Troubled Waters

An excerpt by Mary Annaïse Heglar , writer and podcast host whose work focuses on climate change, climate grief, and climate justice. She is based in New Orleans.

with an introduction by Shilpi Chhotray, Co-Founder and President of Counterstream Media.

The story of climate change is the story of our collective future

Climate fiction opens our eyes to the intimate realities of climate change, offering us not just facts, but the human experiences behind them. In “Troubled Waters,” one of my favorite reads of 2024 so far, Mary Annaïse Heglar gives us a front-row seat to the emotional and physical toll of climate-induced disasters. As we follow Corinne's story, we’re transported into the heart of Mississippi's swelling rivers and rising anxieties—an all-too-real manifestation of a destabilized climate. Through Corinne’s inner turmoil and her struggles with doubt, Heglar challenges us to confront the undeniable link between climate change and the extreme events reshaping our lives. This is why storytelling, and specifically narrative change that centers climate justice, is so vital. 

Enjoy this excerpt from Mary Annaïse Heglar’s book below and purchase it here.

Chapter 1

Lovely Day

December 19, 2013

Even as she typed the last paragraphs of her final paper for the semester, Corinne couldn’t hear the feverish click-clack of the keyboard under her fingertips or the frantic whispers of the other students. She wasn’t in North Ohio anymore, burrowed away in the basement of the massive library at Oberlin College. She was back in Mississippi two springs ago, listening to that eerie stillness as the Mississippi River swelled out of her banks and onto the roads that connected Port Gibson and Vicksburg, quieting the dull hum of traffic. Then, the River had seeped into playgrounds and backyards, hushing children at play and neighbors at gossip. Eventually, the water rose so high, the birds were too confused to sing, and the River silenced the sky. Corinne had lain in her room with the windows open, wary even of turning on the television lest she further anger the Mississippi. There was nowhere to go and nothing to say.

By the time her waters had receded, the River had washed past every watermark on record, even the one set by the Great Flood of 1927.

Earlier in the semester, Corinne had gotten into a bitter argument with one of her environmental studies professors about the causes of the 2011 Mississippi River flood. He’d insisted that it was simply a natural phenomenon.

“Rivers flood,” he’d said with a wave of his hand. “There’s no reason to think it was global warming.”

Corinne, on the other hand, had insisted that it wasn’t that simple. The 2011 flood was an alleged five-hundred-year flood, and so were the 1993 flood and the 1937 flood. The 1927 flood—the one that had haunted Corinne since elementary school when she first learned about those who’d drowned and the horrors of a river unhinged—still held the record for the most destructive river flood in US history. There wasn’t even a century between any of them.

“How was that ‘natural’?” she’d demanded.

Her professor had stood back, crossed his arms, and told her to prove it. So here she was, two months later, with a browser window littered with tabbed articles about deforestation and wetlands, La Niña, and pre- versus post industrial rainfall levels. She felt even more strongly that, had the River been left to her own devices, she probably would have flooded in 2011, but not so viciously. If the earth’s temperature had held steady, the rain would have fallen, but not nearly as much. The River may have risen, but the wetlands and the forests would have been able to absorb the water. But as strong as her conviction was, she still wasn’t sure she was being convincing enough for her polemic professor.