Welcome to my new blog! I will be posting every week about the themes, folklore details, games and dances, environmental philosophy, and early modern history that I adapt in my Eco-fiction novels series, Infinite Games.

Have you, like me, longed for a utopian community where we live together in amity, following laws we work out for ourselves and valuing each other for our contribution to common good? I have yearned for a world like that all my life – have you too?

Unfortunately, we live in a dystopian society where “the bottom line” trumps everything and the good fortune of the few entails the subjugation of the many.

Every utopia reminds us of its opposite; every dystopia stirs our longing for a better way of life. In The Marshlanders, Clare is savagely beaten while her mother is being shamed at the behest of apothecaries seeking a monopoly on medicines. She is adopted by Marshlanders and thrives in their self-sustaining and altruistic community.

Here she is when she has recovered.

In The Road to Beaver Mill, similarly, Bethany experiences starkly contrasting communities —the hard-hearted, misogynistic settlement of Western Fisher folk, who despise her as a half-breed and work her cruelly; and the egalitarian settlement of Eastern Fisher folk, where she is welcomed and cherished.

In these days of runaway profit seeking and environmental degradation I have found enormous solace inventing fictional communities where I would love to live – my Marshlanders are self-sustaining, practical, cheerfully sensual, full of laughter and a down-to-earth kind of spirituality. I have never been far from the dark side of life, however, so I’ve had no trouble imagining the world of enemies who are determined to drain their wetlands for monetary profit.

Come join me on our journey through these contrary worlds of utopia and dystopia in my speculative Eco-fiction series of novels – The Marshlanders, Fly Out of the Darkness, The Road to Beaver Mill, and The Battle for the Black Fen – and become a subscriber to this blog……