Celebrating Art, Photography, & Creative Writing: TCT's 6th Issue

The Changing Times Editor Meg Smith was the first person to see our latest issue in print!

Our editorial team met last spring to discuss our plans for the summer issue. After our discussion, we decided that we wanted to create an art-only issue. Though we have always celebrated the artist's response to the climate crisis, in this issue we wanted to specifically feature these voices and give more writers, artists, and photographers the chance to share their stories of the climate crisis. 

We all have climate stories, we just need to share them

Ahead of the release, we asked our followers and readers to share their experiences with the outside world using #TCTGetOutside on social media. We received pictures from Montana, but also New York and Georgia and Mexico, highlighting the unique ways all of us engage with the world. Photos from this campaign are scattered throughout the magazine, a reminder that we can find beauty and solace anywhere from a national park to a front yard flower bed. In her editor’s letter, Meg Smith celebrated the creator in all of us: 

With a distinctly artistic focus, these contributors present the more-than-human world, this changing climate through individual lenses. They create a dynamic compilation of experience. They tell their own story and create a larger one. 

Ultimately that larger story, the one where each of our unique, creative voices, outpourings, and souls combine and collide—that’s the story that makes us all feel a part of something. That is what is so much more. To feel part of that collective unfolding, that collective energetic space—something more than ourselves—reminds us what we’re working towards and why sharing these stories matters so much.    

Each of our contributors gave voice to how we all can connect with the world around us, foster community with the more-than-human world, and then use that as a catalyst for climate action. Storytelling and building community around climate change creates space for all of us to connect and process our anxiety and grief, as well as our dreams and hope. We’ve always envisioned The Changing Times as a place for all of this internal work to have a home. When we share our stories we grow closer. When we share our stories, the climate crisis is no longer out there somewhere. It’s here with us where we can see it and confront it. 

In the thick of it: climate storytelling during crisis 

Robertson Draw Fire Outside Red Loge, MT.
June 15, 2021. Photograph by Craig Collar.

Robertson Draw Fire Outside Red Loge, MT.
June 15, 2021. Photograph by Craig Collar.

We were near-finished with the issue. The final draft was in in-boxes. We were all abuzz with excitement at printing and wrapping up this sixth issue. Then, we realized there was a story we had omitted from this issue and desperately needed to address—wildfires. This summer has been smoky in Montana, more smoky than it has been in recent years. We’ve canceled and rescheduled events due to smoke. We’ve read up all we can about how to stay safe during this season. No matter what we do, though, we know that climate change fueled wildfires are part of our summer now. These wildfires make the climate crisis real and local to all of us, taking something that may be easy (for some) to ignore and bringing the reality to our homes and, more intimately, our bodies. This truth urges us all to act. 

In realizing that we made a glaring omission by not including mention of the wildfires, we made revisions to the magazine and added a feature, complete with stunning photography by Craig Collar (see photos above). His photographs of the Robertson Draw Fire tell the story of what climate change is doing to our community and our state. Storytelling during the climate crisis means understanding what’s going on and processing those events and emotions through words, art, and photography. We’re always in the thick of it, so we need to keep creating. 

Read The Changing Times: Summer 2021 

Issue 6 of The Changing Times is now released on our website for free! We are so thrilled to share this stunning issue with you. 

While the website is always free online, we do have a number of subscription options if you are interested in supporting the magazine, getting a hard copy, or both! 

Get involved in future issues 

Interested in getting involved in future issues? Reach out to us at magazine@livableclimate.org to pitch your idea for an article or column. 

Already have something written? Submit it to us using our online submission form. 

We are accepting submissions for the Fall 2021 issue until September 26.