Introducing Chasing Paradise: A Hitchhiker’s Search for Home in a World At War With Itself
"...original in tone - droll, serious, and loving, of the world, and its wacky and wonderful people - and expansive in subject matter."
Posts by Chris Benjamin
Mar 17
My Interview at NFReads
Tony Earnes of NFReads.com kindly invited me to participate in an author interview, something of a Proust questionnaire, rapid fire. Fun questions and I hope you enjoy the answers.
The Scales Project
The wonderful Bethany Gibson recently honoured me with an invitation to contribute something literary to her online art project, The Scales Project, “a conversation between artists … a call-and-response, a provocation, and a forum for connection and communication through art about the climate crisis and ecological collapse.” Going through the posts from other artists, I was blown away by the quality of the work, the depth of thought and insight, and the emotional power of the conversations.
I contributed two pieces. One, “Blank Vision Board,” is an excerpt from a short story called “Mulch Glue,” about a teenaged aspiring activist who finds little support in town, where the toxic mill has economic control. The other, “Terrible Twos,” a response to Tom Cull’s excellent poem, “Anthropocene,” is about frivolity and being confronted with the knowledge of its destructiveness. At least, that’s how I read it.
If you’re an artist with something to say about climate and ecology, consider submitting something to the conversation.
The ReCover Initiative
ReImagining the Energy Efficient Building. ReBuilding a Sustainable Economy
This story first appeared in The Laker News on November 19,2020.
BERWICK: Lorrie Rand remembers two pivotal moments leading to the creation of the ReCover Initiative, which aims to reimagine energy-efficient buildings in Nova Scotia. The first was in 2013, at a passive-house conference in Maine, where she was learning how to use smart design to build a house that uses 80 to 90 percent less energy. She attended a presentation about a program in the Netherlands that had successfully retrofitted thousands of homes to become net-zero—meaning they generate as much energy as they use for heating, hot water and electrical—at no extra cost to homeowners.
“I was like, ‘oh my gosh this is what we need!’” Rand recalls.
