hopepunk n.

The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on.

Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts. Going to political protests is hopepunk. Calling your senators is hopepunk. But crying is also hopepunk, because crying means you still have feelings, and feelings are how you know you’re alive.

‘I’m seeing a real hunger for positive stories…stories that focus on the hopeful; depict and encourage progressive, positive outcomes.’…He thinks it goes beyond the ‘hopepunk’ movement.

Depending on who you ask, hopepunk is as much a mood and a spirit as a definable literary movement, a narrative message of ‘keep fighting, no matter what.’

Hopepunk is therefore a sub-genre of science fiction united by a shared impulse to tell stories that free the soul from darkness. That necessitates situating the characters and action in a dark world and then directing the drama and activity towards the light. Whether they reach it or not is part of the story.

What I’m Reading[:] The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers—a brilliant piece of ‘hopepunk’ science fiction that portrays an optimistic vision of the future.

This debut novel from Nick Fuller Googins, whose previous fictional outings have occurred in The Paris Review and other literary journals, is a cli-fi, hopepunk romp jampacked with ideas, energy, attitude, and action. Its themes are urgent and vital, and all the parts of its realtime future hang together cohesively and ingeniously.