The Arctic Cycle is a series of eight plays that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states: United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia.

The idea for the series emerged after a trip to Alaska in 2007, where I learned that the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the world; that Arctic communities emit very little greenhouse gases, yet bear the brunt of the impacts; and that we are losing incredible riches, both cultural and natural, before we have even begun to appreciate them. At a time when few people were paying attention to what was happening at the top of the world, or understood why what happens there impacts us all, I decided to turn this trip, this deep learning experience, into stories that could be shared with others. And so the Arctic Cycle was born.

The first three plays of the series, Sila (Canada), Forward (Norway), and No More Harveys (United States) premiered in 2014, 2016, and 2022, respectively. They are published by Talonbooks and are available from most online bookstores. The fourth play, Requiem for a Glacier (Iceland), is currently in development. The remaining four plays will be written in the coming years.

Both an artistic and a research project, the Arctic Cycle explores complexity and interconnectedness, hope and grief, and tries to capture the poetry of the present moment. It investigates how the sacred and the spiritual intersect with the scientific and the mundane. It asks who we are and who we want to be in a changed world, and what legacy we want to leave behind. And perhaps most importantly, it bears witness to changes that are almost too big to comprehend.