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Articles by Author Mike McClelland

Like Sharon Stone and the zipper, Mike McClelland (he/him/his) is originally from Meadville, Pennsylvania. He has lived on five continents but now resides in Georgia with his husband, two sons, and a menagerie of rescue dogs. He is the author of the short fiction collection “Gay Zoo Day” and his creative work has appeared in The New York Times, Boston Review, Vox, The Baffler, and a number of literary magazines and anthologies. He's a graduate of Allegheny College, The London School of Economics, and the MFA program at Georgia College, and is currently a PhD candidate in the University of Georgia's creative writing program.

Featured Article

The Secrets of the Last Greenland Shark

Mike McClelland Climate Fiction

This story is part of Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, a climate-fiction contest from Grist. Read the 2021 collection now. Or sign up for email updates to get new stories in your inbox.

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The Common Wasp

The last wasp ate itself to death in the middle of a fig. It was happy.

The Human

It was a kind of salve to the spirit, a bit of anesthetic applied to the extreme trauma of being the last of your line. I felt it immediately, the very second I became the last human alive. A sideways stretch of the mind, immediate access to the final moments of every other extinct species. It meant, of course, that we weren’t alone. Even though we’d soon be gone, this was proof that there was, indeed, someone or something in charge. Something watching out for us all. Or at least watching us all. 

Accessing it is a bit like one of those old-fashioned electronic devices. I had to sort of scan leftward with my mind to get to ... Read more

Mike McClelland Climate Fiction