Deborah Tomkins

I am a fiction writer, and began writing about climate change in an effort to understand it myself and to answer the question – ‘How, really, will it be?’ This question was barely being asked 20 years ago, and certainly not reaching the public in an accessible way; nor were there any clear answers. 

I also write about climate change in order to explore our emotional response to it, which is often mired in confusion and denial, not necessarily conscious. Stories are powerful, and our attitudes are shaped by the stories we choose - or choose not - to tell. 

In 2024 my speculative/slipstream novella Aerth won the Weatherglass Inaugural Novella Award (Weatherglass Books, January 2025); and my novel The Wilder Path won the Virginia Prize for Fiction (Aurora Metro Books, May 2025). Both books are climate stories, amongst other things, and may be obtained from the respective publishers or bookshops. 

In January 2017 I founded Bristol Climate Writers to meet with and supporting writers of all genres who are concerned about climate change and other environmental matters. Fellow ClimateCultures members Nick Hunt, Helen Moore, Caroline New, Peter Reason, and David Thorpe are some of the members. Our first public event was part of the Bristol Literature Festival 2017.

I am a life member of The Centre for Alternative Technology, and Trustee of UK organisation Green Christian. These two are important to me for reasons of faith - we can choose to give up, or not; we can choose to hope in the future, or not. Different kinds of faith, perhaps; both are valid. They inform our actions. I am involved in local and national environmental initiatives.