Torrey House Press seeks to elevate young voices

through a digital platform and an eventual art-as-advocacy chapbook.

​

Climate scientists say the American Southwest faces a 99% risk of experiencing megadrought as early as midcentury. Desert dwellers not only face the chaos of immediate dystopian politics but also the existential crisis of their home becoming unlivable. As our public lands are drilled into national sacrifice zones, the region comes closer towards catastrophic climate change and we lose the wildness at the heart of our western identity.

 

What fuels hope in the era of climate chaos? What is your first memory of wildness? What conservation paradigms need to shift, and what ideas should we still fight for? Is beauty a form of resistance?

 

These are some of the questions Torrey House Press wants to explore. As the only nonprofit publisher focusing on critical environmental issues in the American West, we are committed to supporting art-as-activism projects across the region. We need words that inspire resistance and empower movements. We need words from the generation rising, who possess the fresh critical-thinking, compassion, and creativity to build resiliency. Bringing an intersectional perspective, young people know that the climate movement will fail without environmental justice. The planet needs these voices, and Torrey House Press is joining forces with the rising generation to amplify their stories.

 

Through our new initiative Voices Rising, Torrey House Press seeks to elevate young voices through a digital platform and an eventual art-as-advocacy chapbook. We want to publish diverse forms of storytelling—from poetry and creative nonfiction to song and visual art. We want to hear from young people grappling with the greatest challenges society faces, especially from frontline communities and marginalized voices. We want to hear what brings grief and hope, rage and joy. We believe story is our most powerful tool to create change. Writers and artists will power resistance.

 

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING

 

Pieces should be around 500 to 1,500 words for prose, two to four pages for poetry, or three to five minutes for audio or video, but this can be flexible depending on the piece. Torrey House Press staff may suggest edits before publishing a piece. 

 

 

For questions, comments, and to submit to Voices Rising, email maya@torreyhouse.com