My book, 1,001 VOICES ON CLIMATE CHANGE, comes out on August 24, 2021

Seven years ago, I started working on a book called 1,001 Voices on Climate Change. The book, which will be published by Simon & Schuster (Tiller Press) on August 24, 2021, features deeply-reported interviews with people who are experiencing the impacts of climate change on every continent except Antarctica.

I’ve found, in my years of collecting these stories, that personal details often move the hearts of others more than even the most dire stats and headlines. My goal is to advance the climate change conversation beyond its current stalemate.

You can pre-order 1,001 Voices on Climate Change here: http://bit.ly/1001Voices

… or ask your local library to carry a copy!

If you have any suggestions of bookstores or other venues who might be interested in doing an event together around the time of launch, please don’t hesitate to be in touch.

I’m so excited for this book to be in your hands.

Advanced Praise for 1,001 VOICES ON CLIMATE CHANGE: 

“This is a great adventure story, but also a completely necessary book—the climate crisis has reached the point where people around the world feel it, understand it, and talk about it in ways that everyone needs to hear.”

—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

“A hybrid of travel literature and oral history, Lockwood somehow shrinks the ungraspably vast problem of climate change down to a human scale, then, patiently, carefully, combines those individual voices into a planetary chorus. A monumental achievement.”

—Robert Moor, bestselling author of On Trails: An Exploration

“Devi Lockwood’s luminous book, 1,001 Voices on Climate Change, is a testament to the power of listening, and an amazing chance to let yourself hear the symphony of grief and of courage that plays through lives of people around the world, all trying to find their way on a relentlessly changing planet.” 

—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Poison Squad and The Poisoner’s Handbook 

“‘Tell me a story.’ Is there a more fundamentally human sentence than that? Devi Lockwood circles the globe, seeking people’s experiences with water and climate change, from cultural myths, to rising seas’ impacts on daily life, to one woman’s pain, tuned to the voices of the trees. Lockwood seeks and you, dear reader, shall find.” 

—Erica Gies, environmental journalist, science journalist, and author of the upcoming book Water Always Wins: Going with the Flow to Thrive in an Age of Droughts, Floods, and Climate Change

“In a world that needs more listening and more storytelling, Devi Lockwood covers the waterfront. This is an empathetic and beautiful book.” 

—Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle and Our Wild Calling

“In the spirit of Arabian Nights, Lockwood summons the power of storytelling to cast a spell of empathy and understanding regarding our world’s greatest existential threat. 1,001 Voices on Climate Change takes readers on a global cycling journey, translating science into stories, to chronicle the human toll of the climate crisis.” 

—Mona Hanna-Attisha, Flint pediatrician and author of What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City

“This dazzling and significant collection captures the voices of people around the world, from Tuvalu to Thailand, from Australia to Kazakhstan, who are experiencing firsthand the life-altering effects of climate change. Lockwood’s approach to recounting their stories is compassionate and impassioned, focused as much on the tiny details of life as the larger planetary changes afoot in her interviewees’ own backyards. 1001 Voices on Climate Change is beautiful and necessary reading.” 

—Amy Brady, executive director of Orion

“As the fight against climate change accelerates, Devi Lockwood reminds us why.1001 Voices on Climate Change records vivid stories from those already living through the climate crisis. Lockwood takes us to every corner of the world to remind us to stop and listen. It is a compelling snapshot of this moment.” 

—Samantha Montano, Phd, Author of Disasterology: Dispatches from The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis and Assistant Professor of Emergency Management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy

“In this book, Devi illuminates the human stories the world so desperately needs. Devi’s gift is in meeting people, as they are, and pulling out the essence of their stories in such a way that speaks louder than words. It is not with spreadsheets, graphs, and technology that we will overcome the challenges of climate change, but with a transformation of our culture through story.” 

—Alina Siegfried, Author, Narrative Specialist, Spoken Word Artist, and Systems Change Advocate

“A great storyteller needs first to be a great listener, and with each pedal of her bike—up and down previously unknown paths—Devi Lockwood hears from those living through climate change and related water woes literally on the front lines. Her skills at storytelling are matched by her mastery of listening. The results are riveting.” 

—Bud Ward, Editor, Yale Climate Connections

“In this lovely, engaging book—by turns wry and heart wrenching, and always candid and warm—Devi Lockwood connects us with humanity itself as we confront the existential threat of the climate crisis. Lockwood’s book is alight with vivid characters and stories from every inhabited continent, brought together by her own compassion and curiosity. It’s a book we need now.” 

—Miranda Massie, Director, The Climate Museum

Mississippi River bike trip-aversary!

GUESS WHAT?!

It’s my 4 year end-of-first-bike-trip-aversary!

Zooming on the Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi.

That journey by the numbers: 

1 month 

(August 2013)

800 miles from Memphis, Tennessee to Venice, Louisiana

I started just south of the star and pedaled to the southernmost end of blue

 
2 nights camping inside a fire station

night 1 in Arkansas

night 2 in Louisiana

There weren’t any fires so I got to try on the gear at Plaquemine’s.

26 nights people took me in 

My favorite sleeping spot was possibly the Floating Bed at Quapaw Canoe Company, designed by Chris Staudinger. Not pictured: copious amounts of driftwood that decorate the space.

I thought it was a southern hospitality thing, but people have been taking me in all over the world in the years since –– I don’t know how to possibly repay this gift, but once I have a place of my own there will always be a futon for travelers.

1 cardboard sign 

Recording audio stories at the Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival

1 time I held a mastodon tooth 

Thanks, Howard Brent! Howard took me out on a Sunday river boat ride with his friend Hank, too. He showed me how the river washes up a whole treasure box of things, like the skeleton of this boat.

Despite the best attempts of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi’s banks are always moving and jumping.

1 night dancing at Reds in Clarksdale 

This saxophone player’s jacket is the inspiration for the neon vest that I wear while cycling…

made in New Zealand, March 2015

I embroidered myself a pair of poet pants in New Zealand, too.

But back to the Mississippi River Trail… this was my home office that month.

I did a fist pump every time I saw one of these signs. MRT!!!

That August 2013 I recorded 50 hours of stories.

I didn’t know what I was doing, but it felt right.

I love everything about this quote except for the gendered pronoun.

Nightfall in NOLA

piles from Hurricane Isaac (2 years previous) at the side of the road, somewhere south of New Orleans on the way to Venice

Cotton, growing

Combine

Music comes out of the water, I think.

Stop what you’re doing and go listen to the Shotgun Jazz Band. No, really. The night I spent listening to them in New Orleans was simply sublime.

I chased after a car to get this picture taken at the End of the World, the place where Louisiana Highway 23 meets the Gulf of Mexico.

If you’re wondering where the One Bike One Year logo came from, now you know: The End of the World / Venice, Louisiana.

There were places in Venice where water laps over the road at high tide.

I’ll have to check when I’m back stateside to see if I can find the hard-drive with those audio stories on it. It would be interesting to listen.

I’m immensely grateful to all the storytellers who have propelled me around this planet a few times since… I couldn’t keep going without the 700+ people who have taken the time to share a piece of their lives with me.

Here’s to water stories, climate change stories, and everything in between.

Stay tuned for more updates about 1,001 Stories in the months to come. I have 700+ audio stories from the last three years to share… still working on format, but a podcast might be bubbling on the back-burner.

xo from Stockholm,

Send me on my way

LET THE ADVENTURES BEGIN!

2.5 months around the 🌎  for climate / water stories (of course), starting now:

Montpelier –> Montreal –> Chengdu –> Beijing –> Copenhagen –> Stockholm –> Chicago –> Boston

Goals for this trip:

• Record water / climate change stories in each place
• Learn whatever it is that the journey has to teach me
• Get more comfortable taking portrait photographs

I bought a used DSLR camera & I’m learning my way around the different settings / breaking through the shyness that I have of photographing people.

This is my friend Cora Brooks in Montpelier, VT. She writes poems and taught me how to bake bread.

We met 5-ish years ago through the archives at the Schlesinger Library, where I was doing a research project on poets who have their papers archived there.

I started alphabetically by last name, elbow deep in grey boxes and filing folders. After a few weeks I realized that Cora was still alive (most people donate their papers only after they’ve passed).

I wrote her a letter. She wrote back. We’ve been writing each other letters ever since.

I’ve visited Cora in Montpelier a few times over the years, and every visit is a new kind of magic. Today we walked to town and ate beetroot and orange gelato.

Cora teaches me how to enjoy slowness. Her home is full of words. She has a cat whose name changes every time I visit. Last time he was Zebra Tattoo. Today he is Barcelona.

Here’s to intergenerational friendships.

—

Stay tuned for more. I’m looking forward to updating you all from the road.

xo,
D

Collaborations are the Best

Back in February I met Rosie Summers and some of her Leeds College of Art classmates at a Greenpeace Leeds meeting in the UK.

They asked if they could animate one of the water / climate change stories that I recorded. They chose a story from Noelline Gillies, a woman in her 80s from Omarama, New Zealand who I recorded in 2015.

Here’s a trailer of the result.

I am so, so happy with their work! Enjoy.

—

Stories are Doors

القصص أبواب = stories are doors 

The first word I learned on my first day of Arabic class was الأمم المتحدة, the United Nations.

Five years later, I walked inside COP22 in Marrakech, the U.N. talks on climate change, trailing red Moroccan mud on my shoes.

After passing through airport-esque security (no, my shotgun microphone is not a weapon; no, I’m not concealing anything in my hair), I waited in line for my accreditation badge to be printed. I stood behind a delegation from Sudan and an ambassador from the World Bank. The World Bank man liked our green shirts printed with the words “Climate Justice Storyteller” across the front.

I studied Modern Standard Arabic for four years (2009-2013). Save for layovers* in Doha and in Abu Dhabi, I had never set foot in the Middle East before attending COP22 this November.

*Airports don’t count, right? But they are beautiful intersection points. See Naomi Shihab Nye:

Harvard students who take Arabic fall into neat categories: the vast majority who want to work for the State Department or the CIA; aspiring business leaders; the ROTC guy who occasionally came to class in uniform; and a poet obsessed with words (*points at self*). Our vocabulary lessons were skewed accordingly. It was two years before I learned how to ask to use the toilet. Official state functions were deemed more important.

In Morocco, my Modern Standard Arabic was woefully useless. I could introduce myself politely and barter for a taxi or a handful of oranges, but not much beyond that. The dialect spoken in المغرب diverges sharply from the formal stuff I learned in class. If I spent a few more months focusing on immersion, I could probably pick it up. Living breathing languages are beautiful for their twists and turns, but COP was about something else.

One thing I love about learning languages is that it teaches me to be a better resident of my own tongue. I’ll never be done learning Arabic, or English (!) for that matter.

Language is an approximation, always. The words that describe the thing (round, asinine, plastic, vertigo) can never BE the thing. Ceci n’est pas justice climatique. 

I’m most interested in the ways that stories (and poems) become doors, portals through which we access experience that is outside of what we would have come across otherwise.

I remember the first poem I ever read: “Zinnias” by Valerie Worth

Zinnias
by Valerie Worth

Zinnias, stout and stiff,
Stand no nonsense: their colors
Stare, their leaves
Grow straight out, their petals
Jut like clipped cardboard,
Round, in neat flat rings.

Even cut and bunched
Arranged to please us
In the house, in the water, they
Will hardly wilt– I know
Someone like zinnias: I wish
I were like zinnias.

That poem, for me, was a door. I had never seen a zinnia before, but I felt like I could feel the flower’s texture. I wanted to be “stout and stiff”––as if looking at a flower could make me more confident, more alive. It wowed me (and still does) that words could do that.

How can the climate movement harness the power of a poem? How can we be “like zinnias” and “stand no nonsense”? Where do stories come into play?

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A group of 13 storytellers from as far afield as Utah and Hawaii joined together to find out. We were selected as part of a Storytelling Challenge run by SustainUS.

Hundreds of people applied. I had my second round interview when I was super-sick, an amoeba wreaking havoc inside my intestines in Cambodia. I must have said something semi-coherent, though.

It was a privilege and an honor to receive the call from Morgan Curtis on July 4th: “Will you join the delegation?”

I said yes.

SustainUS Climate Justice Storytellers at COP22

Fun fact: I met Morgan Curtis through this blog! She wrote to me about a year and a half ago asking for tips for her bike trip to Paris for COP21, which resulted in this post. And on Monday we’re meeting up for vegan pies in Oxford. LOOK OUT, WORLD.

In the months before November, the SustainUS delegation had weekly Google Hangout calls to work out travel logistics and figure out how we wanted to show up together inside the U.N space.

At a retreat in Oakland, California, we gathered to do a version of Joanna Macy‘s Work that Reconnects and to practice the basics of Nonviolent Communication, a method that involves listening without the intention of responding. Instead, I learned how to listen for needs.

It is a huge privilege to have access to the U.N. space, even as an observer. I wanted to honor the stories of climate change that need to be told; the voices that weren’t present inside the tents of COP22 because they were not allowed access, or the voices that, even present, were systematically silenced within. Why don’t indigenous nations, for example, have a seat at the negotiation tables as sovereign nations? Tribal sovereignty and environmental justice / climate issues go hand in hand.

I view my purpose as one of amplification.

I spent the eve of COP22 on a rooftop with local activists talking solidarity across movements. Stories = fuel.

Earlier that I day I attended COY, the Conference of Youth that proceeds the Conference of the Parties (COP) each year. I stopped in at Green School Bali‘s booth, a storytelling space inspired by this episode of This American Life where a Japanese man uses an old phone booth on top of a hill to communicate with the dead. Inside the Green School booth, you could sit down and tell your own story of climate change. The personal is political is ecological.

November 9, 2016: we are mourning, we are taking action

And while we listened, the world changed. My country elected a climate denier / sexist / homophobe for president. OH JOY.

The day after, SustainUS gathered with international youth climate activists outside COP22 to mourn the election results. The president elect isn’t going to do shit for the planet, so it’s up to the people. We sang. We stood in solidarity with youth climate activists from around the world.

If I had to be in this struggle, there’s no other youth activists I would rather be in it with. Our work starts now. The next four years are critical to take action to limit catastrophic climate change.

I am inspired by how this group shows up, together, in the face of systems of oppression and extraction that feel so heartless.

prayer circle for Standing Rock held outside COP22

We brought human stories to the UN. We listened.

There’s no other group of people I’d rather be facing the climate crisis with. Now the real work begins.

At the midpoint of the conference, I marched in Morocco’s first climate march with thousands of other activists.

“People change not climate change. System change not climate change. Today, today, before tomorrow.”

Local activists marched alongside the international community. In their eyes, the Moroccan regime used COP22 to greenwash its crimes. SustainUS stands in solidarity with local Moroccan activists fighting against an oppressive regime that values profits over people #300kmsouth.

I traveled to COP22 not because I believe that the U.N. can solve all the worlds problems, but for stories. I believe that storytelling, listening, and amplifying voices can be tools for social change.

Manari Kaji Ushigua Santi, President of the Sapara Nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon, took the time to talk with me about climate change:

“We have to get to know ourselves again – who are we? We are part of a chain of life in this earth. We are not a being more important than all other beings. No. Where do energies come from? From the sky and from the earth. We don’t want people to exploit all these natural resources. Each resource: petroleum, gold, uranium, copper – all of those have life. They are elements that help us balance with the sky and with the earth, so that the earth sustains itself. What happens if we exploit all those resources? The world starts to dance.”

Since the end of COP22, I’m thinking more about the dancing world. The unsteady world. The world in which I will grow old.

(P.S. For an awesome book about dance, check out Swing Time by Zadie Smith. I’m in the middle of it now and the way she writes about movement is stunning.)

How will people look back at this time: the age of screens? The age of environmental indifference? The age when we stood by and let destruction happen––the destruction of species, of the oceans, the Arctic, our coastlines?

Stories are the doors I build and walk through.

How can we tell the stories of the climate justice movement so that it brings in more people than it shuts out? COP, for example, has an old white man problem. I’ll be writing more about this soon.

I want to move through and move beyond closed doors and into new doors. Old doors. Doors where I dismantle the hinges, piece by piece. Doors I ram through and slam my body against, day after day. Doors I repair. Doors where I have no idea what’s waiting on the other side.

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Hungry for more? Here are a few door-like essays that I wrote during COP22:

Truthout: “From Standing Rock to Morocco: Indigenous Protesters Act in Solidarity Against Corporate Polluters”

Earth to Marrakech: “Meet Andy Costa, a Cycling Activist from Cote D’Ivoire”

Everyday Feminism: “Five Alarming Ways that Climate Change is Racist”

Earth to Marrakech: “Indigenous Leaders at COP22 Stand in Solidarity with Standing Rock”

Pacific Standard: “How Youth Delegates at COP22 are Mobilizing Ahead of a Trump Presidency”

Sierra Magazine: “Dispatches from a Youth Delegate at COP22”

(If you’re wondering to yourself––how can I keep this little storytelling boat afloat?––pop on over to my Patreon page. Any and all support is much appreciated. Plus you’ll get access to cool stuff like 1x poem every month written by yours truly.)

Until next time,

Imlil, Morocco; mountain dance

Poetry & Honey – upcoming event!

BOSTON-AREA FRIENDS:

On Friday Aug 19th at 7pm I’ll be reading poems at Follow The Honey (1132 Mass Ave) in Cambridge, MA. Stick around after for a wine tasting with Proud Pour!

Here’s the Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/319270138414558

The event is free. I’m making a whole bunch of handmade poetry chapbooks that will be for sale in exchange for any donation — all funds will help me attend the UN climate talks in Morocco this November as a youth delegate with SustainUS.

More updates to come! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Here’s the full event description:

 

Poetry and honey together (and perhaps a spot of wine)?!?! OH YES.

Kick off National Honey Day events with a poetry reading by Devi Lockwood at Follow the Honey in Cambridge, MA. Stick around after for a wine tasting with Proud Pour.

Devi Lockwood is a poet / touring cyclist / storyteller from Boston. For the last two years she has been traveling the world by bicycle and by boat to collect 1,001 stories from people she meets about water and climate change.

Her journey began with the September 21, 2014 People’s Climate March in NYC. To date she has collected over 500 stories (audio recordings) in the USA, Fiji, Tuvalu, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Qatar. She is working to create a map on a website where you can click on a point and listen to a story someone has told her from that place.

Devi’s writing has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Bicycling Magazine, Storyscape, BOAAT, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere — for a full publication list, see: devi-lockwood.com/read-listen.

Devi is currently based in New Hampshire and will attend the November 2016 COP22 UN climate talks in Morocco as a youth delegate for SustainUS.

The reading is free. Handmade poetry chapbooks will be for sale at the event, with some old poems and some recent poems from the journey. Price is a sliding scale — whatever you can afford! Bring cash / spare change.

All funds raised will help Devi attend COP22, the UN climate talks in Morocco.

At the end of the event, Brian Thurber, the founder of Proud Pour, will be sampling his wine.

Proud Pour pairs high-quality wines with local environmental restoration. Proud Pour’s Sauvignon Blanc restores 100 wild oysters per bottle. Delicious + sustainable.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

website: devi-lockwood.com
blog: onebikeoneyear.wordpress.com

“The Power of Slow”

Hey, world! I have an essay in the September 2016 print edition of Bicycling magazine about the power of slow cycling.

You can read the essay online here: http://www.bicycling.com/rides/adventure/the-power-of-slow

…

…

In listening, I give the whole of myself—my ears, my heart—to a storyteller. In cycling, I give the whole of myself—my body, my spirit—to a place. I move through the landscape and the landscape moves through me. Slowness has become part of my daily practice.

Check it out!

http://www.bicycling.com/rides/adventure/the-power-of-slow

Arohanui,

Devi

Yours Truly on the TV

A few months ago I did an interview with NationTV 22 in Bangkok for the show Mong Rao Mong Lok / มองเรามองโลก.

zooming

me & Veenarat Laohapakakul, who asks wonderful questions

Here’s the full show that aired this weekend in Thailand –– it’s in Thai, but the interview is in English with subtitles! Hope you enjoy:

On Spirituality & Social Justice

“How can I help? What power do we have to overthrow an exploitative system? Am I enough?” 

I have a long-form article out today in Anchor Issue 05, published by Still Harbor — check it out!

You can view the article here: http://view.publitas.com/still-harbor-anchor/anchor_issue-05/page/56 

And the whole issue here: http://stillharbor.org/anchor-magazine/#anchor-online 

Big love for the space that Anchor provides for conversations at the intersection of spirituality and social justice.

 

Climate Action Day Workshops

Last week I had the pleasure of Skyping in to Exeter, New Hampshire for two back-to-back sessions at Phillips Exeter Academy‘s Climate Action Day. This is the second year that PEA has held the event. Last year’s main speaker was Bill McKibben.

Phillips Exeter Academy (via Facebook)

On Climate Action Day, Exeter takes a break from the normal class schedule to hold a series of workshops on environmental and sustainability issues. This year, workshops included an audit of trash and recycling, tours of the Academy woods and power plant, work building a rain garden, an in-depth look at the Flint, MI water crisis, and a talk by yours truly over Skype.

Exeter generously offered to fly me in from New Zealand to give the talk in person, but I’m doing by best to reduce my environmental footprint. Avoiding flying is one huge way I can cut down on that. (You can calculate your own environmental footprint here.)

My Climate Action Day event description

I structured the talk in three parts. For the first 45 minutes, I told my story: how I went from Exeter to Harvard to cycling around the world. I talked in depth about my trip down the Mississippi River Trail in August 2013, my love for Anna Deavere Smith’s work, and what it’s like to hitch rides on boats in the South Pacific.

So far I have traveled and collected stories about water and climate change in the USA, Fiji, Tuvalu, New Zealand, and Australia. In mid-May 2016, I will arrive in Bangkok and start cycling and collecting stories in Southeast Asia.

 

August 2013, the end of my first solo bike trip down the Mississippi River Trail — the time I fell in love with collecting stories on two wheels

Harvard Graduation, May 2014: poet takes on the world

July 2015: in which I cycle up the east coast of Australia

October 2015: adventures in cargo ship travel across the Tasman Sea

After telling my story, I asked the audience to divide into pairs and match with someone they have never had a conversation with before.

The prompt: ask that person to tell you a story about water, a story about climate change, or whatever else might be on their mind. I asked the students to focus on eye contact, rhythm, and depth of focus (all topics touched on in the My Story part of the talk).

After a short time, the roles switched and the storyteller would become the storylistener.

I asked the students to thank their partners for sharing their story, because gratitude is important. Every story is a gift.

Then, I asked the pairs to brainstorm an answer to the question: How can I re-tell the story that I just heard in the most powerful and respectful way?  

I wish I could have been there in person to walk around the space and listen. From my corner of the planet, it sounded like many wonderful conversations were happening at once.

We ended with 15 minutes of Q&A.

The students’ questions floored me:

“What do you plan to do with all of your stories?” “Where do you see yourself after the end of this journey?” “How do you cope with other peoples’ fears?”

All beautiful questions––thoughtful ones.

“What is a story?” one student asked. “How would you define story?”

Here is my best answer:

Storytelling is a way of communicating individual or group identity in real time. Stories are sticky, in that they are easy to transfer between people, and a well-communicated story has the power to stay around long after the original storytelling event. 

Not all stories are told. Some are danced, some are written, and others are transformed into various works of art. I like that the definition above is broad enough to encompass many different forms of storytelling.

That said, it is by no means the only answer to the question. Stories have as many forms as the people who tell them. The most beautiful questions have many answers, I think.

It was an absolute joy to give a talk at Exeter, and I hope that I can return to campus to say hello in person once I am back in North America.

Do you like the sound of the above & want to have me to speak at your campus / company / event?

I am available to give similar talks anywhere in the world via Skype, so long as I have an internet connection. You can learn more here: devi-lockwood.com/speaking-engagements

Arohanui = big love,
Devi