(typewriter dings) (typewriter bangs) (eerie music) - [Silas] I am Silas House and my book is "Lark Ascending".

My book is set against a climate disaster that sort of fuels a demise of democracy.

- It's very clear in having read "Southernmost", that conservation and environmentalism are really core to a lot of your stories and I wonder how much of an effect that has on your books.

- I was raised outside.

I'm so grateful that I was a child who was turned loose in the woods, you know?

When I think about my childhood and the best parts of it were spent in the woods, in the creek.

On the flip side of that, I was also raised very near a massive strip mine.

And so it was like I was seeing the best of the natural world and I was seeing the worst thing that could be done to the natural world and I think that really caused me to appreciate it even more and never take it for granted, you know?

(sad music) To me, the book is sort of a warning of if things get worse, you know, that's why it's set 20 years in the future.

I never thought I would write a book set in the future and I never thought of the book that way.

I don't think of it as like a dystopian novel or cli-fi or anything like that.

I just think of it as a literary novel that happens to be set 20 years in the future.

I talk a lot about, you know, the climate crisis that's happening in the book, the demise of democracy and all that.

But when you're reading the novel, that's actually sort, that's all going on in the background.

The real focus of the story is all of that is an impetus for the relationships that are happening in the book.

So it's very much a book about community.

How does community survive amongst collapse?

You know, how do you keep that alive?

- Silas, I can't thank you enough.

- Thank you.

- I think it's an important book, it's a joy to read, and I'm glad you wrote it.

- Thank you so much.

- And thank you for watching "A Word on Words".

I'm Jeremy Finley.

Remember, keep reading.

- [Silas] There's necessary violence and necessary darkness.

What I'm aiming for is the hope in the light.

To make the reader properly appreciate that hope and that light and crave it, I gotta take 'em through the darkness.