By Georgia Jackson, College of Arts and Sciences
In Gloria Mu帽oz's debut novel, a genre-bending work of young adult climate fiction, Florida is crumbling under the weight of climate disaster, and seventeen-year-old Julieta Villarreal must decide whether to remain on Earth with her friends and family or to leave everything behind and embark on a mission to establish humanity鈥檚 first extraterrestrial settlement.
The book鈥檚 prescient nature came as a surprise even to Mu帽oz, who began writing 鈥淭his is the Year" in 2020 when her life was turned upside down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new mother, business owner and teacher at the time, Mu帽oz started spending a lot of time with her young daughter at a park near their home in St. Petersburg, Fla.
鈥淚 would stare across the water at these houses that were built right on the seawall,鈥� said Mu帽oz, who studied poetry in the creative writing program at 小黄鸭视频 and has served as poet laureate of St. Petersburg since 2022. 鈥淎nd I just started imagining what they would look like in 50 years, 100 years, 300 years, 400 years."
"This is the Year" is out now from Holiday House Books.
The prospect of rising sea levels made Mu帽oz think of her daughter who was often sleeping in her stroller during these pensive moments.
鈥淚 was looking at these houses and thinking of her future and the world that we're leaving behind and building and changing with all every decision we make,鈥� she said.
"This is the Year鈥� is set in a Florida of the near future, where temperatures reach 105 degrees on Christmas Eve. Those who can, live in a walled, inner-city neighborhood safe from flooding and guarded by armed AI security. Those who can鈥檛, live on the coast and in flood zones.
At one point, a building in Julieta鈥檚 neighborhood collapses:
All the air leaves my body. It鈥檚 the Heron. Yes, the place with the pool we鈥檇 sneak into during hot summers. 鈥楾here are four fatalities and counting,鈥� the reporter says, looking somewhere past the camera. 鈥楳any are injured. Many are still lost.鈥� This is the term the news uses: many. The people in our neighborhood are the unnamed who have been pushed to the edge of land. Here, many buildings don鈥檛 have standard inspections. Many homes are hand-me-downs, cut and rigged into tiny apartments. The waterfront was never supposed to be ours.
When Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in Surfside, Fla., partially collapsed in 2021, Mu帽oz wondered if she should remove the scene from her draft.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want it to seem like I was being opportunistic 鈥� even though I had written the scene before the collapse,鈥� said Mu帽oz, who quickly realized other events in the novel would likely play out in big and small ways before its publication date. 鈥淚f we started taking things out, it would have become a fundamentally different story.鈥�
Another element from Julieta鈥檚 world recently leapt off the page and into .
鈥淚t鈥檚 a great piece of local news. The article is so well done,鈥� said Mu帽oz, who wrote the herbivorous mammal into extinction in her novel. 鈥淭he manatee, which has no known predator, going extinct is truly a stain on our human history 鈥� if we were to let that happen. Because we are the predator in that scenario."
In 鈥淭his is the Year,鈥� Julieta remembers the manatee. She saw one at the beach, once, before they went extinct. The memory reminds her of her twin sister Ofelia, who was killed in a hit-and-run a year before the events of the novel take place.
鈥淭hat day existed,鈥� Julieta says, referring to the time she spotted a manatee grazing on seaweed. 鈥淢anatees existed. You existed.鈥�
For all of its melancholy, 鈥淭his is the Year" is a missive of hope.
鈥淚t's so easy to feel helpless right now,鈥� said Mu帽oz, who experienced the feeling while drafting the novel. 鈥淚t felt like anything you might do wouldn鈥檛 move the needle or like a drop in an infinite ocean of sorrow. And I really wanted it to feel like, no, actually, there are small and big ways that we can do things together and make a difference.鈥�
The novel is a blend of both. Despair and hope. Poetry and prose. English and Spanish. Julieta and her twin sister Ofelia 鈥� whom she mourns and addresses throughout the novel.
鈥淚 really like the advice the faculty gave us to work outside of our genre,鈥� Mu帽oz said of the time she spent as a graduate student the 小黄鸭视频 Department of English. 鈥淭o just take the class, try something out, collaborate, experiment outside of the one specific genre that you think is where you fit. That was helpful for me as someone who was interested in translation and wanting to try out creative nonfiction, fiction and screen writing. I think it helped me a lot in the long run to see that writing can take many forms.鈥�
"This is the Year鈥� is out now from . Signed copies are available at Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, where Mu帽oz will host , a live reading featuring local poets, on Wednesday, April 30.
The audiobook will be available on May 13.