Madeline Ostrander—At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth

AT HOME ON AN UNRULY PLANET:
FINDING REFUGE ON A CHANGED EARTH
Madeline Ostrander
Henry Holt and Co., August 2, 2022, $28.99
ISBN-10: 1250620511, ISBN-13: 978-1250620514
Macmillan Audio (read by Ostrander) ISBN: 9781250856128

Ostrander reports:

My book began more than 10 years ago in a garden full of kale and strawberries along a former railroad, threaded between a school and ramshackle warehouses.

At the time, I was both editing and reporting for YES! Magazine. A group of urban farmers drove me around Richmond, California, and told me about their dreams for this often-neglected industrial city built around a century-old oil refinery. They spoke about the climate crisis in a way that I’d rarely heard before, with tangible, local ideas about how to transform their hometown into a place of gardens and organic food.

This reporting transformed how I thought about climate solutions. We speak often about the climate crisis either at a vast scale—global data, national and international policies—or at the micro-scale of our personal carbon footprints. But what does it mean in our communities, in the places that we live in and identify with? What does it mean at home?

For a while, the publishing industry was hesitant to take on new climate books. I offered an unusual approach: the book would be both narrative and “big think.” It would include evocative stories paired with philosophical ideas from writers such as Wendell Berry and bell hooks.

In 2018, I signed with literary agents Laura Usselman and Stuart Krichevsky, who asked me to rethink the book’s structure, diving deeper into characters and places. I have interwoven four stories of crises (in part one of the book) and solutions (in part two). These include Okanogan County, Washington, a region that has journeyed through wildfire and recovery; Newtok, an Alaska Native community relocating because of severe erosion; the urban farmers in Richmond, California, who are reinventing their refinery town; and preservationists seeking to protect St. Augustine, Florida, one of the most historic communities in North America, from floods.

The book meditates on emotions and what it means to have a home in a time of instability: An excerpt appeared in The Atlantic. I hope readers encounter in these stories a visceral and hopeful way of thinking about how the climate crisis affects each of us at home, and how to take action.

Contact info:

• Madeline Ostrander, https://madelineostrander.com/, Twitter: @madelinevo, Instagram: @madelinevo
• Book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250620514/athomeonanunrulyplanet
• Audiobook: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/at-home-on-an-unruly-planet-audiobook/
• Agent: Laura Usselman, lu@skagency.com

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