It Could Happen Here – CZM Book Club: The Clover Still Grows Wild in Wawanosh, by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back

Release Date: February 22, 2026
Host: Margaret Killjoy (Cool Zone Media)

Episode Overview

This Book Club episode features Margaret Killjoy reading and discussing “The Clover Still Grows Wild in Wawanosh” by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back. Set in a quietly collapsing, post-capitalist future Canada, the story explores communal survival, memory, loss, and enduring hope through understated but evocative prose. Margaret and Hazel, a recurring book club contributor, draw out the story’s emotional and philosophical themes, reflecting on life at the margins of empire and the realness of post-collapse utopian communities.

Key Discussion Points & Story Breakdown

1. Introduction and Context (03:30)

• Margaret welcomes listeners to the Book Club and introduces the story and its author.
• She sets the scene: a near-future Canada, post-collapse, in a community outside Wawanosh (Lake Huron area, three hours west of Toronto).
• Margaret calls the story “luscious…delicate…complicated and it doesn’t quite have a plot, but Hazel and I both agree…it's honestly better for it” (03:43).
• She describes author Kelly Rose Pflug-Back as a longtime collaborator and “incredible writer.”

2. Story Content – Recitation and Commentary

• Margaret reads The Clover Still Grows Wild in Wawanosh almost in its entirety, with intermittent brief comments and contextualization.
• Setting: The ruins of a city following ecological and social collapse; the community of Eleutheria, a name meaning “freedom.”
• Characters:
  • Mina: The narrator, a young person suffering health issues from chemical spills (“some of the biodegradable components of those chemicals have broken down and become harmless. Others circulate through the water cycle…” 06:12).
  • Dr. Hansen (Josefa): Ex-hospital doctor, mentor and caretaker to Mina, “the kind of doctor that helps people.”
  • Jean Marc: Another survivor with a checkered past, described as having “violent sadness coming off of him” (15:19).
  • Yehuda, James, Aretha, Flora: Other community members, forming makeshift family roles.
• Motifs: Lingering trauma from past violence, communal care, loss of innocence, resilience amidst decay.

Memorable Scenes and Quotes

• Mina’s health and memories of chemical disaster (“…some of the biodegradable components of those chemicals have broken down…and become harmless. Others circulate through the water…” 06:12).
• The giving of a scarce luxury – smuggled coffee – as a moment of intimacy and hope (09:22).
• Mina’s reflections at the ruins of the prison, finding fragments of bone in the ashes:

  “I thought to myself, there is softness in everything. There is softness in the sunless world inside the old prison, in the smell of old, old ashes…” (15:31)

• The complexity of post-collapse community:

  “If people disagree with each other, it’s like, goofy or bullying…but in this story you have a drunken bad kid who’s made someone so mad that he’s stalking around the house with a knife. There’s a realness, a rawness to this utopian community that I’m really impressed with.” (30:42)

• Relationship threads: Care, longing, and inability to fully connect (“I love you as well, Mina… I know she doesn’t mean it the way that I mean it, and I tell myself that’s almost better. That’s the way it should be between us.” 29:05)

3. Reflections and Thematic Analysis (32:40)

• Margaret and Hazel reflect on the power of Pflug-Back’s imagery and emotional resonance. - Hazel:
  > “This story makes me feel very similarly to when I read Parable of the Sower for the first time…presented with different coping strategies for catastrophe and impending doom.” (30:44) - On the community:
  > “It’s rough and real, but they also care about the kids and take care of each other…” (31:51)
• Exploration of Autonomy/Freedom:
  • Eleutheria as both sunlight (freedom) and tape (the struggle to hold together).
  • “What does it even mean to be free if you know that your world will be ending—ended by force by the empire?” (32:07)
• Lack of Plot, Strength in Atmosphere:

  “Plot is often the engine driving a story, but for 'Clover', the images dripping in emotional resonance are so strong that they power the story all on their own.” (31:00)

4. Final Images and Lasting Feelings (29:05–31:15)

• The final conversation between Mina and Dr. Hansen, accepting loss but finding hope in whatever endures:

  “But some things are hardy and don’t die like the rest. Clover, I think. I think the clover still grows wild in Wawanosh.” (29:47)

• Margaret:

  “I can just feel the fog through the prose. Kelly just has a real serious way with words…” (30:28)

Notable Quotes & Time Stamps

• “It is luscious, it is delicate, it is complicated and it doesn’t quite have a plot, but Hazel and I both agree…it’s honestly better for it in this particular story.” – Margaret Killjoy (03:43)
• “She says the pains in my chest might be from little growths called polyps…She says that it isn’t uncommon for kids born in the year of the worst chemical spills, like me…” (06:12) – Read by Margaret, written by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back
• “I thought to myself, there is softness in everything. There is softness in the sunless world inside the old prison, in the smell of old, old ashes that comes back up out of the ground after it rains…” (15:31)
• “Do you think any of the forests have grown back? I ask her. The forests all around Wawanosh. It won’t ever be like it was before, she says…But some things are hardy and don’t die like the rest. Clover, I think. I think the clover still grows wild in Wawanosh.” (29:36–29:47)
• “This story makes me feel very similarly to when I read Parable of the Sower for the first time…presented with different coping strategies for catastrophe and impending doom.” – Hazel (30:44)
• “What does it even mean to be free if you know that your world will be ending, ended by force by the empire? What does freedom mean to a doomed revolutionary?” – Hazel, as read by Margaret (32:07)
• “There’s a realness, a rawness to this utopian community that I’m really impressed with…it really comes across and I really like that. Paired with this cool, anarchy-ish community outside of society, having it be like, nah, it’s rough and real, but they also care about the kids and take care of each other and all that shit.” – Margaret (31:51)

Miscellaneous Notes

• Author Bio:
  Kelly Rose Pflug-Back is a writer, editor, and weightlifting coach living in Toronto. She recently edited the anthology Uprising and is involved in opening an accessible queer gym space (Spectrum Collective CA).
• Margaret closes with her signature warmth:

  “I hope you too get to chop a mountain of potatoes this week and that it’s cathartic for you as well. Until next week. See you soon. Fuck ICE. Bye everyone.” (34:52)

Summary

Margaret Killjoy’s reading of “The Clover Still Grows Wild in Wawanosh” offers listeners a moving, immersive experience of a post-collapse communal world. Through both the story and follow-up analysis, the episode dwells on themes of trauma, love, community, memory, and what endures in the face of doom. The prose’s stunning imagery and emotional honesty lead Margaret and Hazel to discuss the real-life tensions and textures of revolutionary communities—a vignette with no easy answers but resonant with hope as sturdy as the wild clover that persists, even in a poisoned world.