Hopepunk as a genre is still struggling to be born. It’s popping up in books like Becky Chambers’ Psalm for the Wild-Built, TV series like the third season of Star Trek: Discovery, and movies like Free Guy. In retrospect, I’ve been writing hopepunk for many years, but it was only in 2017 that I started writing it in an intentional… Read More

Do I start now or wait until the apocalypse is over? You know what makes me laugh? And by “laugh” I mean “chuckle knowingly but shake my head.” The idea that being hopeful is naive, childish, starry-eyed, PollyAnn-ish, or whatever disparaging term you use to tear down someone who dares to do something you’re too afraid to do. This makes… Read More

We have a very tangled relationship with hope. It’s like hot ex-lover we can’t quit. We deny we have it or even want it—we’re too cool for that! But we desperately, ardently do, and when there’s even a flicker of it, we leap up, hearts aflame, ready to tumble into love again because it just feels so good. Then we… Read More

Oh, how vulnerability terrifies us. And writing something called “hopepunk” opens you up wide to all the criticisms society lobs to keep us from hoping for better, daring to change, and worst of all, organizing collectively to make a difference in the world. “That will never change.”“It’s hopeless.”“You’re silly/foolish/naive to think anything like that could work.”“Work together? Have you met… Read More

It’s a testament to the hard reality of the last couple years that you could write a blog post titled, Writing in the Time of Insanity, and literally not know WHICH YEAR you were referring to. 2020, when SARS-COVID-19 shook the world to a standstill? 2021, when we had an armed insurrection at the Capitol? And a vaccine for the… Read More