During times of great tumult, it’s often art – by which I mean a thing created to give pleasure, to provoke, to bear witness, to fathom, to inspire, to challenge, to bring into relief, to entertain – that is rendered superfluous. At least by those who don’t partake. One of the most egregious assumptions made by those in power after the 2008 crash was that a moratorium of art was both logical and necessary. People needed food, shelter and work to sustain them; indulgences such as books, galleries, libraries, grants, opportunities . . . well, these were extravagances of the creative classes. Caprices that could be denied: after all, we were all in it together, the insincere refrain.

But we know better. Just as the storyteller’s status rose in the austerity of the gulags, so too are those called to fashion new art for these troubling times. Stories to not only elevate us from the grind and mundanity and insidious fear Covid-19 is wreaking, but to connect us. When I read a fantastic piece of fiction, myriad things occur. I am in part escaping to another realm. But I am also connecting with the author, with everyone else who’s experienced the words, with everyone else who might. I am bringing meaning to the text; I am completing the work, sharing the journey. I am transforming letters on a page into entire worlds.

And as writers, our duty is to ensure the primitive act of storytelling is laid down like strata over each epochal jolt.

Stories bring hope, even those seemingly devoid of it (as has been said about plenty of my own). Stories are needed for our children’s children to make sense of what we lived through (certainly they hold history to account in ways journalism and other forms cannot). But also people will want art beyond this – I’m certainly done with dystopic literature for a good while. Give me stories about the new revolutions this will birth. Characters who occupy strange and beautiful worlds we can hardly conceive of yet, but which with every passing day of this turbulence we sense are possible. Perhaps there is no going back.

So what dreamscapes are in you? What visions? New times are coming and writers / artists can shape these every bit as much as those with more obvious power.

Tom teaches two online fiction classes for Unthank, an 8-week introduction to the short story , and a 12-week short story workshop , both of which begin in September 2021. His passion is to see students publish their work.