#353 Ancient Futures with Erin Young

This week, we're running a takeover in collaboration with Reedsy freelancer Erin Young! The winner of this contest will not only be awarded $250 — they’ll also receive personal feedback from Erin herself. For your chance to get insight from one of Reedsy’s very own professionals, read on!

I’m Erin Young, and I’ve spent the past fifteen years in publishing as a former literary agent, developmental editor (including work on The Maze Runner series), writer, and librettist. Now working with authors across genres and age categories on Reedsy (check out my profile here!), I’m especially drawn to speculative fiction and fantasy that push at the edges of what we think we know.

Before entering the world of publishing, I worked as a zoologist, so I have a keen interest in science and the future of Earth. Thus, I keep coming back to a question both ancient and urgently modern: how do we heal a world we’ve pushed to its limits? Climate science gives us data, models, and projections, but it also points us toward something more intuitive — solutions rooted in balance, reciprocity, and a deep respect for the natural world. Many of the most promising approaches echo practices long upheld by Indigenous cultures, stewardship over extraction, harmony over dominance, and an understanding that humans are not separate from nature, but part of it.

What fascinates me is how closely this scientific reality aligns with the language of myth and fantasy. For centuries, stories have imagined worlds where forests think, rivers remember, and the land itself responds to human action. Now, as we study ecosystems, biodiversity, and planetary feedback loops, those ideas feel less like fantasy and more like metaphorical truths.

This week’s prompts invite you to explore that intersection where climate science meets ancient wisdom, and where the solutions to our future might lie in reimagining our relationship with the past. I’m thrilled to be hosting this contest for Reedsy, and I can’t wait to see how you bring these ideas to life. Happy writing!