Elijah Valerjev đ¤ Mariana Castro AzpĂroz: A Conversation on Writing + Crafting Climate Futures
Interview by Laken Sylvander
Note from the interviewer:
I am delighted to share this insightful dialogue between two young climate storytellers. Elijah and Mariana hold critical perspectives on what is required of visionary work like theirs today, and it was exciting to see the synergy in process and practice play out between storytellers across our first and second cohorts of the Climate Storytelling 2075 program. Together throughout this discussion, they push back on singular narratives of how we might âget it right,â centering multitudes, empathy, and an insistence on approachability in their work. I am honored to have held space with them in this dialogue, and offer their thoughts to readers with humble gratitude.
Elijah Valerjev (he/him) is a graduate of UC Davis, where he earned his degree in Molecular and Medical Microbiology. Elijahâs passion for both science and creative writing led him to explore the intersection of these fields, using science as a structured path to channel his creativity.
With a strong interest in promoting equity in science, Elijah is dedicated to making complex scientific concepts accessible to a general audience. He believes it is essential for younger generations to see individuals who look like them in prestigious fields like science, as this representation can inspire and empower them.
Elijah aspires to work as a creative writer while traveling for research. Outside of his professional and academic pursuits, he enjoys practicing Spanish, baking, and boxing. Though born in the United States, Elijah is the child of immigrant parents and shares Latin ancestry, making him uniquely connected to multiple identities.
Elijah Valerjev (EV): âI want to eventually be living off of my writing. Climate Storytelling 2075 was a great opportunity to actually explore that, because I was given resources like working alongside other artists. We were all figuring it out in real time, and I think thatâs what helped me not feel so isolated. Writing is a lot of work alone.
I wrote a short story with Climate Storytelling 2075. âIn Search of Oystersâ is a very meditative and reflective piece on what it would be like to deal with struggles around drug addiction and also finding purpose in a future where carbon capture is working, like an every day part of life. I want the story to confront questions for climate progressiveness - like, what is the actual goal of being a more climate conscious future? And this protagonist thinks through all of that as they're in a submarine voyage collecting materials for carbon capture.â
Mariana Castro AzpĂroz (she/her) graduated with a BSc in Molecular Biology from UAM-C in Mexico City, has a background in science communication, and is currently pursing an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment with a minor in Journalism and Mass Communication at Iowa State University. She is a Research Assistant for the Central Midwest Climate Opportunities & Learning (Co-Learn), a NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnership program, where she uses storytelling strategies to work with with underrepresented groups and co-create knowledge, build climate resilience, and kickstart sustainable projects. She enjoys spending time outdoors in Nature and is interested in analyzing how language shapes our understanding of the world and our relationships with the environment.
Mariana Castro AzpĂroz (MCA): âI got into science because I had amazing biology and math professors in high school. I also had a literature professor in 12th grade who made me discover my love for writing essays. He gave me Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins as a gift. I started to see how you could do that kind of interweavingâthe science with the writing. I actually wrote him a letter at the end of the school year saying, âIf I become a writer, itâs your fault.â
After that, I studied molecular biology. During the pandemic, I wanted to help somehow with my molecular biology background without risking exposing my family to the virus. So I created my own online science communication project, so that I could be a part of spreading health information, rather than misinformation.
I moved on to just doing science communication for various purposes. Then the same literature professor who had given me Unweaving the Rainbow offered me, like, a remote job writing a monthly column on climate change, and I realized that that's what I really liked doing. Thatâs how I landed on this Creative Writing and Environment program at Iowa State University.
My project for Climate Storytelling 2075 is a sort of dictionary, because Iâm interested in how we talk about climate change and how we talk about the environmentâ how language influences the way we see the world, but also how we reflect the way we see the world through language.
Thereâs a section of new terms that Iâm going to come up with to express concepts that I feel are important - values that we would have in 2075 are reflected in these words. Thereâs also a section of reclaimed terms, which is words that already exist in the English language, but I ask: what if we framed them differently? What if we use one of the meanings that are right now obsolete? And finally a section on alternatives that already exist but in different languagesâand we want to bring that into the way that we think in, like, Western views and everything. Iâm weaving those threads together to create the the language of 2075.â
What does it mean to you to âget it rightâ regarding the climate crisis and our collective climate future?
Mariana Castro AzpĂroz (MCA): For me, we need a shift in that way of thinking about the climate crisis. And we can use language. The way we talk about it, the way we frame it, but mainly to make space for different narratives to unfold simultaneously. Thereâs not one right way, but there are multiple ways, and what we need to allow is for that space for many futures to coexist. And thereâs also multiple timescales. This is not a problem: solution, get-it-done-quick-and-weâre-done kind of situation. Itâs an ongoing process. Part of the problem right now is that we want to see the crisis as something weâre going to fix it, and thatâs it - weâre done. Donna Haraway talks about staying with the trouble, and Anna Tsing says that we now live in an unpredictable and more precarious world, and we need to learn to look around rather than ahead.
Climate crisis isnât something that we can escape or something that weâve already lost. A lot of the thinking is framed in a way that could set us up for disaster, because weâre going to feel like weâre doing it wrong, or like weâre losing or something. For me, itâs about having a world thatâs based on attention and on care and on space for many voices.
Elijah Valerjev (EV): I have to agree with what Mariana said. Itâs just too complex of an issue to simplify it to getting it right or wrong, just as you said. For me, when I think of getting it right, I just think of having more empathy overall, for all beings.
What does futurism and speculation offer you in your writing practice?
EV: I actually donât usually write about the future, and the Climate Storytelling 2075 prompt was very new for me. I do spend a lot of time in the future - I can run quite anxious sometimes. I think anxiety comes from just spending a lot of time mentally in the future, just in your own head. I actually do journal about the future a lot, but not exactly in a speculative wayâmore just, like, worrying way. So this writing was a great opportunity, because I got to channel all that energy into something more positive, which I loved, and I want to try to do more of it.
So I wrote about what I thought was cool now - carbon capture, nature-based technologies, and the potential of AI - and where it could be takenâ people or institutions that are striving to do something right and where it could lead to. I think itâs incredibly important to see where creativity lies today, because these creative people who are thinking about how we can do things better allow you to detach from the track of how things are supposed to be. Youâre encouraged to be absolutely creative about how the future can be better.
I love the opportunity to run with those ideas.
MCA: I also live in the future very often, more often than I should in the anxiety type of thing. But I hadn't done speculative writing before either. I found the Climate Storytelling 2075 prompt to be so important to think about the stories that we need to be telling now in order to imagine a desirable future, because I agree that the climate crisis is also a crisis of the imagination. When I read that, I was like, âThat's right, we don't have a story to look at or to hold on to and to say, âYeah, this is what we're going to,ââ that is not the end of the world. We have so many apocalyptic stories, and we don't have one where it turns out okay for everyone.
I was so excited about it, because thinking about alternatives is something that I do generally in my life. I think the only poem that I know by heart is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. My mom introduced me to it because she said when I was in middle school, she always tried to do things a little differently than the way that was expected, and that was something that really resonated with me. I decided to listen and to look at how you can do things differently every time. I have it embedded into my personality of looking into alternative paths. So - why not put all that energy into imagining alternative futures? Thatâs really exciting for me.
In thinking about the futures that youâve been speculating and writing within and through, I'm curious how you've looked to the past in order to inform thatâwhere youâre pulling threads through from history into that future.
Some of that might come through the storytelling lenses that we explore as a cohort - from Afrofuturism to intersectional feminism, Afrofuturism to abolition, etc.
MCA: I frame my work as intersectional feminism, as itâs just part of my identity. Since my work is so focused on language, I'm aware of the baggage that some terms carry. Sometimes I find myself realizing that there's no term for what Iâm looking for, so I'm gonna write because we need a term for this. Itâs that same idea of bringing in different perspectives and making space for different views, and recognizing that there are a lot of systems of oppression.Framing my work this way is about being open to all the ways of being, and allowing space for other beings without polarizing. Polarization is such a great problem. I want the future to be a space for everyone to be different. In high school, I had an ethics professor who told us, like, the definition of tolerance â he was very clear that tolerance is not tolerating the other in the sense of, âOkay, I'm gonna put up with you.â It's about recognizing that the other is different, and acknowledging those differences and embracing them in a sense of empathy and care.
EV: This had me really thinking about what I like to write about, too, and about how this topic of climate change is very charged. How can I write in a way so that people who might already be opposed to climate changeâs existence might still want to read my story? How could I sneak this in thereâand that makes it difficult, but I think it makes it so much more fun. I feel like this is where I get a lot of my creativity from. How can I write in a way where it doesn't seem so obvious that what I'm writing about adheres to a certain side or mantra of thinkingâ figuring out how to be more empathetic, I guess. I used this so much when I was writing my story last cohort.
I was also very conscious of the terms I was using, so that I wasnât obviously preaching. I was looking to write in a way where the protagonist himself was discovering climate optimism on his own. I always come back to this idea of empathy when I'm thinking about how I can shape a story that will also be able to convey my message.
When thinking about how I can bring the past up to the future, I try to focus on what really brings me hope right nowâwhat I connect with, what makes me cry. What is it that I feel so connected to at an empathetic level?
Laken Sylvander (LS): I was thinking a lot about how, Elijah, you ran with a future where, in a technical, climate-solution sense, weâre successfully achieving carbon capture, and that's what your protagonistâs surface-level task is. That doesn't mean that we've created the future we want to live in, necessarily. It just makes it a more survivable future, and your story questions if that gives us a just future. When I talk about your piece, I've often said that this project isn't about a perfect, dreamy future, because I think that your story especially creates a future that's more livable environmentally, but that doesnât inherently mean that humans arenât grappling with addiction, or loss. Your story shows what it would be to transition to an ecologically friendly future without a just transition, which is the social justice required for every human being to have the support and resources they need that your protagonist is not offered and is, in fact, pushed into a climate solution without any of that justice. Your story unlocks more and more doors in my head as time goes on. I really appreciate the deep humanity of your work.
EV: Thank you. I really value that a lot.That makes me think so much about what Mariana was saying too, with âgetting it rightâ isnât just finding the solve.Often, being more climate conscious is inaccessible to so many people as well âsuch as renewable energy being so costly.
Where do you draw inspiration from today that weaves its way into your futurism?
MCA: I love Robin Wall Kimmerer, and I love the way that she combines her background in science with her Indigenous roots. She talks a lot about language, about learning to live in this different world that resonates with love. She is very generous in her writing. She invites us to engage from wherever we are at and that's been really helpful and impactful for me, not only as a writer, but personally. Iâm learning to acknowledge and honor all these different ways of knowing and of communicating. I really like her writing and the sense of bringing in this brighter future. I've been reading a lot of poetry by Nikita Jillâshe just brings me hope in general. Sheâs not writing specifically about climate futures, but it's more that sense of grounding and that light in the dark.
I also really appreciated the question that, Elijah, you posed - What makes me emotional, what brings me hope? What do I feel connected to? Those are great places to start from when looking about how to write about climate futures. From other disciplines, I just recently discovered Jo Peltoâshe studied studio art and earth sciences, and she defines herself as an artist and science communicator. She uses climate data graphs and turns them into landscapes with watercolor to illustrate environmental issues. She describes her art as emotionally relevant. So once again, that's the emotional link that you want to make, while making space for all people to think about it. It's like what Elijah was mentioning â how do I talk to someone who initially will have the opposite perspective as me? Do they want to be a part of this conversation?
EV: I think the emotional connection, that's just the jelly, you know? That's where all the ideas come from. If you just start writing from a place of emotion, something amazing is going to come out. I like how you brought it back to working to communicate with people who you might not agree with. I think one thing that provides this âneutralâ space is music. One artist that I like who uses a lot of science fiction elements is Janelle Monae. She has created this whole world with all her albums about artificial intelligence, robots and this futurism, through storytelling. Within these stories she talks about gender identity which I think is just so creative and so cool. She's created this whole world. It gave me a lot of ideas with the story I wrote.
Film is a huge inspiration for meâslice of life movies. I love a lot of romance movies, comedies, films where there's not a lot, lot actually going on in the plot, but there are these complex characters who really talk about their emotions and explore in a more relaxed and not overly complicated way. I want to write like that, like I want to write science fiction that is just a scenario that is just daily life, like a family living in a home, or a romance between people. I think it helps me think about what I'm going to write without over complicating it. SoâJanelle Monae and romance movies, those I love.
I'd love to hear about your writing setupâ What do you like to immerse yourself in to get the writing done?
EV: With writing, I just need to do it every day. So I built a good routine. I'm not working on a big project right now, but I have actually used language learning as my way of just being creative for two hours. Everyday I try to be creative for two hours, and this is all with writing and communication. Right now, I sit down and I practice Spanish for an hour and a half, and then the last 30 minutes I do actual creative writing. Usually it's just like journaling. Some days it's really easy, and some days it's incredibly hard, and most days it's pretty boring. But I look at it the next day, every day, and I'm like, âWow, this is actually really cool, and maybe I could turn this into a story.â While I'm writing, I usually have ambient sounds playing, and I drink water, and I try to do it first thing when I wake up. I usually try to meditate beforehand, too. But this doesn't always work. I mean, the day is so long, hectic sometimes, but that's what's been working for me. I make sure I have a lot of natural light - that helps a lot. I really thrive on routine: same space, same time. And it's I've just done it so much at this point that it feels really wrong not to do it. So I'm hoping to keep doing that, and I think something cool is eventually going to come out of it. Itâs been a weird ride, but overall, I'm really proud of myself. I'm not perfect. Like, I mess up quite often, but I still do it. I still do it.
MCA: That's amazing. But the only thing that we have in common is the natural light. That's like, the opposite of how I work. It's funny, because I am a very disciplined and very organized person, so everything else in my life is super scheduled. But for the writing specifically, that's the one place where⌠I don't know if youâve watched that Spider Man movie, the animated one where heâs like âI canât do it on command. I can't do it on command!â I have to do something creative to get in a different mind space in order for that to work. So the things that I keep always the same are: I need to be at a desk and I must have natural lightâ trees or a lake or anything of a natural landscape that I can be looking at. Even if I maybe get slightly distracted by seeing other beings out the window, like birds or bunnies, that actually helps me to relax. So I guess that's the equivalent of my meditation.
I'm always sipping iced coffee, but I can't have music or people talking, or the sound of anything except bird song. I know a lot of writers write at coffee shops, and I'm like accidentally eavesdropping on every single conversation in this coffee shop.
What I have found that actually helps me before writing is to do something completely different. If I go to a museum exhibit, or if I take a walk, or if I do a collage, or something that gets my mindset on something completely different from writing, then I get all the inspiration from that. I don't know if it's lateral thinking or what it is called, but, for example, I once went to a glassblowing exhibit, and the artist was there presenting his work. And I told him that Iâm interested in how storytelling works in different mediums, and how I admired how his glass piece is also telling a story through glass and light. And he was like, I don't see how that's connected at all to writing. I thought, âOf course it's connected!â
Where do you see yourselves in 2075, 50 years from now?
MCA: Well, in 2075 I would be 79 so the cool thing would be to be healthy enough to still be visiting national parks and going on walks to the park, seeing myself in the natural environment constantly. I've seen a lot of elders who I feel like have more energy and a better physical condition than me! I really hope I'm like them when I get to that age. But these elders are also very engaged in the community and even with climate activism.
What I know for sure is that I'm still going to be telling stories, and that I'm still going to be very focused on spreading hope and gratitude and care, because those are the core values that I have, and what I feel is my purpose. I also remember that in Kimmererâs chapter about the offering, she said that her mom told them when they were little to leave this place better than you find it. When Iâm older, what I hope to have done is impact other people, share what I can do and what I Can do for others, and to have inspired other people to do the sameâbuild that kind of community and replicate those values of gratitude and care.
EV: I changed my answer while I was listening to you, Mariana, because I really like what you said. I really liked how you just talked about what type of person you wanted to be, because that's exactly what I've been thinking about lately. I just canât know what I'll be doing âwell I'm definitely going to be writing still, but aside from that, when Iâm 73, I hope to be someone who's still open. I hope I'm not too set in my ways and think I know everything. I hope I'm still independent and able to take care of myself, but also that I'm willing to still listen to other people and write cool things, still communicate with people, not in a way that I feel like Iâm talking from some high mountain. I want to be that type of person, and I also hope to speak four languages or something by that age. I think that's what will keep my mind okay, is writing and learning languages.
You've both spoken to a vision of 2075, for yourselves as individuals. I'm curious about your vision of 2075 for the communities you both find yourselves in right nowâwhere you were physically seated.
MCA: Iâm currently in Ames, Iowa. I hope that we can still keep the community that we have, because that's what really impacted me when I moved here: how close knit this community is, how everyone helps each other out all the time. That was so shocking to me, coming from Mexico City which is so overpopulated, and most people seem angry all the time. Iâve found it to be so welcoming to everyone, no matter where you come from. My husband and I are like, âPlease stay like this, because it's like a little bubble for us.â People care so much for each other here, and there's so much opportunity for doing things this way on such a big scale. In Ames we have so many places where you can do close swaps, or get clothing for free, or where you can grow your own food. I feel that part of the climate crisis is that we try to upscale everything, and what works is to do it local, and to understand, not only growing local food, but also understanding how this micro environment works, how it works for these people.
What would work for the whole world is to have a lot of local, small practices everywhere, in every community. I'm hoping that Ames can keep it working the way that's been working so far.
EV: I think things are bound to change, but I do worry they would change for the worse. I am in Santa Barbara, and a huge part of Santa Barbara is the university and the research that they do, and a lot of this research is supported by NOAA, whichâI just wonât get into that.
Fisheries in particular are important in Santa Barbara, since itâs a coastal town. I hope that these local fisheries and agricultural communities are continuously supported at the local level and are seen.
There was a big indigenous population in Santa Barbara called the Chumash and I hope their history is not like erased as well. I would hope that we continue to talk about them in schools like my school did for meâhighlighting their presence and their significance to our city todayâbecause not every school does so here, and I worry what it would mean for their history to be forgotten.
Those two aspects come to my mind when I think about Santa Barbara. It's a little bit difficult though, because I don't really see myself staying here. But I have hope for local producers and the indigenous population that is still here.
LS: Elijah, in our last all-cohort chat, Taty Hernandez joined us. Taty is an indigenous futurist and ceramics artist, and they shared with us that the earliest known ceramics are 30,000 years old. So imagine what like indigenous people today can do to refuse erasure by creating ceramics today that'll last 30,000 years. I think about how ceramics and language both hold that longevity. I love seeing ceramics that have text in themâI feel like that's the fusion of these invincible forces of storytelling.
So, Mariana, I don't know if we need to make your dictionary into, like some sort of ceramic object, but I'm here for it.
