We are delighted to share with you our series of ‘chapbooks’: Hope Tales – for a positive future. The series will showcase street literature focusing on various themes. You can download the first three – on Air, Land and Water – below, or in our Publications section.

Hope Tales is a collaboration between the Rapid Transition Alliance, the Centre for Public and Policy Engagement at the University of Essex and the New Weather Institute, using the power of story to investigate real hope for our future.

Chapbooks were highly popular in the18th-19th centuries. A chapbook was seen as street literature and a chapman was a seller of chapbooks. They were used to publish popular or folk literature, almanacks, children’s stories, folk tales, ballads, political prospectuses, poetry and religious tracts. 

Each book has been co-created during live evening events by a range of artists, writers and thinkers, who come together to share work around a theme. The work performed or shown on the night becomes the content for the next book. The first event was in Crystal Palace, London, the second in Wellington, Somerset, the third in Colchester, Essex and the fourth in Margate, Kent.