ABOUT US
Letters to the Earth is an award-winning global participatory and story-telling organisation.
Our Mission is to build the environmental movement by transforming people’s relationship with nature.
Our Vision is a world where all humans are connected with nature and restoring the Earth with courage, creativity and care.
Launched in the UK in 2019 by theatre-makers, artists and writers, our aim is to activate, inspire and support change-makers for a liveable planet. We are nature defending itself.
Our global media campaigns, workshop programmes and artworks help people realise their interdependent relationship with the wider web of life, opening their emotional connection to the state of the planet, growing their sense of belonging, and increasing their capacity to respond to the environmental crises of our times.
Based in the UK, we offer freely available resources to activate individuals and groups worldwide in forming a deeper and more resilient relationship with nature, whilst they find their voice and speak up for the Earth.
We've facilitated, received and initiated thousands of letters to be written. We amplify your letters in public art works, media campaigns, and at festivals, events and global climate conferences.
Thanks to international partnerships we have spoken, presented and facilitated at COP26 Goals House, COP27 Blue Zone Resilience Hub, The Financial Times Climate Capital Summit, Net Zero Festival, Charleston Festival, Christies Auction House, the Southbank Centre Planet Summer, Timber Festival, IEMA, London Climate Action Week, the UN75, the International Platform for Climate Finance and more.
In 2019 our book 'Letters to the Earth, Writing to a Planet in Crisis' was named NB Magazine NonFiction book of the month and in 2020 we won the Bronze Award for Best Non Fiction Audiobook at the New York Festivals Radio Awards. In 2020 Letters to the Earth was nominated Best Campaign by Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative Green Awards. In 2022 we won the inaugural Global Dimensions Teachers Choice Award for our 'deeply moving and motivating' educational and community resources.
Want to work with us? Get in touch at info@lettertotheearth.com
HOW IT BEGAN
In the early spring of 2019 a small group of women came together around a kitchen table to talk. We'd not even met before. But we had been profoundly shaken by the increasingly dire news of climate and ecological collapse, and inspired to bring that news to the forefront of the public conversation.
The Letters to the Earth co-founders are Anna Hope, Jo McInnes, Kay Michael and Naomi Wirthner. We are theatre-makers and writers and we felt strongly that we wanted to find a way to facilitate a creative response to these times of emergency.
In February 2019, in collaboration with Culture Declares Emergency, we invited the British public to put pen to paper and send us their writing. The invitation was open to interpretation and open to all. It could be a letter to or from the Earth, a poem, a piece of dramatic writing, a manifesto. Within a month, over 1000 letters poured in from all over the world - from 4 year olds to great grandparents, artists, scientists, nurses.
A new story began to emerge.
We sent batches of letters to over 50 international venues and community spaces for them to organise their own readings on a day of joint action, Friday 12th April, a day of Global Youth Strike. Partners included Shakespeares' Globe and the National Theatre Scotland, as well as theatres and community groups in South Africa, Zambia, Latvia, Canada and the United States.
Some venues opened their doors free of charge to the public and held conversations, some wrote their own letters, and others live-streamed or took to the streets to read the letters aloud. High profile readers such as actors Andrew Scott and Emma Thompson as well as youth activists and local communities were involved.
Since then letters have continued to be written and presented - by individuals and in communities all over the world. We regularly partner with Letters Live where actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch have read our letters to audiences of thousands.
Our work is deepening people’s relationship with the Earth.
THANK YOUS
We couldn't have launched Letters to the Earth in 2019 without the support and dedicated work of so many, including Alice Malin, Tamsin Omond, Daiva Dominyka, Tamaryn Payne, Alice Haworth-Booth, Edward Nelson, Stephen Dillane, Irene Sinou, Molly Hughes, Ronan McNern, Alanna Byrne, Lorna Greenwood, Lucy Neal, Ruth Ben-Tovim, The National Theatre Studio, and those venues and producers with whom we had initial conversations - The Bunker Theatre, Jack Gamble, The Royal Court Theatre, Daniel de la Motte, Shakespeare's Globe, Ellen McDougall and David Lan.
Many have given their time and expertise to the campaign - Kelly Hill, Jon Slack, Will Skeaping, Ana Caeiro, Tiphaine Taillleux, Syed Jazib Ali, Lucy Stewart, Jon Wiltshire, Tom Cagnoni; and our authors and readers continue to be the best ambassadors - Ben Okri, Paapa Essiedu, Alex Lawther, Freya Mavor, to name just a few. Special mention to Grace Pengelly of HarperCollins whose belief in the power of Letters to the Earth led to the published anthology, and to Jackie Morris for the gift of her illustrated swallow, our messenger of hope.
We are indebted to Still/Moving, Glimpse Collective, Business Declares Network, John Davies, Leia Booth, Miranda Irwin, Jade Shaw, Liam Garcia, Sarah Bradley, Megan Pengelley, Erik Hartin, Moa Pårup, Beverley Luckings, Farhana Yamin, and the team at Vivobarefoot for our 2021 relaunch, and all those who have packed and distributed envelopes of our many letters over the years!
