WEBVTT
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She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, she
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is true, is true, she is brave, she is she
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is you, she is you, is you, she is sure,
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she is true, she is strong. She is strong, she
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is true, is true, she is brave, is bray, she
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is she is you.
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Hello, everyone, welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here
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on the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host,
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Dori Di Carlo, and you know we are here week
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after week, show after show, breaking those myths that morepreneurs
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and business women, especially those of us building our businesses
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from home, that we're just dabbling in between bake sales
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and getting our nails done. We're not. We are smart,
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we are savvy, and we are sharing the wisdom of
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women in business and in life. And I'm looking forward
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to bringing today's guest into the author's Alley. Australian New
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Zealand or War winning children's author Laurel Kolus is a
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literary comparatist by education, but spent twenty five years working
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in sustainable business and journalism across Asia, the US and
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Europe before coming back to writing. She is the founder
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of the Carbon Busters Club, a kid's climate science program
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that combines storytelling with science education. In twenty thirteen, Laurel
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became an al Gore climate reality leader. Through storytelling, her
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aim is to entertain children with page turning thrillers while
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empowering them to take the lead on big world problems
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like climate change, extreme weather, and plastic pollution. And I
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can go into more and more, but I'd much rather
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bring Laurel in and share her journey. So with that
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being said, Laurel, welcome to Word of Mom Radio.
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Thank you so much, and thank you for having me
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and for that introduction. I really appreciate. I'm happy to
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be here.
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My pleasure. So I would love for you to take
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us on your journey going through the sustainable business practices
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and journalism and everything else that led you to now
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becoming an author.
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So twenty five years, yes, working in business on four
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continents and working in the grown up world, I reached
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a sort of point of crisis or a point of
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inflection about ten years ago, where would I have to say.
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I was working in Washington, DC, and I was working
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on quite a big project at Virginia Tech, and I
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was working with the grownups, and I was getting more
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and more frustrated with the speed at which things were happening.
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And of course I understand for adults working in business,
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we have short term financial concerns always to consider, and
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I think we very often sacrifice long term environmental goals
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that make good business sense for the short term. So
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I was working on a project which was urgent addressing
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energy efficiency and buildings around climate change with climate technologies
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from Virginia Tech, and I was reaching a point where
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people were renegging on promises, dragging their feet, you know,
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not taking action. And I started to think, we don't
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have time for this. Maybe I should be looking more
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to the younger, upcoming generation. I'd already already had sort
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of a grounding in literature and I had just started
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getting going so with storytelling, and I started to think
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I was going to jump into something different, but it
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was actually I don't think I would have made this
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jump if I hadn't had this kind of slightly woo
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woo experience as something that's never happened to me before
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and hasn't happened since. And I wonder if I can
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tell about that.
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By allies yeah experience, Yeah I do too. It's a
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great thing.
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But it was in Washington, d C. It was already
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ten years ago. So my husband then was he's retired now,
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but he was an foreign ambassador in Washington representing Finland,
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and I had a full time job. We had two kids,
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We had a lot of entertainment. It was during Obama's
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first term, so going back a little while while now,
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so I was exhausted and I called in a massage,
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which was very you know, I decided to treat myself
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and get a massage, and the woman actually came to
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the house. Her name was Heather, and she opened up
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her the massage table and I was so happy to
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crawl onto it. And she said to me, now, before
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I start, we're just doing a regular deep tissue massage.
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But before I start, I just want to tell you
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that every now and then when i'm massaging people, stuff
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comes up. And she said, I'm not a psychic, and
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I'm not trying to present myself as a psychic, but
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if I get anything, should I tell you. I'm like,
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are you kidding mere? Of course, please tell me if
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you get something, she said, you know, sometimes it's just
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psychic information, all the things that maybe you might want
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to know. So we were halfway through the massage and
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I remember this so vividly because she was massage in
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the back of my leg, on my calf muscles, and
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she said, Okay, I'm getting something, and it's quite big.
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I mean, at first I thought I was talking about
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my legs, but she said, I'm getting something that you're
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writing something. And I said, oh, yeah, but not seriously.
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You know, she said, for children, right, and I said, yeah,
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but it's not you know, I have a day job
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and I've got so much going on. She said, you
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have to do this. She said, I'm getting that. You
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really have to do this, and it's going to change
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your life. It's going to be a really big thing.
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It's going to be really successful. This is a woman
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I've never met. I met her like thirty five minutes earlier,
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and so by now I'm sitting up and putting on
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my robe and I'm saying, but I haven't told anyone
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about those stories. Had not my husband, not my children,
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none of my friends, which meant that, you know, I
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couldn't just pass it off as oh, you know, you're
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just You've got this from somewhere. And so she said yeah.
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She had tears in her eyes and she said, I
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can see She said everyone's telling you to do it.
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And I said, who's everyone. She said, your guides, they're
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all in the room here. She said, I can see
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an angel on top of your head. I mean, I
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don't know, I'll never know, but you know, she said,
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you have to do this, and so of course I
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didn't start on it right away, but I did. Eventually
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we moved from Washington and I started concentrating on kids
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and on ecoscience, and I you know, the storytelling, I
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found was always the best way to get kids interested,
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to get them curious. We were talking about this earlier
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and Doric kids need to be interested if they're going
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to learn, not bored. So the storytelling was sort of
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the way to start talking about this stuff. And the novels.
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So I'm now on my fourth novel. They're selling all
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around the world, and i'm writing my fifth. Actually i've
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just launched my fourth, which is what i'd love to
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do a shout out about today. Maybe later, But yeah,
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I think there's been times over the last ten years
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where I've thought where I've been failing, as you know,
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or I just haven't been selling books, or it's just
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been too hard, and I've said I think I would
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have definitely quit if it hadn't been for this one
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kind of mystical experience, which I still my mind goes
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back to all the time that somehow I couldn't see anyone.
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I don't know, she might have just been messing with me.
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But anyway, here I am ten years later and I'm
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doing it.
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I think that's awesome and good for you that you
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took that aha moment and really went for it with
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your books. You have that mission of raising awareness about
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the climate crisis and pollution and things like that, and
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you decided to do it through fantasy fiction. So how
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have you balanced those two elements, the fantasy with the facts.
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Yeah, that's a really fair question, because I am doing
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fantasy fiction. Well, when I say, the official genre is
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called realistic science fantasy fiction, but you know that's a mouthful,
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But basically I had to figure out because you know,
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climate change, extreme weather, plastic pollution, these are real of
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these are real urgent problems, right, So it's not the
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world of fantasy we're talking about. So how do you
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depict these in a novel for children in a way
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that speaks truth but also is also accessible to them?
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And I decided the only way really to do that
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was to approach it through the imagination. So for nine
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to twelve year olds, I mean, there is a scary stuff,
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you know, deforestation. I remember my kids trying themselves to
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sleep when they heard at school about the Amazon rainforest
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areas the size of twenty football fields being fell in
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half an hour, and different things, you know, extreme weather, floods, wildfires,
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you know, people losing their homes. This is real stuff
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and it's quite scary for kids. So what I decided
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was I knew that, and I had some time to
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think about it. I was working with these science education
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clubs that I started in Greece, and I knew climate
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change would have to be the villain. But how do
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I make it a villain in a way that's compelling
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and fair? And you know, there are many ways that
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we can tell the truth to children, and I think
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that fantasy is just sort of another way of approaching,
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you know, the truth about how we treat each other,
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how we treat the world. I did Saloman Rushdi, the
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famous author some of your audience probably are aware of him.
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I did his master class because I needed to get
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back to sort of learning how to write again and
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I still remember vividly one of the things he said
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when he was talking about what kind of story are
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you going to tell? And how is the best way
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to tell it? I mean, just because I'm modeling now
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the stories. So in my books, I want my children
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in the books, the characters. I want them to feel
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like they're in a world that's a lot like our world.
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But I've got this fantastical overlay which is representative of
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climate change in the extreme weather. What I had to
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do was create a monster. So I've created a monster,
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sort of demon class, warrior class, a pantheon of monsters.
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I was living in Greece. I called them anthrogs. I
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took the word anthropost, which comes from the generic Greek
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word for humankind, and I put it together with hog
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as no offense to pigs, but as a sort of
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symbol of over consumption and greediness and the way we
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use and take more than we need. So these anthrogs
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were born. And I got this kind of verification from
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Salman Rushti when he said, sometimes the truth doesn't have
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to sort of come dressed up as facts. It can
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come even on a flying carpet. And he said, you know,
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if you're writing a little book about a boy with
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a lamp, Sometimes you need a flying carpet. So I
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was writing a book about kids in an eco school.
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They come from everywhere. It's the top secret school for
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the most ecodemic kids of the world. So it's this
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secret away school, and I wanted these kids to have
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to face up to these monsters. I wanted monsters that
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were smart, that would you know, they'd have to fight them,
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and they'd have to find ways to come up against them.
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So these monsters are kind of like my flying carpet,
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if that makes sense. I've kind of scuttered around your
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question a bit, but basically I created a monster which
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is berthed out of garbage dumps or berthed out of landfill.
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The current book that I've just launched, it's actually a
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levi And style of monster that grew up in the
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bottom of the sea and was birthed from microplastics. So
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that's a blind monster that comes from the dark depths
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of the sea, and the kid's face up to it
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in very interesting and compelling ways. So, yeah, fantasy fiction.
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But when people say, oh, so you're world building, I
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say I'm not world building. When I build the world
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of my stories. All I have to do is look
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out the window, or read the newspaper or read the
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IPCC report on climate and I've got my world. But
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I've got this fictional overlay, fantastical overlay that helps bring
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it all to life and maybe helps ignite the imagination
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of the readers.
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On that note, I think of what Laurrel just said.
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We're going to take a quick break, say thank you
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to our sponsors, and we'll be back here in just
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a moment. On Word of Mom Radio.
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She is brave, she is bold, she is you, and
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we want to tell your story. Are you ready to
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share your journey with us on Word of Mom Radio?
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Go to wordomomradio dot com and register as a guest.
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We want to tell your story because when you win,
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we all win.
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