doing now, which is mostly investigative. The challenge is more about trying to get answers and analyzing large data sets, versus the writing. The writing ends up being about 10% of the project.
I guess I could compare it to chopping wood versus perfecting your tennis stroke. Very similar movements, but when you chop wood, you're just trying to get the job done without straining your back. It's fun and it's a good workout, but the point is to get the wood chopped so you can have a fire. But with tennis, there's isn't a clear outcome. Instead, there's this idea of mastery, of being as good as you can possibly be at the game. I can practice my tennis backhand for hours, trying to perfect my position, my swing, my timing.
Do you remember when you first had the idea for Tilt? How did you know it was the one you wanted to pursue?
I had a very instant flash of inspiration for this novel. I was pregnant, standing in IKEA shopping for a crib, when the building started to shake. At that point in my pregnancy, I had become so anxious about the earthquake that of course, I immediately thought "It's the big one!" It wasn't the big one—it was a big truck backing up to the loading dock. As soon as the shaking stopped, the book appeared almost fully formed in my mind.
This work of fiction was deeply researched and true to the potential devastation of what a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake could do. I personally gravitate towards really dark stories that play with my greatest fears—so I get it. But I'm curious, what made you want to spend so much time in the nitty gritty horror of what an earthquake could do to your hometown? And what made it bearable to spend time in that world when you were also spending your days reporting on climate change?
Because of how this idea came to me, it always felt like I didn't choose it, it chose me. So I didn't really want to spend the amount of time I've spent researching the horrors of earthquakes. I've read stories and seen photos that I've never been able to get out of my mind. I used to send my agent these research documents with like paragraphs of trigger warnings because the research was so disturbing. And then throw in the fact that I had a young baby, then was pregnant again, then had a newborn baby, all while researching this very real disaster.
Honestly, it sucked! Knowing what it did to my mental health, I don't know if I would choose that topic again. I would write like a sexy romance between two climate scientists and they would end up saving the world, and also they would never fight, and their kid would be a great sleeper.
One gift that came from this is that I chose to write a story that isn't overly grim. I chose to write a story of hope and connection and resilience and I am so glad that even if the research was very dark, readers tell me the book is not dark and is easy to read and even funny at times. That's a comfort to me, that I'm not just spreading darkness for the sake of it.
Confession: I have recently become kind of obsessed with an idea for a novel, but I've only ever written nonfiction... any advice? Do you think a nonfiction writer can jump into writing a novel or should you start with short stories or classes or something else?
I think commitment and consistency are the only two things needed to write a novel. In fact, I think workshops and short story classes would get in the way, because there's such obsessive focus on the sentences and making small tweaks and in my experience, that is the absolute worst way to write your first novel. You end up spending years writing the perfect dozen chapters and then realize that actually the whole plot needs to be reworked and you throw all that writing out. I write 450 words a day, by hand, and finish a draft in about 8 months. That's the only part you need to worry about, because everything else -- plot, POV, pacing, characters, tension -- can be learned and reworked. But without the draft in hand, there's nothing to learn from and there's nothing to rework.
You recently heard from a Portland representative who is presenting a bill to ban leaded gas, and they said your article on leaded gas at PIR was the reason they acted on this. That's incredible. Journalism matters! How did you come upon this story?
I was reporting on a different story in that neighborhood and somebody mentioned the issue of leaded gas. I had a co-writer on that article, and he found this incredible research which was directly applicable to the leaded gasoline being used at the racetrack.
Your climate journalism has clearly had an impressive impact on readers and the world, which is just so cool. Even if it's just changing or inspiring some conversation. That said, what do you hope the impact of Tilt will be?
My deepest wish for Tilt is that it will create political momentum around the issues of unreinforced masonry schools in Portland. We have thousands of kids going to school every day in buildings that will not stay standing in an earthquake.
What do you wish more climate writers were writing about?
I really see a need for investigative journalism in the climate change space. The issue is there isn't a lot of funding for deep investigative pieces, and they are very time-consuming.
is -- I think -- doing the most incredible investigative work in the climate space, and if you want to support climate activism but you don't know how to spend your money, I would highly recommend donating to Heated.Besides your upcoming book release which is obviously so exciting, what are you excited about when it comes to the publishing or journalism industries in general or specifically your own work? What makes you hopeful, as a writer, right now?
I would say Substack. I'm new to the space, so I might just be that naive new kid who is like "this is awesome!" but Substack is where I'm finding the kind of nuanced, well researched, thoughtful writing that I've been craving and looking for for years. I'm really excited to invest more time in Substack in the coming year.
A big thank you to Emma for chatting with us about her work! You can check out Emma’s fiction and her journalism on her website, and don’t forget to preorder Tilt.