Alex (@alexlockwood & alexlockwood.co.uk) is a fiction & non-fiction writer. He is Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Research in Media & Cultural Studies at Uni of Sunderland. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University & has published stories, essays & journalism in a wide range of magazines, journals & newspapers. He has a particular fascination with how we write about our engagements and relations with the nonhuman world. Alex’s debut non-fiction work, The Pig in Thin Air, was published with Lantern Books in March 2016. Alex was one of the founding team of Animal Rebellion, a director of The Save Movement & a member of the Vegan Society‘s Research Advisory Committee. His “Planting Value” report for  @The Vegan Society  lays out plans for a transition towards a vegan UK plantingvalueinfood.org.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:11 Alex’s Intro

A writer-academic-activist
The challenge of focus!
Private & public writing (e.g. COP26), being part of a network

05:10 What’s Real?

Last week’s shamanic journeying ayahuasca retreat: “Asking deep questions about what it means to be a human being on this planet”
Animist ontologies & methodologies
Advocating for the non-human
“Who is a person?… can we co-create this planet [in a way] that recognises the birthright of all beings”
Growing up in working class, inner-city, South London council estates
Catholic upbringing, but with some atheist family
“School of hard knocks… spiritual & religious questions weren’t very real”
Confirmed as Catholic, school run by monks & church every weekend… “Realising it was a symbolic story… it wasn’t taught as a fundamentalist truth”
“Didn’t sit right with me that my very very kind & generous atheist grandfather (& his cats!) wasn’t going to go to heaven.”
Experiences of connecting with our planet, the broader universal spirit… that have always been quite real to me
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...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube.
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Thanks Graham.