Episode 5
Doreen Cunningham on nature, climate change and motherhood
Doreen Cunningham began her a career as a climate science researcher and has spent the last 20 years as a journalist. Her memoir, Soundings: Journeys in the company of whales, is the story of her experiences follow the grey whale migration from Mexico to Alaska as a newly single parent with her very young son in tow. Woven into the book is the story of her time spent with an Inupiaq family in Northern Alaska, where she joined a traditional whale hunt and learnt about how climate change was already affecting artic communities. It's a memoir about love, wrestlessness, colonialism, motherhood and climate change. Doreen talks about the challenges and responsibility of writing about her experiences as a white person within an indigenous community, the urgent drive to write about climate change in a way that would resonate with readers and writing about science in an accessible, story driven way.
Links
Soundings: Journeys in the company of whales
Society of Authors - Grants for work in progress
