In Ark

Mya Brand is in a race against climate change, as she tries to digitally archive the life stories of humanity before it’s too late. Living in New York City in the year 2030, her daily survival is fraught with hardships of obtaining food and maintaining basic essentials. She struggles on, until one day she is abducted by an eco-survivalist community that promises her that her dream of preserving the human stories of civilization will come true. But paradise is not the utopia that it seems.

In the year 2030, Mya Brand lives in New York City and pursues her passion—trying to digitally save the life story of every human on the planet before climate change makes Earth un-liveable. Recovering from a failed marriage, she stays laser-focused on her mission. With support from her actress best friend and bartender buddy, she is rebuilding her life and trying to heal her hard shell. Fraught with daily hardships of survival in the face of climate change, she struggles to obtain food, maintain resources and protect her delicate skin from the harmful rays of the sun. With little funding for her digital archiving project, she struggles to keep her dreams going, but wonders how much more she could accomplish if she had more resources. Then, one day she is abducted by an eco-survivalist community— Ark— that promises to make her dreams come true. Finally able to focus on her mission, she begins to thrive in her new, sheltered, life. Gone are the hardships she faced from the outside world and climate change. Gone are her money struggles. But Ark proves not to be the utopia she expects. As life in Ark unravels for Mya, events happen that she never could have predicted and lead to this novel having a surprise ending. Early readers of 'In Ark: A Promise of Survival' have said the book is like 'The Hunger Games' and 'The Host' all in one exciting novel. The book’s editor, Monica Wanat, compares Devaney’s writing style to Margaret Atwood’s 'The Handmaid’s Tale'. Devaney, readers say, creates a believable near-future dystopia back-dropped by environmental catastrophe. 'In Ark: A Promise of Survival' joins a new literary genre called cli-fi (climate change fiction), a subgenre of science fiction. Invented by the writer Danny Bloom, the cli-fi genre includes authors such as Barbara Kingslover and Ian McEwan. The new genre has received wide press coverage, including by Wired magazine and NPR. 'In Ark: A Promise of Survival' is Lisa Devaney’s first book, and it shows the promising potential of this new American indie author. She plans a trilogy of Ark books over the next few years.

Lisa Devaney is an American indie author living in London, England. Her debut novel 'In Ark: A Promise of Survival' is a cli-fi tale (a new genre known as climate change fiction) set in New York City in the year 2030. Living with the impact of climate change, the main character, Mya Brand, struggles to survive until she is abducted by an eco-survivalist community that promises that her dreams will come true. The author has spent a lifetime fascinated by the various storytelling mediums. As a child, she wrote and illustrated her own comic strip and won writing contests at the age of seven. Later, while single and living in New York City in the 1990’s, she turned herself into an online cartoon character called (((Futuregirl))) and also transformed her friends into cartoons, displaying these characters on her Fgirl.TV website. She bravely decided to take her make-believe character offline and started performing in SLAM poetry-style at venues around New York City. Soon, she became widely known as (((Futuregirl))) and was often spotted out in the club scene dressed up as this superhero character. Moving to London in 2004, she took to the stage producing and performing her own cabaret shows, introducing audiences to her American hillbilly comedy skit The Hee Haw Whore House. She also produced and performed as Toad in a rendition of the classic Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s tale 'The Wind in the Willows' at the legendary music and arts festival The Secret Garden Party. Devaney also has a successful career as a publicist, including representing numerous technology clients through her consultancy the Hai Media Group. Prior to this, she had her career as an award-winning newspaper reporter. Finding herself unemployed following the events of 9/11 in New York City, she co-founded an organization called WeWantWork.com to promote a group of professionals needing jobs. Her efforts to promote this group won headlines around the world, and, as the group’s spokesperson, she was featured by CNN, NBC’s The Today Show, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and many more outlets. Now part of the social media generation, she has adapted enthusiastically to this new storytelling medium. She can be found on Twitter (@lisadevaney) or on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/lisadevaneythewriter.