Fictionally Factual With Author Katherine Risse
(A ‘behind the scenes’ look into the making of INLAND – her newly released Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction novel)
I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up on the outskirts of the city, in the town of Brookline. Although I’ve always identified as a New Englander, I’m drawn to Florida. As a child, I spent summers at my grandparents’ beach house on the Gulf Coast, along a central stretch of the Florida Panhandle—part of which is still referred to as the Forgotten Coast.
The smokey smells of pine tar and beach bay, the continual background pulse of crashing waves, fresh fish and tupelo honey, bright sunny days and slate-gray storm clouds, a clear turquoise-jade shore with expansive rolling sugar-white dunes, are seared into my memories.
In the last ten years, I’ve driven from the Panhandle to Boston numerous times. And I’ve
seen a lot of weather: rising water and flooding, excessive heat, tornadoes and the damage from the category 5 Hurricane Michael, which made landfall in 2018, obliterating neighbors’ houses and animal habitats on the barrier island where I spend time with my family. This got me thinking about the what ifs…. Melting glaciers, rising sea, heat waves, and warming ocean temperatures driven by human generated fossil fuels.
I imagined these changes colluding in a perfect catastrophe. When you spend time on an island that can only be reached by boat, inevitably there are times when you either cannot reach the island or, if you are there, you cannot leave. This happened to me a handful of times when I had young children who, for whatever reason, had remained on the mainland. A one- or two-day delay seemed okay. But once I got to three days and could not get off island, nor could anyone tell me when I might cross, I felt helpless and a little claustrophobic.
Linking these feelings to the climate scenario, I wondered: what if a mother was separated from her family as the water breached the banks of the entire Eastern Seaboard, spilling up through inland watersheds, initiating the collapse of communities, infrastructure and resources, pushing people Inland, searching for ways to adapt and survive?
Here’s a peek at INLAND:
Inland is a harrowing account of separation and resilience as two families struggle to reunite after the Eastern Seaboard succumbs to catastrophic flooding. Trapped in the rapid floodwaters, Juliet and Martin search for a viable way back to Boston while their children face their own challenges for survival in the rising seas. This intense tale of endurance and hope examines the human connection and the unpredictable role of technology in a warming world.
