High Priestess of the Apocalypse:
a memoir of disobedience
now available!
BUY THE BOOK
WANT TO KNOW HOW I GOT HERE? READ ON.
Christy Tending (she/they) is a climate justice activist and the author of HIGH PRIESTESS OF THE APOCALYPSE (2024) and SOBRIETY THROUGH THE MAJOR ARCANA (2024).
They received a notable mention in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 and were the winner of the Birdcoat Quarterly Editors’ Prize for Essays 2024. They have been nominated for Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize. They are the recipient of a Yaddo residency for 2025.
Their work has appeared in Longreads, The Rumpus, Newsweek, Ms., and Electric Literature.
Christy lives with her family among the redwoods in Oakland, California. You can Christy on Twitter @christytending.
ABOUT
But my writing is also informed by my understanding how power systems
work, by the beauty of the natural world, and by the unexpected intersections of our personal and political selves.
And now the girl who got a C in chemistry in high school has been named a notable in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023.
Life is weird like that.
I might have majored in poetry in college...
The rest is kinda history. I've spent my adult life building strategic corporate campaigns and direct actions (mainly around climate justice)—and training other activists to do the same.
Now, I write essays and books about this moment in history, as well as sobriety, parenting, and being a complicated human being.
The day after I graduated college, I put all my belongings in a storage locker and moved to a First Nations logging blockade in the Canadian wilderness.
I'm queer, disabled, a mom, a knitter, and a person who reaps the benefits of Lexapro daily. AND I'm a creative person who writes across genre and works with her hands across various media.
Put simply, I'm ungovernable and inconvenient and tough to pin down. And I'm very okay with that.
In my books, I refuse to choose between my identity as a creative person and mother; my journey as a criminal and sober person; and the healing that happens on an individual and collective level.
which is where my writing comes in.
My life is a series of attempts
to synthesize these different
parts of myself.
This is Dorothy, my emotional support cat.
(Yes, she's that glamorous in real life.)
FRENCH PRESS COFFEE
LOVE LANGUAGE
WONDERWALL
FAVORITE SONG
SWEATER KNITTING
CURRENT HOBBY
GRATITUDE
DAILY RITUAL
JAPAN
travel destination
Productivity as
a marker of worth,
"shoulds",
olives,
fast fashion,
emus*
I'M NOT ABOUT
Chosen family,
abolition,
climate justice,
sobriety,
hot baths,
never (ever!) talking to cops
I'm ALL ABOUT
*REALLY. THEY'RE TERRIFYING.
"JUSTICE is what love looks like in public."
— CORNELL WEST
MY WORdS TO LIVE BY
High Priestess of the Apocalypse is now available!
A memoir in flash, this book reckons with climate grief, the impulse to fight for what we love, and how to turn dread into action.
Buy the Book!
My signature class, The Art of Self-Advocacy, teaches you become as skilled at advocating for yourself as you are at advocating for others.
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WHERE TO NEXT?
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LIKE WORDS YOU CAN HOLD IN YOUR HANDS?
Grab your copy of High Priestess of the Apocalypse and Sobriety Through the Major Arcana—plus browse the books that inspire me.