In this episode, I chat with author T. K. Rex about her story in the Bright Green Futures anthology, why she picked Climate Roles as a theme, and her amazing art giveaway item.
Text Transcript:
Susan Kaye Quinn
Hello friends! Welcome to Bright Green Futures, Episode 31: Climate Roles with T. K. Rex.
I'm your host, Susan Kaye Quinn, and we're here to lift up stories about a more sustainable and just world and talk about the struggle to get there. Today, we're going to have a quick chat with T. K. about her story, Centipede Station in the new Bright Green Futures anthology, which just released on Earth Day and is available in ebook and paperback.
But first, there are three things listeners should know.
The anthology is a collection of hopeful climate fiction stories, as you probably have come to expect from Bright Green Futures, but it is specifically from the guests on the pod and is available on a wide range of retailers, including bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores.
Second, T. K.’s story is published separately as an ebook and it is free right now so make sure you go download that after the show.
And third, we're running a giveaway of cool stuff handpicked by the authors, each item having a connection to their stories so make sure to enter that as well. The links for all those things are in the show notes and also at the Bright Green Future substack.
Okay, T. K., thank you for coming to the pod or coming back to the pod I should say.
T. K. Rex
Hi, Susan. I'm so glad to be back on your podcast.
Susan Kaye Quinn
It's so great to be able to revisit with everybody. I get an extra bonus episode with each of you, which is so fun.
T. K. Rex
Love it.
Susan Kaye Quinn
So I asked each of the authors in the anthology to pick a theme word, something that represented the story. And you picked Climate Roles, but I remember you offering up several like Climate Understanding, Climate Integration, and we made all those little puzzle pieces fit together. But there is so much going on in this story, which I love, and that really does speak to all of those things. So why don't you read for us the one line description, and then tell us a little about the themes in your story.
T. K. Rex
All right. I'm ready.
Imagine a forest. In space. With giant centipedes everywhere. Oh and you're stranded there. With your mom.
Susan Kaye Quinn
It's so great. I remember us going back and forth on several different descriptions of what would fit for the story, and they each had a completely different tone. And this one was so on point with the voice of your story that I thought it was just really cool. So tell us about your themes of Climate Roles and Climate Integration and Understanding and all of that.
T. K. Rex
I love that you got to that we settled on Climate Roles because roles is a really short word. I just really like that better than the other ones. It's also interesting because as I was writing the story and revising it, I went through several drafts and like the part about the roles, which you only get to near the end of the story. No spoilers, but that's an element of the story that only came in in the last draft and it's toward the end and it was the missing piece for so long and it became kind of, I think, one of the most to-the-heart parts of it. So I love that we settled on that and I love that you suggested it.
Susan Kaye Quinn
I totally get that out of the story too. We can't get specific about your story with it, but I feel like general roles in the climate fight and also our roles and relationships with one another are super important things for us to dig into. I see people struggling with that. I literally just the other day on a solarpunk discord had a young person who's a coder. She does like programming, right? And she's like, Where is there a place for me in a solarpunk future?
T. K. Rex
I can think of some things.
Susan Kaye Quinn
My gosh, I can think of a million things. Like, why can't you? What is the problem here? And so we had a really good discussion about how she could bring her skills to do unique things, but also you don't always have to use all of your skills. Like sometimes you can just make friends and hang out and be available. And that's part of resiliency too. And I think we get really locked down into our little boxes of what our roles are. We can only do these things or whatever. You know, if there's anything that I feel like a future of change is going to embrace it’s thinking outside of those roles and outside of that box.
So anything like your story that really interrogates relationships and roles in survival, because it's kind of a survival story, right?
T. K. Rex
Yeah, yeah it is.
Susan Kaye Quinn
At many different levels. We don't want to get too specific and spoil it because people have got to go read it. But what was one of the conflicts that you felt like… because you said it came in at the end where it kind of sharpened up as these roles… what was one of the pivotal things that jumped out in that last draft?
T. K. Rex
I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the character in the story… she's not the main character's mother, but she's the woman who raised her. And she had been a revolutionary in the past. They're now stranded together on a space station. But it's a topic that comes up and their relationship is… it was definitely inspired by my relationship with my own actual real mother. That's not like a secret. At a certain point in editing this, I was like, I should actually let my mom read this. She's a writer. She's like in my critique group. She also writes science fiction and fantasy.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Oh! Wow.
T. K. Rex
She reads most of my stories. But this one, I was a little scared to share with her because she's kind of a character in it. The character is not her. And the situation isn't one that we went through, but it's very close in a lot of ways to one that we went through together with my grandmother when she was on home hospice.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Gosh.
T. K. Rex
There's a whole, like… what happened right before the story starts. It's backstory. And so my mom and I—she writes under L. Ann Kinyon, so I'm going to plug her now. She has some stories out. And she edits the sci-fi fantasy magazine, Roses and Wildflowers. And we went for a walk in the park, in Tilden Park, near us in the East Bay. And we talked about the story after she'd read it. And she really had so much to share. She's an activist going way back. And so the relationship they have, where like a character who's maybe not quite understanding how to move forward is coming to realize that their mother figure does have that experience. And, you know, me talking with my mom about that was a big part of trying to understand how that could gel in the story.
So I…I just have this like perfect little memory. We sat down at a picnic table and we just kind of talked about all that stuff and it was a cool conversation. And the thing that stands out, which is not an answer to your question, is actually like the bit about the chef's knives. Because her actual profession in the story is that she was a chef. My mom has never been like a chef chef, but she's done a lot of catering and done that kind of stuff. And she had this very strong statement that there's no way in hell she would let somebody use her chef's knives that way. Chef's knives are like a whole thing. And I had no idea. That was one of the biggest takeaways, actually. The revolutionary stuff was secondary.
Susan Kaye Quinn
That's so great. I love that having the anthology and the prompt to write this story kind of led to this beautiful moment with your mother, but also like practical knowledge about don't mess with her chef knives. That's so great.
T. K. Rex
Yeah. Yeah, so I worked that into the story in one of the later drafts.
Susan Kaye Quinn
You know, we don't always… we think we know… especially as we get to be… like I'm older, okay? Like I'm I'm staring down the barrel of sixty here and I've been through a few different phases of life that not everybody has, that hasn't reached age sixty. That's kind of how that works. I thought I knew so much when I was like thirty and forty and even fifty and… Like, I mean, like there wasn't anything new to learn after that, right? I was just going to get older.
T. K. Rex
Oh, no.
Susan Kaye Quinn
No, that's not how that works. I was in a critique group here recently, one of my critique groups, and in one of the stories, the character is a person who's having a relationship with their parent as an adult. So it is like the character has grown up and now has this different relationship, but the child was not the main character. The parent was the main character. And none of the people who were involved in the critique group, a couple of them were parents, but of little kids. So they don't actually know what it's like. They know how to be on the other side of that relationship as the child, but not as the parent of an adult. And it is quite different from being the parent of little ones.
T. K. Rex
I'd imagine.
Susan Kaye Quinn
And so I was able to critique from that perspective. As someone in that position, I can kind of tell you some things that this guy might be going through.
T. K. Rex
Interesting. I'm so curious then how you saw this story and like what you thought of the characters and their dynamics.
Susan Kaye Quinn
It was almost like one of those dizzying kind of feelings where you relate to each of the characters at their different stages. And it's like, I know how she's thinking and I know how she's thinking. This other character isn't even on stage, but I think I know how she was thinking too. It was a little like that thing where you get dizzy because you got too much, you know, going on there.
T. K. Rex
Hahaha
Susan Kaye Quinn
But you're an amazing writer and everyone in the anthology are amazing writers. That's how I decided to bring you on the podcast in the first place.
T. K. Rex
Well, back at you, Susan.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Thank you. But so, you know, you can pull that off and you can make that be really resonant, which is a different kind of time travel. Like we were talking about before the pod…the time travel through a lifetime. And I think it does a beautiful job of that. So I'm excited for people to read these.
T. K. Rex
Yeah. Huh. I love that you saw things about my story that like I didn't even think about. Like there's a definitely a… it's not exactly like time travel because no one's going to the past, but there is a lot of time… like a ridiculous amount of time that passes just because of like space travel, you know, in this story. And I didn't really think as I was writing it until you mentioned it about the aspect of time travel between these different phases of life that are centered in the story. I love that you saw that.
Susan Kaye Quinn
I see that in several different stories that I've been in love with. So maybe it's a me thing. But I think I think it's important because in the context of the climate crisis, I'm fighting the climate crisis for my kids. Like, I'm not going to live through the end of it. Even my kids might not get to the end of it, at the rate we're going. And so having a generational view, a generational perspective is just an integral part of building a better world, I think.
T. K. Rex
Yeah. And especially as like science fiction writers who are trying to imagine the future and also through that imagining, like make things that are positive possible. Like, especially in solarpunk, that's like very actively what we're trying to do is like imagine possibilities with the intention of making them more real, you know? Not like, like dystopian fiction writers, I think, aren't trying to do that in the same way, hopefully. You know?
Susan Kaye Quinn
They're trying to warn you off and not everyone gets the clue. But yeah, solarpunk is trying to imagine a better way to make it manifest in some capacity.
T. K. Rex
So we're always like, especially when we're writing, we're living in this future that we're imagining in a way, like always part of us is existing in those futures. And, you know, we write about it because we think about it all the time, actually. Like, it's not a coincidence.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Especially for solar punk writers. I think we live what we want. We try to live our values in the world today as a way to prefigure that solarpunk future today. And yeah, I spend a lot of time thinking in that kind of quasi space, where I'm existing today in all the ahhhh of today…
T. K. Rex
The today is just like screaming.
Susan Kaye Quinn
It is! It's just like, my God… I follow this person's account on Mastodon that is just called Endless Screaming. And it just like has a scream. I'm like, every time I see it, I'm like, it checks out.
T. K. Rex
Yep. Yeah.
Susan Kaye Quinn
All right, well, we're getting close to the end of our time because I wanted to keep these short. But I do want to talk about your giveaway item because it is so cool. It was one of my favorites. You're giving away three 5x7 prints of an original ink drawing created by you. It is suitable for framing or you can use them as cards, which is also something I love to do. Every time I find an artist that I love and they've got prints for cards, I snatch those up and use them for special gifts. That's like one of my favorite things to do.
And your drawing on top of that represents the story, which is extra cool. And readers will enjoy that even more after they've read the story. There's lots of detail on it and people can see it when they go to enter the giveaway. There'll be an image there. You can see it has this amazing alien forest and sort of built structure from the story that I won't spoil and the centipedes. So the whole thing is just cool. I'm just so into it. And I had no idea you were an artist. So can you tell us a little bit about your art in general and this work in particular and why you decided to make art for the giveaway?
T. K. Rex
Yeah, so, well I went to art school. I got an advertising degree, which isn't super applicable right now…
Susan Kaye Quinn
I mean, it could be applicable, maybe not what you want to do, but you know.
T. K. Rex
Well, you know, I did go to art school. I learned things. I did learn things. But art's always been like the other half of my creative side, right? Like I've always been a writer, but I've also always been into like drawing and painting and photography. And I recently got back into like a kind of line drawing because I wanted to do some illustrations for my collection that's coming out next year, which is the Wildcraft Drones, Stelliform Press, please support Canadian publishers.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Nice. Yes, absolutely.
T. K. Rex
I had just gotten through doing that whole set of illustrations for that when you asked if I had something to contribute to this. And I was like, it'd be fun once my wrists heal from doing all those illustrations to do one in that style for this. I think it's very specifically in the same style as the ones that are coming out in my collection because I want people to get a taste of what's coming up in that too. So if they like this one, they're probably going to like the ones that are in my collection.
It's just a line drawing, you know, it's very detailed. I have sort of a meticulous approach. Trying to describe… but you're going to have a picture that goes along with this. So people will see it. Okay, one little Easter egg in it, which is also never explicitly mentioned in the story, but people who know, I think, will find this very fascinating. If you have been following certain recent scientific updates about carboniferous stem millipedes, you may recognize an image within this illustration.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Well, I'm gonna have to go look that up now. Carnivorous centipedes…
T. K. Rex
Carboniferous.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Carboniferous, I don't even… this is a new word for me. You're gonna have to tell me what that is.
T. K. Rex
It's the era of Earth's past when there were no mammals or dinosaurs yet. It was giant insects and the early forests that now all of our coal comes from, most of our coal comes from the carboniferous era.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Very interesting.
T. K. Rex
My great inspiration and one of my favorite prehistoric animals is a creature from that time, which people in the know, I think, might recognize. I was very inspired in the drawing by a recent new fossil evidence. I was very excited to hear about. Yeah. Ooh, I bite.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Well, that is so cool. OK, you're going to have to send me the link to that, obviously, because we'll put that in the show notes. I'm going to want to read it, if nothing else. Amazing. I encourage people to go get the story, go see the art. Just check it out, if nothing else. Thank you so much for bringing all of this great stuff to the anthology.
T. K. Rex
Gosh, thanks for inviting me to the anthology and for all of this stuff, Susan. Your presence in my life is always a little point of reassurance and I just love the community that you've built around this. It's one of my favorite things to come back to and check on because there's always enthusiasm and good news and things I can relate to.
Susan Kaye Quinn
That is so key and that makes me so happy to hear you say that.
OK, we're going to get to the end question, which is like… maybe this is one of the things that is what you are doing in these crazy times to stay grounded and keep working for a better world. This… this is kind of one of those things that I'm doing. But tell us, our the listeners, you know, how are you doing that? Because we all need to hear from each other how we're doing that.
T. K. Rex
Okay. I'm going to go ahead and give you the radical answer that's also the least feasible for most people, I think. But I think that it's in proportion to the challenge that's in our world right now.
As I mentioned, I had a whole career in advertising. I went to ad school. I did that. I worked in tech. I had a 401k. Well, I still have it. Whatever. Like, I was very concerned for much of my life about having that kind of stability that like buying into the system and being part of it would give me. And there was a certain point when I realized that that system was not just inherently unstable, but was actively destroying everything that I love and care about and things that I want in the future and that that system specifically was making having the things I love in the future and the future that I was supposedly saving for and being prepared for, less likely. And there was inherent deep conflict that caused a lot of anxiety and depression and like long therapy sessions for years, for years. So, but you know what, it's so hard to break out of that, especially when you're already in it. Your cost of living goes up to match your salary. You have student loans to pay. You have a mortgage to pay. I have all those things. You know, I pay my dad's mortgage. So I paid off my student loans. I got laid off my last tech job. I got a good severance package. I was really, really lucky in so many ways that I was able to do this.
But I also like… it took me a long time to just settle on this path. Even like after I got laid off and I was like, let me just see how long I can stretch out my severance package for before really deciding what to do next. And I was so lucky to have that opportunity. But what I did was… decided to focus as much as I could of my life around my writing and the things that were in my skill set and my domain that I loved doing that strengthened me and that also were going to, at a minimum, net zero as far as impact on the world, you know, and not actively make things worse. When it came time to like actually have to pay my bills again, I was able to reduce my cost of living significantly just by making some different choices around what I was spending money on. I was also really lucky to live in California where we have Medi-Cal and a lot of great support programs here. They're a total pain to actually sign up for. It is really complicated. It was a lot of work. If I had also been trying to work while trying to do that, I don't think I would have had the head space for it. It's so hard and there's so many barriers, but I pushed through it. I really wanted to understand how it worked too. So I came on it with a lot of curiosity and determination and not desperation, which is key because so many people have to do it. And for me, in a lot of ways, even though mentally and emotionally, I felt like I had to do it, I know practically on some level that I could hypothetically go back to advertising or tech, even though the idea made me want to scream and puke.
But I did, and I was able to then go and get jobs that are more in my community. They pay much less. But because I was able to reduce my cost of living around that and make room for it, I found work that pays my bills that has me on my feet. That's better for like my health. That's better for having head space to work on my writing. And that's more involved with my community. I talk to people and meet people in my community every day at my jobs. And it's a huge radical lifestyle shift that I am like still kind of in the early stages of and like to be determined how sustainable it's going to be in the long term. But right now it's something that I still sit with and reflect on really often about how just profound it is and how lucky I feel to be able to do this right now. And I have like world anxiety, but like that personal anxiety and that personal depression that I had when I was dealing with that disconnect, that constant cognitive dissonance in my life, you know, that's gone and I never want to go back. Yeah, that was a really long answer. I'm sorry, but yeah.
Susan Kaye Quinn
No, it's fantastic. So much of that is resonating in my head right now. And I've heard you talk about that choice that you made to sort of radically simplify and be able to live the life that you want to live as a writer and let you stay in community. And it's just an amazing thing to watch and to know that people can or you are at least making that choice.
T. K. Rex
Mm-hmm. I know not everybody can. I know not everybody can. Like, I don't have kids. I was able to pay off my student loans. There's so many other things about this that were just lucky.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Absolutely. Like…there's no judgment in this and we have to be really mindful of that and I am super mindful of that or try to be. And yet, this young person that I talked to before, how they couldn't see a role for themselves in the future as if their entire skill set has just been written out of the future and it was because they were in that box.
T. K. Rex
Yeah.
Susan Kaye Quinn
And you've stepped out of the box in a radical way. And that is so inspiring. Whether or not other people can do it 100% or 75% or even a little bit, just the possibility is empowering, I think. Because that's what we have to do. We have to rethink this for everybody.
T. K. Rex
Yeah.
Susan Kaye Quinn
And so I love this for you. I love that you have... prioritized your own mental health, how dare you? I mean, that's just, I look at that as a very good thing. And it also reminds me, and this episode's going longer, sorry folks…
T. K. Rex
Sorry.
Susan Kaye Quinn
But it also reminds me of a discussion I had with someone I was interviewing for a book that I haven't written yet, because that's a thing that I do sometimes…
T. K. Rex
I've got some of those. We all do.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Yes. So she said some really amazing and profound things. And one of them was she had a little one and this was like a toddler-aged kid. And they had made a choice to do… not quite as extreme as what I think you probably had to do to be able to exist in the system and whatnot... But she was like, I can either try to get on that rat race to make sure that he can survive the times that are coming or I can super radically double down on community and make sure he has a safety network there. And I'm like, holy cow, that is really amazing that you just did that whole thought process and then acted on it. Like they moved to a different location. They found a community. Like I think she was in like an apartment building where like all the people in the apartment building were sort of, they're not co-housing, but they were living with sort of an intentional community and being closer to family and other stuff like that. And I was like, you know, I'm just super impressed with the intentionality of those kinds of choices because we're going to have to make, you know, the people that aren't going to be making those choices are the ones that are going to get hit by the truck of the future when it arrives and never see it coming.
T. K. Rex
Yeah. There's so much I want to say about this. I know we're already over. So I won't, but like...
Susan Kaye Quinn
We need to have another episode, clearly. You and I, T. K., we need to talk. Not to mention that you've got another book coming out in the future, which I'm sure we will circle around for that and have you back on the pod to talk about that. So maybe that'll be our opportunity.
T. K. Rex
Okay, let's plan on that. I love it.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Thanks for coming and I will definitely be talking to you soon and everyone please go and check out T. K.'s work.
T. K. Rex
Thank you, Susan.
In this series of episodes, we'll have each of the authors of the anthology on to talk about their story, their theme, and their giveaway item. The links for everything are below. As a quick review, the six themes for the six stories are:
CLIMATE ANXIETY
CLIMATE RESTORATION
CLIMATE ROLES
CLIMATE CONNECTIONS
CLIMATE RESILIENCE
CLIMATE HERITAGE
They fit together almost like a meta story, and the themes and the stories showcase what hopeful climate fiction can look like and the breadth of what we need to tackle.
Anthology Giveaway
That giveaway will be ongoing until the end of May.
Check out the Featured Stories and Hopeful Climate Fiction lists.
LINKS Ep. 31: Climate Roles with T. K. Rex
T. K.’s collection coming in 2026 from Stelliform Press: Wildcraft Drones
T. K.’s mom L. Ann Kinyon who edits SFF zine Roses & Wildflowers
T. K.’s story (FREE until 5.6.2025): Centipede Station
RELEVANT NEWSLETTERS
PLEASE SHARE
These hopeful climate-fiction stories include clicky space centipedes, sentient trees, a flooded future Rio de Janeiro and characters trying to find their place in a climate-impacted world. Each story imagines a way for us to survive the future, together.
Bright Green Futures: 2024 contains six short stories plus a bonus prose-poem.
The Doglady and the Rainstorm by Renan Bernardo
What Kind of Bat is This? by Sarena Ulibarri
Centipede Station by T. K. Rex
A Merger in Corn Country by Danielle Arostegui
Ancestors, Descendants by BrightFlame
The Park of the Beast by T. K. Rex
Coriander by Ana Sun
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