Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: In our current environmental crisis, we need stories that imagine different worlds. I invited Lauren C. Teffeau here to tell us about her eco-thriller Accelerated Growth Environment, which gives us adventure, sapphic romance, and science fiction. Lauren, take it away!

Lauren: Dr. Jorna Benton is proud to be the Principal Scientist for the Climasphere, a massive, sea-going ecological nursery capable of supporting nearly every biome on Earth. On its inaugural mission to restore and re-wild collapsing ecosystems along the Atlantic coast, Jorna manages the Climasphere’s habitat and harvest, while her colleague—and inconveniently attractive commander—Ava Kaysar directs the rest of the vessel’s critical operations. When an explosion rocks the Climasphere, Jorna’s carefully-managed world is thrown into chaos, threatening both her personal and her professional future. And worse: she’s the prime suspect. To clear her name, save the mission, and preserve her chance at a future with Kaysar, Jorna must finally confront the secret she’s been running from all these years: a family and a faith that could destroy her.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Lauren: With the world fragmented and the informationsphere weaponized against collective action, democratic freedoms, and the realities of climate change, I wanted to showcase a future where it was possible to do “big” things for the betterment of all. Once upon a time, the vast majority of countries around the world worked together to curb chlorofluorocarbon emissions that were depleting the ozone layer of the atmosphere. And it worked! But now we’re rolling back climate protections in America and fighting with allies and enemies alike, making such collaborations at that scale seem impossible. In Accelerated Growth Environment, I wanted to show what it would look like if our countries worked together to create a symbol of hope—the Climasphere—a seaworthy habitat capable of nurturing the plants necessary to rewild the earth and repair the damage by the fossil fuel industry, and the people committed to such a mission. We need to be able to imagine such possibilities in order to work toward a brighter future together.

Zilla: That makes so much sense as a goal for your writing. What about visual inspiration—did any visual images inspire your world building?

Lauren: The most influential visual reference I had for the Climasphere, the setting of my novella, was BioSphere2, a massive human-made biodome just north of Tucson, Arizona that contains a bunch of different biomes and was intended to be a self-sufficient system with its own power, water, air, and all the plants and equipment necessary for food production for the scientists who volunteered to spend two years sequestered there away from the rest of the world. The facility is huge, and the architecture still has a futuristic vibe decades later. Now, it is a research laboratory to test out new approaches to growing plants and how to construct man-made habitats in extreme environments like the moon, Mars, and beyond.

Zilla: If you weren’t a writer, what do you think you’d do instead?

Lauren: Probably architecture or interior design. We did an architecture segment in technical education in eighth grade, and I loved being able to design my own building—very much like the worldbuilding I do on the regular with my writing. I also really enjoy making my home feel welcoming and finding ways to optimize its function. The challenge of finding just the right spot for the chair that came from my grandmother, or the painting from my aunt, or the knickknack I picked up from the thrift store is so much fun—navigating the constraints of what you have and the unexpectedness that results, a creative process in its own right.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Lauren: 

Author Links:

Website: http://laurencteffeau.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lteffeau/ 

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/teffeau.bsky.social 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/teffeau 

Book Links:

Shiraki Press: https://www.shirakipress.com/books/accelerated-growth-environment/ 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G3Z82PGJ 

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/accelerated-growth-environment-lauren-c-teffeau/1149394456 

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/accelerated-growth-environment-lauren-c-teffeau/702dfb200d67fc3b