Emergency Weather is Tim Jones’ debut novel, his previous literary outings have included releasing several acclaimed poetry collections and editing award -winning science fiction short story collections.
Emergency Weather is a powerful, prescient and compelling climate change thriller set in Aotearoa, and more precisely the Wellington region. The novel focusses on three very different people who have to face the climate crisis head-on, when a giant storm builds and then hits our capital city.
Wellingtonian Tim Jones was awarded the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. He co-edited Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, which won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. His recent books include poetry collection New Sea Land (Mākaro Press, 2016) and climate fiction novella Where We Land (The Cuba Press, 2019). He is also a climate change activist.
When the opportunity to interview Tim about his new novel Emergency Weather, his creative practice and the books that inspire him arose, we jumped at it! We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Tim Jones for taking the time to answer our questions, and for providing such illuminating insights into writing career. Thank-you also to Betty Davis at The Cuba Press for organising the interview.
You can find the video of our interview below, or on our YouTube channel.
Emergency Weather / Jones, Tim
“Emergency Weather is a powerful, prescient and compelling climate change thriller set in Aotearoa / New Zealand and more precisely the Wellington region. The novel focusses on three very different people who have to face the climate crisis head-on, when a giant storm builds and then hits our capital city.” ( Adapted from Catalogue)
Where we land / Jones, Tim
“A New Zealand Navy frigate torpedoes a boat full of refugees fleeing a drowning country and Nasimul Rahman is one of the few survivors. First he has to reach the shore alive and then he has to avoid the trigger-happy Shore Patrol, on alert to stop climate change refugees entering the country. Donna is new to the Patrol. When word comes through that the Navy has sunk a ship full of infiltrators and survivors might be making their way ashore, it sounds like she might get to see some action. A tale of desperation and betrayal on a shrinking shore in the not too distant future.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Voyagers : science fiction poetry from New Zealand
“Poetry. Science Fiction. Prose writers have had it their own way for too long. At last, here is an anthology of poetry from New Zealand that captures the essence of science fiction: aliens, space travel, time travel, the end of the world – as well as concepts you may not previously have thought of as science fiction. Fasten your seatbelts as editors Mark Pirie and Tim Jones present some of New Zealand’s best poets–past and present–shining the flashlight of science fiction on our universe, and relishing the strange images that result.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook.
Transported : short stories / Jones, Tim
“A well-known poet pursues his elusive muse; a Kiwi makes himself indispensable in OZ; a revolutionary fast-food franchise revs up Russia’s economy; a racing-car driver is airborne; a Frenchman called Foucault puts in the hard yards at an antipodean dairy farm – all while water laps at our feet, our homes, our lives . . .With Tim Jones’ stories you should expect the unexpected. This remarkably refreshing collection uses a lively mix of genres, taking readers on flights of fancy, transports of delight and even occasional trips of nostalgia. Some of the stories are unique ways of looking at the everyday and ordinary, others take us out of this world” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Men briefly explained / Jones, Tim
“Tim Jones’ new collection holds men up to the light with poems that are intimate and playful, smart and satirical. He focuses on the rituals and carapaces of men and the relevance of that gender in the future. Men Briefly Explained is an engaging and provocative read.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
All Blacks’ kitchen gardens / Jones, Tim
“ALL BLACKS’ KITCHEN GARDENS is Tim Jones’ second collection of poetry from HeadworX, following BOAT PEOPLE in 2002. It includes his poem “The Translator”, which was selected for inclusion in Best New Zealand Poems 2004, and poems which have been published in the Listener, North & South, New Zealand Books, JAAM, and a number of other venues, including US and Australian magazines. The poems in the book range all the way from Southland to Iraq, from a backyard telescope to Mars, from the Rapture to rugby league. Along the way, there’s love, sex, children, and Motorhead. These poems are full of surprises.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
New Sea Land / Jones, Tim
“In New Sea Land, Tim Jones tells the intimate story of the land and the sea. Awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors’ Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature, he writes of the mapping and re-naming of land and sea by those who came before him, and the places he travelled as a child and knows as a man and travels now. Some that crumbled to bone when the Earth heaved, some the stuff of myth and some the stuff of nightmare.” ( Adapted from Catalogue)
