New moon on July 17, 2023
This month we invite you to explore dystopia in your work. A dystopia is a situation that is unhealthy, dangerous, or outright inimical to the people living there. Lately this genre has been especially popular in young adult literature and other media.
Dystopias tend to take place in alternate realities or the near future. They are quarrelsome, lively, and great fun (far more so for this reader than the high-minded romanticism that typifies literary utopias). They’re at their best when the author takes a position on a matter of some debate.
What is the impact of a new technology? For Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, that technology was the television, and its impact was predicted to be grave indeed. Is the rigid class system in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go all that different in effect from systems that separate us from each other in the real world? What dangers of dogma are fundamental to Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale?
Dystopias take so many different forms—lamentation, prediction, prescription—yet the field remains fertile. There’s no end to what the genre is capable of.
We hope this month’s prompts inspire you in your work!