In his debut novel, It Doesn’t Have to be This Way, Alistair Mackay tells the story of three queer friends trying to navigate an increasingly fractured, violent and unstable world ravaged by climate collapse and rampant inequality.

Our editor-in-chief, Gary Hartley, had a chat with the author about the thematic underpinnings of his work; crafting complex queer characters; and how he’d respond to criticism of being a white author writing about Black queer characters.