["E-Mails from the Future"]

2007 [“E-Mails from the Future”]. In Diggers & Dreamers: The Guide to Communal Living 2008/2009. Ed. Sarah Bunker, Chris Coates, and Jonathan How (London: Diggers and Dreamers Publications, 2007), 16, 30, 48, 66, 80, 88, 112, 126. PSt

Eight e-mails of one page or less in which various contributors to the volume report from the future. None are long enough to be called a utopia, but most are concerned with environmental issues, and a few include considerable detail. They are “Report from Outpost SK572/698” by Chris Coates (also in Esperanto) (16); “When I’m 64. . .” by Bunk (30); “Song of the Saltmarsh” by William Morris (48); “Aotearoa calling” by Lucy Sargisson (66); “We told you so!” by Jonathan How (80); “Ant Farm” by Pam Dowling (88), which comes very close to presenting a fully realized utopia in one page; “We Cannot Eat Fuel!” by Vivian Griffiths (112); and “Season’s Greetings” by Bill Metcalf (126). Sargisson and Metcalf present quite positive pictures; Dowling presents a utopian community in a dystopian setting; the rest are environmental dystopias. Female co-authors.