Along with Kate Grenville, Steve Carroll and other writers, I've been invited to speak at Melbourne University climate and ideas fest on 20 June. Our topic is how writers might respond to the rapid changes posed by global warming.
As a writer of what is sometimes described as pulp fiction, I have a vested interest in the future of the environment. No forests, no pulp. More pulp, less forests. It's a real puzzler. They tell me the session is booking out rapidly, I'm having deep thinkies in the lead-up to my peroration.
Overall, I think global warming presents terrific opportunities for writers. For example, we can invent arguments that it isn't happening. Anything we write along these lines will find a ready market at The Australian. In the field of crime fiction, many new methods of murder will become available. I myself am exploring ways in which the victim can be done to death with a melting glacier. Is the red herring under threat of extinction? Did the polar bear do it?