Nick Fuller Googins Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Nick Fuller Googins is an author best known for his debut novel “The Great Transition” that he published in 2023.

He went to the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark and was the winner of a Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers Fellowship.

His essays and short fiction have been featured in the likes of The Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, The Sun, and Men’s Health.

He is a member of the Maine Publishers and Writers Alliance in addition to the largest labor union in the United States, the National Education Association.
He currently makes his home in Maine where he works as an elementary school teacher.

The seed for “The Great Transition” was planted in 2018 while Nick Fuller Googins was then working as an installer of solar panels in rural Maine.

It was an exciting moment for people to engage with climate change activity and philosophy as all over the county the Sunrise Movement had very successful sit-ins, AOC had just won and Bernie was rumored to be ready to run for president again.
As a person who had always been very interested and involved in environmental and climate causes, he was fantasizing that the US could pull off a Green New Deal.

If that happened, millions of Americans would go to work installing wind turbines and solar panels to save the world. It gave him the chills to think that he could be part of that and leave a legacy.
Unfortunately, things did not align in the political sphere but since he had always wanted to write he thought why not write about the Green New Deal?

Since he was then working with guys from the coastal Maine area, he initially imagined it being told from the perspective of Larch a 17-year-old from rural Maine.
The kid has lost everything and everyone to the climate crisis and only finds purpose, belonging, and family upon enlisting with the Great Transition.

Once his lead characters came to life he ran with it and even though it was initially all about climate, it soon evolved into a work about family.

The spark for Nick Fuller Googin’s writing career came from the Gotham Writers Workshop. It all started in 2012 after he had left solar installation and become a teacher.

He had just dismissed his fourth-grade students from school and was preparing for the next day’s activities. But this was no ordinary day as he got on the train and headed downtown to attend the most important writing class of his life.
He was lucky that the first class he attended was Short Fiction II which was taught by one of the most talented teachers and authors Hasanthika Sirisena.

Googins still passes along the wise words that he learned from her to emerging writers and unlike most writers, he still has the contacts of his old teacher and keeps in constant communication with her.

When they first met in that class, Sirisena introduced Googins to the most common workshop model found in MFA programs. Nick found the ten-week program nurturing even if it was very rigorous.

As such, the perfect course for a new and eager writer such as Nich whose confidence was then paper thin. He was also lucky to have some amazing classmates who were sharp and supportive, had fun but also took their classes very seriously.
Of the original group, three would go on to attend prestigious MFA writing programs while others were admitted to the very best writing conferences such as Bread Loaf and Tin House.
Some would publish in the likes of Boston Review and The Indiana Review.

While he took a lot of inspiration from the Bohemian nature of his childhood and his experiences working installing solar panels, his literary inspiration was Ursula K. LeGuin.

According to Nick Fuller Googins’ “The Dispossessed” by LeGuin has to be one of the best utopia novels ever written.

The author also loves “The Parable” series by Octavia Butler in addition to “Station Eleven” for their beautiful portrayal of a global dystopia in which there are mini utopias.

Given that “The Dispossessed” is more of a family-driven work of fiction set in a massive utopian project that achieves much success, this likely was where Googins got much of his inspiration.
Since he began writing and publishing, he has become one of the leading voices in climate change and environmental spaces.

In that regard, he has made friends with climate authors such as Allegra Hyde and Kim Stanley Robinson.

According to Googins, Allegra Hyde read an early version of her novel and welcomed him to “Team Utopia” which is a label he has said he wears with a lot of pride even if membership is open to just about anyone.

Nick Fuller Googins’ novel “The Great Transition” is a richly immersive and imaginative work of fiction that has been compared to “The Ministry for the Future” and “Station Eleven.”

This electrifying climate work tells the story of a family that is dealing with a crisis both political and personal, as it illuminates humanity’s capacity for change.

In the near future, humanity is dealing with the worst aspects of climate change. Skyrocketing inequality, wildfires, mass migration, and rising oceans have become a reality.

But just when it seems we have hit rock bottom, a movement of refugees, migrants and workers inspire the world to come together to build a society and save the planet.

One of the leading characters is Emi Vargas, a teenager who was born following “The Great Transition,” into a world that is a utopia as compared to what previous generations had lived in.

Her parents had sacrificed and suffered as they were pivotal in shaping the transition even if their marriage is now crumbling. When there is a new political upheaval and her mother disappears, Emi’s illusion of safety and comfort is destroyed.
Alternating between “The Great Transition” and her suspenseful search for her mother, this is a remarkable story of hope, change, and struggle that will have you fully engaged from the first page right to the last.