In Composition class with Professor Crystal Perkins, I had a chance to read the book, “Emergent strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds” by Adrienne Maree Brown. From her Spell and Practice section, Visionary Fiction is stood out to me and decided to try out for myself.
The definition of Visionary Fiction is “a way of to practice the future in our minds, alone, and together” and enable us to connect the past and the future. In my opinion, the past gives a great lesson either sweet or bitter, so applying the lessons to the future-self will be helpful to lead the direction. The best practice of Visionary Fiction is writing.
So I would like to introduce about the workshop for practicing Visionary Fiction. The author of the book, Adrienne Maree Brown organized the workshop in May 2020 to cope with COVID-19 pandemic. According to her blog (Link in below), she described this workshop for activate the imagination. She invited people to work on prompts for 30 days to get to writing. It was worth reading through all the texts to see how she navigate to write the story. For example, her Day 1 prompt:Write a conversation between the virus and the crisis, which is quite unique way to animate the situation.
So what I would like to do is using her day1 prompt with a little bit twist. I wrote the conversation between my past self (A) and the future self (B). This is what I gathered so far.
A: Hey, where are you going?
B: I don’t know. Why?
A: Because that’s not where you usually go?
B: Excuse me? How do you know my “usual” pattern?
A: That’s not the point. I want to ask you why you are going there?
B: There? You mean here?
A: Here? I lead you to there.
Very simple, but it’s surprisingly deep. Please let me know on the comments if anyone tried this exercise to see what the past tells you.
＜Reference＞
Book: “Emergent strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds” by Adrienne Maree Brown.
https://www.akpress.org/emergentstrategy.html
Adrienne Maree Brown Blog “Pandowrimo”
Yukina Sato 
Hello Yukina Sato Crul!
Your article is inspiring , especially in how Visionary Fiction catalyzed a different sort of writing within you and how author Adrienne Mariee Browne offered a workshop to deepen into this.
I am a founder of the Visionary Fiction Alliance (formed in 2012) and author of a published article on Visionary Fiction, 2009 (see https://visionaryfictionalliance.com/the-article-that-started-it-all-jodine-turner/ )
I would like to offer you the Visionary Fiction Alliance’s official definition of Visionary Fiction to add to and broaden your understanding of this genre, as follows (found on the website https://visionaryfictionalliance.com/what-is-visionary-fiction/ )
“Visionary Fiction embraces spiritual and esoteric wisdom, often from ancient sources, and makes it relevant for our modern life. Gems of this spiritual wisdom are brought forth in story form so that readers can experience the wisdom from within themselves. Visionary fiction emphasizes the future and envisions humanity’s transition into evolved consciousness. While there is a strong spiritual theme, it in no way proselytizes or preaches.
Visionary is a tone as well as a genre. The ‘visionary’ element can technically be present in any genre and set in any time.
Characteristic Features of Visionary Fiction:
So in short, the emphasis is on our limitless human potential, where transformation and evolution are entirely possible.Growth in consciousness is the central theme of the story and drives the protagonist, and/or other important characters.
The story oftentimes uses reincarnation, dreams, visions, paranormal events, psychic abilities, and other metaphysical plot devices.
The plot [or story] is universal in its worldview and scope.”
I hope this was helpful and useful for you!
warm regards,
Jodine Turner
“Visionary Fiction speaks the language of the soul. It offers a vision of humanity as we dream it could be.” ~ Jodine Turner
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