Food is scarce in Newbeck. Rations are meagre. Everyone grows what they can on government-allotted Squares of land, using seeds and soil bought from mysterious mega-business, the Green Cultivation Corporation.
One hot day, a strange girl rides into town wearing a sunhat as big as a bicycle wheel. She arrives alone, on a desert track from nowhere, full of questions no-one’s ever asked before.
Local boy Sam is fascinated by her. Why won’t she talk about her family and where she lives? Why is she so curious about his way of life? And why can’t he get her out of his head . . .
A dystopian eco-romance for young adults, Dirt shows that even on stony ground, hope can grow.
About Laura Baggaley
Laura Baggaley is a writer of fiction for young adults and children. Her latest book is a dystopian eco-romance, Dirt, published by Habitat Press. Her novel, Enough, was one of three finalists in the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition and longlisted for the Times / Chicken House Children’s fiction Competition and will be published by Neem Tree Press in 2026. She’s currently polishing a third novel which was longlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize. She’s on the editorial team of Bending The Arc, a thrutopia Substack magazine, which publishes stories, poems and features that bend the arc of the possible towards a thriving future on Earth.
Laura is a firm believer in ‘imagination activism’ and loves books that ask big questions, usually starting ‘What if . . . ?’ She enjoys the challenge of creating alternative possible futures in her writing, and hopes that by imagining different worlds we’ll be able to build a better one. You can find her at laurabaggaley.co.uk