The Big Idea: Wendy Waring

Investing in the future can feel pointless when we aren’t even sure if climate change will let us have a future. Author Wendy Waring has been thinking this over, and takes a look at what it means to better our world for future generations in the Big Idea for her newest novel, The Hunger of Those Who Built It. WENDY WARING: My Big Idea comes with the story of a surprise journey. Long ago, my novel grappled with this question: How will future reproductive technologies affect our sense of inheritance and script our identities (those stories we tell for our selves and for others)? At the end of my journey, I was still asking questions about legacy, but in a new way that expanded my novel’s horizon. One thing was constant, though, between these two versions: my characters were two US sisters exiled in Paris. Why Paris? Well, no one does heritage quite like the French. And for a city wreathed in nostalgia, it is the most futuristic city I know. For the questions I was asking, this paradox…