EPISODE · Nov 13, 2025 · 52 MIN
S9 Ep. 7: Kathryn Nuernberger on Mutualism, Climate, and Finding Family at the End of the World
from fiction/non/fiction
Poet and essayist Kathryn Nuernberger joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her new collection of lyric essays, Held: Essays in Belonging, which is about symbiotic mutualisms, and grief and joy in an era of worsening climate change. She discusses COP30, the United Nations climate gathering currently underway in Brazil, and considers the global failure to keep warming below 1.5 °C. She reflects on the nature of symbiotic relationships and offers several examples, noting that over several cycles even parasitic relationships might achieve the balance of mutualism. Nuernberger places her work in the larger tradition of climate and nature writing, which previously tended to celebration and in recent years has turned more elegiac, and also talks about writing personal grief in relation to societal grief. She explains new vocabulary developed to address emerging climate concerns and emotions and identifies several concepts that need new words. She reads an excerpt from Held. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Graham Ballard, Courtenay Kantanka, Katelyn Koenig, and Bayleigh Williams. Kathryn Nuernberger Held: Essays in Belonging The Witch of Eye Rue Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past The End of Pink Rag & Bone Others: The Bureau of Linguistical Reality Cop30 Coverage | The Guardian The Aquarium by Phillip Henry Gosse John Hickel Raphel Lemkin Annie Dillard Barry Lopez The End of Nature by Bill McKibben Edward Abbey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What this episode covers
Poet and essayist Kathryn Nuernberger joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her new collection of lyric essays, Held: Essays in Belonging, which is about symbiotic mutualisms, and grief and joy in an era of worsening climate change. She discusses COP30, the United Nations climate gathering currently underway in Brazil, and considers the global failure to keep warming below 1.5 °C. She reflects on the nature of symbiotic relationships and offers several examples, noting that over several cycles even parasitic relationships might achieve the balance of mutualism. Nuernberger places her work in the larger tradition of climate and nature writing, which previously tended to celebration and in recent years has turned more elegiac, and also talks about writing personal grief in relation to societal grief. She explains new vocabulary developed to address emerging climate concerns and emotions and identifies several concepts that need new words. She reads an excerpt from Held. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Graham Ballard, Courtenay Kantanka, Katelyn Koenig, and Bayleigh Williams. Kathryn Nuernberger Held: Essays in Belonging The Witch of Eye Rue Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past The End of Pink Rag & Bone Others: The Bureau of Linguistical Reality Cop30 Coverage | The Guardian The Aquarium by Phillip Henry Gosse John Hickel Raphel Lemkin Annie Dillard Barry Lopez The End of Nature by Bill McKibben Edward Abbey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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S9 Ep. 7: Kathryn Nuernberger on Mutualism, Climate, and Finding Family at the End of the World
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