Climate Fiction That Challenges Everything: Mona Shomali on Water Mamas, Geoengineering, and Indigenous Consent

Water Mamas: Climate Fiction That Challenges Everything | Mona Shomali on Geoengineering, Indigenous Rights, and the Amazon

In this episode, I sit down with author and visual artist Mona Shomali to discuss her debut novel Water Mamas — a gripping work of climate fiction that explores the collision of indigenous human rights, environmental justice, and geoengineering in a near-future Amazon on the brink of collapse.

Mona's background is as rich as her storytelling. Before writing Water Mamas, she spent years as a college professor teaching Indigenous Human Rights and International Environmental Governance, worked as a case researcher on the landmark indigenous rights case Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku vs. Ecuador, and served as an environmental policy analyst lobbying the UN on behalf of small island states facing extinction due to sea level rise. This is a conversation that goes deep.

Water Mamas doesn't give you easy answers — and that's exactly what makes it so powerful. If you care about climate change, indigenous sovereignty, and the ethics of technological intervention in our ecosystems, this episode is for you.

Timestamped Highlights:

• (00:00) Introduction to Water Mamas and its themes of climate crisis and indigenous rights
• (03:12) Mona's academic background — teaching Indigenous Human Rights and International Environmental Governance
• (03:52) Her work on the landmark case Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku vs. Ecuador and indigenous land rights
• (08:06) The central conflict: cloud seeding, geoengineering, and indigenous consent in the Amazon
• (10:16) Why geoengineering is more complicated than it seems — and who it's already helping
• (13:18) Meet Afa, the protagonist: a UN representative torn between mission and conscience
• (14:44) How Mona's work with small island states facing sea level rise shaped Afa's backstory
• (18:32) The water mamas: indigenous spirituality, mythology, and a chilling dream sequence
• (21:38) The real Macuxi mythology behind the water mamas — and why it matters
• (24:33) Vishnu, the love interest: a character you'll keep changing your mind about
• (28:42) Could there be a sequel to Water Mamas? Mona shares what she's thinking
• (39:07) Where to find Water Mamas, Mona's Substack, and her environmental art collection Invisible Stains

Resources & Links:

• 📖 Water Mamas by Mona Shomali — available at independent bookstores and Amazon
• 🎨 Mona's artwork and environmental collection Invisible Stain: monashomali.com
• ✍️ Mona's Substack on international environmental issues and mythology: search Mona Shomali on Substack
• 🎙️ Learn more about the show: arthealsallwoundspodcast.com

Music in this episode by Ketsa and Lobo Loco.

Transcript

00;00;12;00 - 00;00;31;11

Pam

Do you believe art can change the world? So do I. On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell..

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Pam

Have you ever thought that your life experience would be good material for a novel? Well, my guest on today's episode thought that. And she was right! In fact, she has enough experience for several novels.

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Pam

Water Mamas, written by Mona Shomali, is set in the not so distant future where there's world wide

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Pam

drought. Conditions are especially dire in the Amazon, our planet's lungs.

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Pam

A young United Nations representative is given the mission

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Pam

to convince indigenous tribes who still live in the shrinking patches of forest to approve a cloud seeding project that could potentially bring the forest back.

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Pam

Using her experiences in indigenous human rights and environmental science, Mona weaves together the complex intersection of human rights, climate science and spirituality.

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Pam

There is no easy answer. After reading this book, I came away with lots of feelings and no definite conclusion. This book asks us to grapple with the assumptions that are made by many of us about the right approach for the planet.

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Pam

You want to know how you can really help me keep this show going? Follow me on your favorite listening app. So easy. Right? And if you really want to give the show a boost, leave me a five star rating or review.

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Pam

Hi, Mona. Thank you so much for being on Art Heals All Wounds. You wrote a book called Water Mamas that I am very excited to talk to you about.

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Mona

I'm excited too.

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Pam

one thing before we get into this book. Can you talk a little bit about your background? You're first of all, you are an incredible visual artist. You paint and your paintings are incredible, but you also have a lot of other things that would inform

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Pam

the writing of this book that I hope you'll talk about.

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Mona

Yes.

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Mona

So I spent five years in New York City as an academic.

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Mona

I was a college professor, and I taught courses such as Indigenous Human Rights and the Amazon and International Environmental Governance. And,

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Mona

I did all my graduate work on international Indigenous human rights. And that focus came out of my work experience being a case researcher for Sarayaku versus Ecuador, which was a landmark case in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where the Sarayaku tribe, the Kichwa people,

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Mona

sued,

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Mona

the government, I shouldn’t say the Sarayaku, the Kichwa of Sarayaku, sued the government of Ecuador for illegally allowing oil drilling on their land.

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Mona

And so I was a case researcher for that case. And so,

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Mona

as I was working with them, I really thought to myself,

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Mona

this is something I want to pursue,

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Mona

professionally. Like, I really want to be someone who provides access to indigenous people who are,

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Mona

who are trying to establish their human rights in this era of exploitation and,

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Mona

in the Amazon.

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Mona

So,

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Mona

so fast forward again. So then I taught it. And then as I was teaching the courses, I was also coming across this tension between environmentalists and indigenous peoples who had written a letter in Cultural Survival magazine,

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Mona

saying, we do not give license to environmental groups to speak for us. And it was this long letter, and I read this letter, and I had referenced it in my master's thesis at NYU, and it just always was in the back of my head that people have collapsed, sort of the white Western environmentalists with indigenous people, when they actually have very frequently been at odds.

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Mona

And so I,

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Mona

you know, left New York. I stopped being a professor, and I knew I wanted to do something around these issues. And so I first wrote,

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Mona

a nonfiction book exploring these issues.

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Mona

And basically everyone.

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Pam

Wait, what's the name of that?

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Mona

That book was called in,

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Mona

a Guide to Ecology and Social Justice. It it never made it. It never saw the light of day. But,

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Mona

I wrote that book and it was basically on these themes,

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Mona

and that I'm discussing and I had put in a few other things like farmworkers and, you know, chemicals and like the the fight of farmworkers to, to have some type of protection, like things that were adjacent to this issue,

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Mona

indigenous human right side included.

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Mona

And so that book I started to pass around to my friends and they were like, Mona, this is so boring. This is just like the most boring book I’ve ever seen or heard of or read. This is just so boring. So then I decided that I needed to turn this nonfiction information into a work of fiction with a story arc where I would develop characters and there would be multiple plot lines,

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Mona

where there would be some suspense and I just, I just had this resolute, you know, belief that I needed to write this fiction book to explore the nonfiction themes,

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Mona

that I had originally wanted to teach.

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Mona

And so I hired an editor, and she was so on board, you know, she really,

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Mona

saw my vision, and we must have done seven drafts together. Shout out to Dana Bennett. We did so many drafts together, and,

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Mona

you know, she really, really helped me get to a place where I was doing storytelling and not just fact dumping.

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Mona

Because often I wanted to share a whole bunch of facts, and she was like, no, this is awful. This is not what we're going to do here. So,

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Mona

I had a lot of really great coaching from the editor, and I finally came up with a book that,

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Mona

I felt was compelling to read, you know, that was exciting and had all these facts about international,

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Mona

international human rights law in it.

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Pam

I think that's a great set up to start talking about this book. It's called Water Mamas and.

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Pam

I'm wondering where to start. I, I want to talk about kind of the different sides. Well, first of all, let's talk about what is the issue being proposed in this story.

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Mona

Okay. So this is a time in the near distant future where there are government bodies that are proposing a geoengineering plan of artificial rain.

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Mona

To fall in the Amazon,

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Mona

to bring back rain to the Amazon, where currently there's only rain in small patches where indigenous people live. And according to international human rights law as it stands now,

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Mona

indigenous people have to give their consent to megaprojects on their land.

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Mona

And so the main protagonist,

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Mona

is a U.N. employee, and she tries to get the consent. And one of the tribes, the Macuxi,

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Mona

does not want to give consent because they fear their water mamas, their forest

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Mona

and water spirits will be negatively affected by this,

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Mona

geoengineering cloud seeding, as is called the artificial rain, which already exists and is used all throughout the world, including in California, in the High Sierras,

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Mona

China,

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Mona

it was used in Australia, but the Australian population fought against it, so they halted the program.

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Mona

So it is controversial, which is why I chose it, because I wanted some type of,

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Mona

climate crisis controversy, something that would pit one set of morals against another.

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Mona

I really wanted there to be like, a moral struggle,

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Mona

for the main character. And so I chose geoengineering.

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Pam

Yes. Which is what makes this so complicated in that I think a lot of us kind of have a sort of like.

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Pam

Okay, I'm only going to speak for myself. When I hear geoengineering, I have a bit of a reaction to it,

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Pam

in that I feel like we're kind of experimenting with our ecosystem on the one hand. On the other hand, hey, we need rain. And so you don't make this black or white because you do include that.

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Pam

The people who are using this are really, really happy and and that it's working for them.

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Mona

Yes, it brings back seasons. I mentioned in the book that it's brought back seasons for many,

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Mona

countries and states that were experiencing drought.

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Pam

Right. And the other thing is a place where you don't make it black and white. Is that a lot of the other indigenous people in the Amazon? Yes.

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Mona

Yes. The the other tribes do want it. So that is also very concurrent with,

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Mona

oil projects in the Amazon is that there are some tribes that want it and other tribes that don't. And so as someone who worked, I worked for the center for,

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Mona

Economic and Social Rights out of Quito in Ecuador. I actually went to a meeting where different tribes were arguing about whether to let oil projects in.

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Mona

And I think I was so impacted by that argument because I think it goes back to that sort of,

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Mona

noble savage image that a lot of Western environmentalists have,

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Mona

which is like, oh, well, of course they'd be against oil. But it's like, no, there are actually some people who say, you know, they've been quoted as saying, we want hospitals, we want schools, we want roads.

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Mona

And so I just don't want to,

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Mona

present things, you know, any different than they are, which is that it's complex. And there's parts of modernity that indigenous people want, parts that they don't. And different tribes have different views. And,

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Mona

I just want to sort of get away from this

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Mona

view that one type of person has one type of belief.

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Mona

I really wanted to explore the idea of how complex it is,

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Mona

accepting modernity, not accepting modernity. You know, these are kind of the issues that I was wrestling with in my career. And then I really wanted to write a book that would present these moral issues to the audience.

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Pam

Right. And the other thing that's interesting, and we're going to back up a little bit and talk about the protagonist soon, but I just want to.

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Pam

Keep sharing my thoughts that were around this. Is that you don't ever take a stand on whether or not this cloud seeding is harmful or not.

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Pam

You never say, oh, this could harm this, this or oh, it's great, or oh, it's, you know, you never take that stand. It is really not about, you know what? Whether it's a harmful practice.

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Mona

Yes.

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Pam

So yes. And that for me, as the reader made this really challenging.

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Mona

Yes.

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Pam

Be because also

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Pam

okay, let's go to the protagonist now.

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Pam

Your protagonist Afa, Am I pronouncing it the way that you would pronounce it?

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Mona

I would say Afa but Afa

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Pam

Afa.

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Mona

I mean.

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Pam

Now let's say Afa. Afa is nicer. So Afa

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Pam

has a really interesting backstory. Can you share just a little bit about her backstory?

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Mona

Yes. She is from a South Pacific island that has gone,

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Mona

under due to sea level rise. And that actually also comes from my work experience, because I used to be,

00;13;50;07 - 00;14;14;27

Mona

an environmental policy analyst for this group called Islands First, that was lobbying the UN on behalf of AOSIS which is the Association of Small Island States. They were a group of small islands that knew they were going to go extinct and go under for sea level rise, and they were trying to organize environmental refugee status in places like Australia.

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Mona

They were trying to establish environmental refugee status at the UN.

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Mona

And so out of that work experience, I also sort of dovetailed that into the book where she was,

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Mona

coming from an island that had gone under. And so she had this view of we have to do something before your habitat is gone. So I wanted to put her in a position where she was, you know, really seeing the point of mitigating climate change before it was too late.

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Mona

But I also wanted her to connect so much to the people,

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Mona

that when they said they didn't want the program, she was torn and and felt loyalty to the community. So I was trying to create a backstory where she was she kind of came into it with a perspective of really trying to, you know, save. And I'm using air quotes for people who can't see the, the podcast, you know, save this rainforest habitat ecosystem.

00;15;18;08 - 00;15;30;07

Mona

And then coming to a perspective of, well, this has to do with self-determination and agency. And you know, of of the people versus technocratic,

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Mona

elite scientists who are geoengineering. So, so kind of that tension.

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Pam

Right. And it gives her this certain credibility too, in that this is not theoretical for her. And there is a whole emotional component in that her family did not

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Pam

evacuate the island very early on. And it was quite traumatic.

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Mona

Yes.

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Pam

For her.

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Mona

Yes. She her family was one of the last to leave her mother wanted to leave, but the father insisted on staying till the last minute. And it was very traumatic for her and I. I wanted to create a backstory that made it so that she was really invested in helping them. What helping them meant,

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Mona

I wanted to explore is a nebulous gray area like, what does help actually mean?

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Mona

What is support? What is capacity building? What is assistance? What do those things mean?

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Mona

And so I wanted but I did want her to be in a position where she was invested in some type of,

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Mona

creation of a better scenario. This is the way I'll put it.

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Pam

Yes. She's very, very, very sincere to all parties that she's answerable to. Which again, adds to the conflict, because at a certain point, she really has to make a choice over. Where she is going to put her loyalty and where she is, what she's going to fight for.

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Pam

I don't want to give too much away about the ultimate outcome of this, but I do just want to explore feelings around this story. I find my I found myself with a lot of really strong feelings.

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Mona

That's what I've heard from a lot of readers.

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Pam

Yeah, you really do. At a certain point, I just felt like to the one tribe that was holding out, I felt so frustrated with them. Yeah, because it's like it's like you're, you know, and they they did have the best patch of the Amazon that was left.

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Mona

They did have the,

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Mona

yes.

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Pam

And I sort of, sort of the things you include in the book echoed my feelings, reading it like, you're so selfish. Don't you want to save the world?

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Mona

Exactly.

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Pam

And I found myself feeling that as well. Like everybody else, all the other tribes are on board. Why aren't you? But you have this one scene. I don't want to give it away too much, but it's kind of a scary spiritual experience for Afa. do you know which scene I'm talking about?

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Mona

Let me think. Is it a dream sequence?

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Pam

Yes.

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Mona

Yes, I know what you're talking about.

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Pam

It's scary.

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Mona

Yeah, yeah, I it's funny because my editor really, really pushed for that. She, she had the vision,

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Mona

around that, she was like, let's write a dream sequence with the following. And so I will give her credit.

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Mona

She really felt she really felt that would be momentous.

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Pam

But there's a sense too, when you read it, that it's more than a dream sequence. Yes, it's actually could, because she's very she at this point is seems to be very much a New York City woman. Yes. And she is here in the Amazon where it's very sweaty and sticky and she's being bitten by bugs and all kinds of things.

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Pam

She actually gets somewhat injured by some parasites that are there.

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Mona

Which happen to be. By the way, all those things happened to me.

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Pam

Oh, so interesting. I just thought up, you know, this is a bit of a tangent, but we went to,

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Pam

Hawaii and we,

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Pam

hiked up Pipiwai and the people we met there who came in flip flops like little like silver lamé sandals, brand new leather Nike's. It was just like, where did you think you were coming to?

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Pam

And that's where she's like, except much more,

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Pam

many more things than just going on this trail in Hawaii. Like she's dressing for maybe summer in New York. Yes. She's not prepared. And really, she has some encounters with nature that are not pleasant. Yes. And so in the middle of, you know, how you feel if you're in this place and you're experiencing illness, she has.

00;20;29;06 - 00;20;35;18

Pam

Okay. It could be a dream sequence. But there's also a sense that maybe it was a vision and yes, it was actually happened. Yes.

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Mona

All of those things are true.

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Pam

It's not clear. And it's scary.

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Mona

Yes.

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Pam

It's scary. And if you expect these benevolent water mamas to come, have a nice chat with you about why you should or shouldn't do something. That's not what she gets. No. And it really that was an interesting point to I was like, wow, that. And she's and she kind of wakes up befuddled. She's not really sure what happened.

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Pam

I feel like she's not sure of was it a dream? Was it something more than a dream?

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Mona

Right. That's how I wrote it. Yeah.

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Pam

Yeah. So this seems like a real turning point for.

00;21;23;02 - 00;21;24;16

Mona

Her, right?

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Pam

You know, this thing of, like, scared straight, like, you know, you're not. You have an agenda, you're not listening, and I'm going to make you listen.

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Mona

It's important to mention that the Macuxi

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Mona

culture historically does actually,

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Mona

believe in water mamas. I don't want to speak to,

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Mona

to people today. I can't speak to how young people are,

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Mona

interacting with mythology, but their own mythology,

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Mona

historically has been that if you upset or anger the water mamas, they will bring sickness,

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Mona

to the, the tribe and even will take people under and kill them.

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Mona

And so that is historically to prepare for this novel, I actually read an anthropologists,

00;22;10;02 - 00;22;19;14

Mona

account of the Macuxi mythology that he had intensely researched with the Macuxi and I had lived with the Macuxi.

00;22;19;17 - 00;22;41;10

Mona

at Iwokrama. so when I left, I was like, okay, let me get really inside of this mythology and and this I really regret not writing down his name, but this great academic, you know, really got on paper the details of what happens if you upset these water mammas.

00;22;41;10 - 00;22;47;19

Mona

And it is not good, they just bring sickness and death to the community. So,

00;22;47;21 - 00;22;54;10

Mona

that's why I felt it was such a great vehicle for the story because,

00;22;54;12 - 00;22;56;24

Mona

you know, in my time with the Macuxi, the,

00;22;56;28 - 00;23;06;08

Mona

science station that they live in or manage the eco tourism site that they manage is modeled after Iwokrama, which is a real,

00;23;06;11 - 00;23;11;04

Mona

science station slash eco tourism station that is,

00;23;11;06 - 00;23;15;12

Mona

partly managed by the Macuxi in Guyana in real life.

00;23;15;14 - 00;23;17;19

Mona

And so it was modeled after that. So,

00;23;17;19 - 00;23;25;08

Mona

you know, I have a friend who works at Iwokrama and she was reading the book and she was like, this is basically us. So,

00;23;25;08 - 00;23;31;27

Mona

one thing about the book is that there are parts of it that are almost entirely based on reality.

00;23;31;29 - 00;23;50;17

Pam

Wow. Yeah, that's interesting because that's another thing, is that Afa is not treated to the tourist version. No, of, of of this during this visit at all.

00;23;50;20 - 00;24;02;04

Pam

Which is probably why she gets ill and all this stuff. She also.

00;24;02;07 - 00;24;33;18

Pam

I don't want I don't want to get too divisive between the men and women characters in this book, but I feel like, you know, you do have the environmentalist at the UN who is very, like, hard and determined and that we have to get them to agree that is her mission. It's not like a listening mission. It is like your job is to go down there and convince them that they have to accept.

00;24;33;20 - 00;24;36;00

Mona

And get consent at all costs.

00;24;36;02 - 00;24;39;20

Pam

Exactly. And then there is another,

00;24;39;23 - 00;24;40;29

Pam

Is he a biologist.

00;24;40;29 - 00;24;42;02

Mona

Yes, yes.

00;24;42;07 - 00;24;44;05

Pam

Her, her. Her crush.

00;24;44;12 - 00;24;45;17

Mona

Yes.

00;24;45;19 - 00;24;54;27

Pam

Yes. And that he's a tricky character too, which I really kept changing how I felt about him.

00;24;54;29 - 00;25;00;16

Mona

Yes. And that was based on a real person as well.

00;25;00;19 - 00;25;16;28

Mona

Who I encountered, who also was a part of my journey and working with the Macuxi and I, in real life, I kept changing how I viewed him. And so I wrote him into the story as a vehicle for a lot of Afa's discoveries. But,

00;25;17;01 - 00;25;23;01

Mona

I think in so many ways, my thoughts of him are,

00;25;23;04 - 00;25;24;18

Mona

they go back and forth.

00;25;24;22 - 00;25;30;20

Mona

And so I wrote him like that, that you that you go back and forth and how you view him.

00;25;30;22 - 00;25;33;26

Pam

Right? Because in a certain sense, he could be a great,

00;25;33;26 - 00;25;46;11

Pam

ally and mentor in terms of her choice to respect the rights of the Macuxi. But it's complicated.

00;25;46;13 - 00;25;58;14

Mona

Yeah, it's very complicated. I wanted to express so many things in this book, like different things, different themes. And, you know, I'm in my 40s and I,

00;25;58;17 - 00;26;03;00

Mona

became single after my divorce in my mid 30s and,

00;26;03;00 - 00;26;05;05

Mona

you know, not to give too much away, but,

00;26;05;08 - 00;26;16;12

Mona

in the book, this character, he is non-monogamous and it's something she has to, you know, decide, do I want to be a part of this lifestyle?

00;26;16;14 - 00;26;18;23

Mona

And when I came back to the Bay area,

00;26;18;23 - 00;26;33;22

Mona

from New York and then London, where I lived, I came back and I just felt like every guy I met was non-monogamous, and I was like, wow. Have things changed so much since I was single? Everyone is non-monogamous.

00;26;33;24 - 00;26;40;15

Pam

That's that's that's I've been in the Bay area for since 1988. That's a Bay area thing, I will say.

00;26;40;17 - 00;26;41;29

Mona

Yeah. And I just came to that.

00;26;42;01 - 00;26;44;20

Pam

That's that's my experience is that that's a Bay area.

00;26;44;20 - 00;26;54;28

Mona

But I will say that the, the person that that character is based on in Guyana was also non-monogamous in Guyana. And so,

00;26;54;28 - 00;26;58;27

Mona

so he, he was non-monogamous. And then I came back to the Bay area,

00;26;58;27 - 00;27;25;28

Mona

every guy was non-monogamous, so I felt like I wanted to explore, even though the book was about indigenous human rights and spirituality and climate change, I just kind of want to throw out a bone for other women who are navigating dating to say, like, I see that we're all dealing with this, like this issue of, I don't know if these are Peter Pan men or what the deal is, but where a lot of us women

00;27;25;28 - 00;27;31;29

Mona

are negotiating constantly, meeting men who are like, oh no, no, no, I'm not monogamous.

00;27;32;01 - 00;27;36;08

Pam

So right. And,

00;27;36;11 - 00;28;04;02

Pam

it's interesting because while I have a lot of thoughts about what I want Afa to do, but obviously I am neither the author of this book nor am I the protagonist of this book. But you do. Yeah. You never really let us settle somewhere. There's no happy ending here. I guess the closest a happy ending is that it feels like Afa in many ways finds her people.

00;28;04;04 - 00;28;12;26

Mona

Yes, yes, she is recruited by a different department, which is 100% about the indigenous,

00;28;12;29 - 00;28;30;05

Mona

perspective. And so that is the happy ending. But I did not want to write a traditional love story where the girl ends up with the boy. I purposely wanted to write something where the woman finished the novel single?

00;28;30;07 - 00;28;42;28

Pam

Yes. And that brings me to my next question, which is would you ever consider like, a sequel to this book?

00;28;42;28 - 00;28;50;15

Mona

So many people have asked me that. And I, to be honest with you, I am jotting down ideas for a sequel.

00;28;50;18 - 00;29;11;18

Mona

This book took five years to write, so obviously it wouldn't be very quick, but I am jotting down ideas and I am exploring it. I feel like I feel like I need to have enough experiences to write about, because so much of my writing is based on my experiences, because that's authentic and true.

00;29;11;21 - 00;29;14;14

Mona

And so I,

00;29;14;16 - 00;29;20;09

Mona

I mean, coincidentally, I am flying to Brazil this Sunday for two weeks.

00;29;20;12 - 00;29;21;03

Pam

Wow.

00;29;21;05 - 00;29;39;05

Mona

And so I feel like I'm trying to fit in as many experiences as I can in this life. So I had something to write about. So the answer is yes, I am considering a sequel, but I'm trying to amass enough interesting experience to write about.

00;29;39;07 - 00;30;10;08

Pam

Yes, I see that, but I, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I bet you do have enough experiences to write about, and I obviously, how would I know? But I think you I think you really set this up for a sequel, because we want to know a lot of things. We want to know, first of all, about Afa’s romantic decision, because she's sort of on the cusp of that.

00;30;10;14 - 00;30;11;05

Mona

Yes.

00;30;11;07 - 00;30;26;00

Pam

When we end this novel, yes, we we want to know this next step in this new position. And now if she does continue this whole thing, she's on a completely different side of this issue.

00;30;26;00 - 00;30;27;03

Mona

Yes.

00;30;27;06 - 00;30;57;04

Pam

And so I think that you have so much experience in all of these main conflicts that we want to know more about. I don't know, that's just my opinion is that you've listed these things that you've done, and those are kind of where you've left us on these at the novel, where we want to know more about her choices and about the work that she does now.

00;30;57;07 - 00;31;03;14

Mona

Well, this is helpful for me to hear, because just hearing what you want to know more about makes me think, well,

00;31;03;17 - 00;31;20;10

Mona

you know, what are the answers to these questions? I think, you know, so often what makes for a good piece of writing starts with questions. You know, because my question when I wrote this book was, how do I illustrate this conflict?

00;31;20;13 - 00;31;30;12

Mona

And I feel like I did it, but there's, you know, so much about Afa that could be expanded on. But even hearing your questions informs me,

00;31;30;15 - 00;31;38;19

Mona

and I really appreciate them. Thank you. Because I just, I feel like I just really want to do a sequel justice.

00;31;38;21 - 00;31;38;26

Pam

Oh,

00;31;38;26 - 00;31;43;18

Pam

I think you will. I think you will. I.

00;31;43;20 - 00;32;02;01

Pam

Yeah. She's compelling, and she's now. I mean, you know, you set up such a huge question, which is like, don't you want to save the world with this thing? And I feel like, like.

00;32;02;03 - 00;32;26;17

Pam

Trying to reconcile this with this spiritual practice is so hard. And I really, really, really also want Afa to have another encounter with the water mamas. I really do want to see, you know, I think that that aspect of it.

00;32;26;20 - 00;32;44;01

Pam

It seems to me very much that like she has a connection with them whether she wants it or not. Yes, and I would love to see her now on this other side, fighting for indigenous rights. Maybe the issue is still the same.

00;32;44;04 - 00;32;56;06

Pam

What would her relationship, what would an encounter with the water mamas look like then? What is she going to say to this potential love interest?

00;32;56;09 - 00;33;14;22

Pam

Who are the people in her new position at the UN? Because that is going to be complex as well. Who maybe are not what they seem, which is what the environmentalist was kind of like. Oh, he's so great, he's heroic. And then as the novel went on, you were like, he's kind of,

00;33;14;24 - 00;33;19;04

Pam

you know, he's kind of really.

00;33;19;06 - 00;33;24;27

Mona

Dystopic. I tried to write. Yes. dystopic, like you sign on. It's kind of like,

00;33;24;27 - 00;33;27;13

Mona

in the Dune novels.

00;33;27;16 - 00;33;47;11

Mona

Paul, so many people see it that as the hero's journey. But Paul goes very dark. He becomes a dark hero, and I don't know if he even is a hero, you know, because of how dark he goes with bringing on war and and I and by the way, I am talking about the movie, so I don't want anyone in the audience to,

00;33;47;11 - 00;33;52;29

Mona

I have not read the books, but I'm just talking about the, the arc of the, the movies.

00;33;53;01 - 00;33;53;21

Mona

And,

00;33;53;21 - 00;34;12;27

Mona

I feel like when I see, you know, in the third Dune movie, how Paul is portrayed as very dark. I kind of wanted to, to do that same thing when I wrote her boss, Kwame, I wanted him to appear as the hero, you know,

00;34;12;27 - 00;34;13;12

Mona

you know,

00;34;13;15 - 00;34;17;17

Mona

African man, a man of color who, you know, represented,

00;34;17;20 - 00;34;26;00

Mona

you know, a more marginalized community who comes in, who was an environmentalist, like all these things that we really revere.

00;34;26;00 - 00;34;39;28

Mona

And then he turns out to be this dystopic autocrat, technocrat pushing for these engineering solutions against the the will of indigenous people. So I, I really tried to,

00;34;40;00 - 00;34;57;21

Mona

present people who seem as heroes as not and then present people who don't seem as heroes as maybe they are like the Vishnu character. You know, he perhaps seemed like a flawed character, but he actually had so much value in the end.

00;34;57;21 - 00;35;03;05

Mona

And so I tried to play with this idea of,

00;35;03;08 - 00;35;07;29

Mona

like dystopia, even among individuals.

00;35;08;02 - 00;35;14;08

Pam

Right, right. And just to mention that Vishnu is the person we're talking about, who's the potential love interest.

00;35;14;08 - 00;35;20;01

Mona

Yes. Who's the biologist who's working with the Macuxi, documenting their worldview.

00;35;20;03 - 00;35;36;19

Pam

Right? Right. Yeah, I think I really when I finished the book, I was like, okay, I'm ready for the sequel right now because it's a big issue. There are lots of complicated conflicts in this,

00;35;36;22 - 00;35;45;06

Pam

Afa's really compelling. She's she's a little bit despite her backstory. She's a little bit naive. Yeah, but you see her becoming less naive.

00;35;45;06 - 00;35;45;21

Mona

Yes.

00;35;45;21 - 00;36;09;23

Pam

Throughout the novel. And so I feel like I'm ready to see her sort of grow in that belief in herself, because that's something she really struggles with. Is that she does make a huge turning point. But her her belief that she can decide what she thinks is right, as opposed to taking orders from

00;36;09;26 - 00;36;13;00

Pam

Kwame, the the UN boss.

00;36;13;03 - 00;36;42;09

Pam

So I, I want to keep I do want to keep see her seeing her how she grows in this next incarnation and seeing who the complicated characters in the UN are, and also the water mamas and, you know, kind of exploring more. There are a lot of people, even within the Macuxi environment, who sort of they were they were not warm and fuzzy.

00;36;42;13 - 00;36;52;06

Pam

Yeah, they were not cuddly. And I, I just think you have so many characters to go with and that

00;36;52;06 - 00;37;06;29

Pam

Afa’s just such a strong, you know, protagonist to encounter these because she's very, very, ethical. She's very compassionate. She's very,

00;37;07;02 - 00;37;13;19

Pam

she's very empathic. So it's really I just think there's so much there. So you just don't take five years.

00;37;13;19 - 00;37;29;09

Mona

And I really did want to make her arc to be a woman that didn't quite believe in herself, to a woman who truly did have a sense of her own agency and identity and took a stand. So that was the arc I wanted to write for her.

00;37;29;12 - 00;37;38;13

Mona

Right. You know, and it's interesting because my editor kept saying, put yourself in Afa, put yourself in Afa.

00;37;38;16 - 00;37;47;00

Mona

And at first I, I didn't I hadn't written her anything like me, but I felt that my editors said so many times,

00;37;47;03 - 00;37;48;01

Mona

give Afa

00;37;48;04 - 00;38;00;28

Mona

your, your idiosyncrasies or give her your qualities and, you know, make her real and make her complex. So I did I did end up writing some of my own, you know,

00;38;01;00 - 00;38;09;00

Mona

processes I've gone through to become you know, an independent woman like I did try to,

00;38;09;02 - 00;38;10;26

Mona

include that in her arc,

00;38;10;29 - 00;38;12;26

Mona

because I felt that was real for me.

00;38;12;26 - 00;38;18;10

Mona

And it would be real for her and real for the audience.

00;38;18;12 - 00;38;35;14

Pam

Yeah. That's why I'm really happy you’re going back to Brazil. But I also, I also think that you do have so much life experience that would enable you to at least get a good chunk of this sequel down.

00;38;35;16 - 00;38;39;02

Mona

Well, let's see, maybe I'll start writing it in Brazil. Who knows?

00;38;39;04 - 00;38;41;28

Pam

Yeah, that would be amazing.

00;38;42;01 - 00;38;55;07

Pam

Well, so it was so fun to talk to you. I have been wanting to ask you a lot of questions since I finished reading Water Mamas. Where can people find Water Mamas?

00;38;55;10 - 00;39;07;02

Mona

So Water Mamas can be ordered at any independent bookstore? It is in all the bookstore catalogs, so any and your local bookstore you can go and have it ordered there.

00;39;07;05 - 00;39;14;17

Mona

If you want an easier approach, there is Amazon.com. It's available there too.

00;39;14;20 - 00;39;22;09

Mona

I also have a Substack if you are interested in just reading some nonfiction,

00;39;22;11 - 00;39;29;14

Mona

about international environmental thoughts and mythologies and current events.

00;39;29;16 - 00;39;36;04

Mona

My Substack is Mona Shomali at the Substack website, you can just enter my name.

00;39;36;07 - 00;39;37;21

Mona

And,

00;39;37;24 - 00;39;46;18

Mona

yeah. And my my artwork. Also a lot of it has to do with these same issues. I have a whole environmental collection where,

00;39;46;21 - 00;39;50;01

Mona

it's called Invisible Stains. And I'm asking the question,

00;39;50;01 - 00;40;01;14

Mona

what would we do if environmental issues were more visible because so much of, you know, chemical pollution is invisible, whether it's in the air, in the water.

00;40;01;16 - 00;40;05;08

Mona

And so, yeah, I have a whole environmental series,

00;40;05;14 - 00;40;06;26

Mona

in my painting. So, yeah.

00;40;06;26 - 00;40;12;21

Mona

And that's at monashomali.com. So there is a whole bunch of ways to engage,

00;40;12;24 - 00;40;24;17

Mona

if you are interested. I actually used to teach a course called International Environmental Governance at the graduate level. So if you are interested in mythology and how different,

00;40;24;20 - 00;40;27;29

Mona

cultures manage their environments,

00;40;28;02 - 00;40;33;00

Mona

I feel like my whole body of work sort of speaks to that in in different ways.

00;40;33;02 - 00;40;45;25

Pam

Wow, I'm so glad you brought up that series, because I really loved that. That series of your paintings. So I hope people will go check that out. Invisible Stain. Is that what.

00;40;45;25 - 00;40;48;06

Mona

You invisible Stains. Yes. Collection.

00;40;48;06 - 00;41;18;03

Pam

Yes, yes. So before we say goodbye, I just want to say that your life experience and your work that you've done is really inspiring to me, and I'm so happy that you've expressed it creatively in this way. So thank you for doing it. Thanks for continuing this work. It's really enabled you to produce such compelling stories and images around it.

00;41;18;06 - 00;41;24;23

Mona

Thank you so much. And I have to say, I am such a fan of your podcast. Even the name, I think the name is the

00;41;24;23 - 00;41;40;27

Mona

best name for a podcast. I know anyone I told the name of this podcast, they were like, oh my God, that's so compelling. So I think just, you know, dedicating a podcast to art that heals wounds is just incredible.

00;41;40;27 - 00;41;43;18

Mona

So thank you for having me as a guest.

00;41;43;20 - 00;41;47;01

Pam

I'm thrilled. Thank you for that. And I'm so glad you came.

00;41;47;01 - 00;41;50;08

Mona

Thank you so much.

00;41;50;10 - 00;42;04;17

Pam

You’re listening to Art Heals All Wounds.

00;42;08;24 - 00;42;30;15

Pam

Thank you so much to Mona Shomali for coming on the show to talk about her book, Water Mamas. I'll put all of the info for Mona in the show notes so that you can get a copy of her book, and also check out her paintings. Thank you for listening today. I'm not using social media at the moment, but you can always reach me at my website

00;42;30;17 - 00;42;35;26

Pam

arthealsallwoundspodcast.com.

00;42;35;28 - 00;42;40;08

Pam

The music you've heard in this podcast is by Ketsa and Lobo Loco.