Words to Actions: Climate Change Through a Literary Lens with Author Ann Dávila Cardinal (NEA Big Read)

Join Vermont author Ann Dávila Cardinal at the Manchester Community Library as she helps us to explore how literature is the ideal way to express our fears about the environment, process our present situation, and imagine possible futures. At a time when so many storylines that seemed fantastical years ago are coming to fruition, it has never been so important to use whatever tools are at our disposal to introspect, analyze, and speculate. This lecture will take a deeper dive into the decades-long literary conversation about climate change. We’ll look at works as far back as J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World from 1962, to 2025’s Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. Cardinal will present how literature has often predicted our current climate events, how authors have offered solutions or explored possible outcomes, and what role literature can play in awareness and activism going forward.

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a Puerto…