Writer Claire Scobie thought she had life’s bigger questions figured out until a seemingly ordinary moment cracked her world open.

As old certainties fall away, she and her husband move to Gumbaynggirr Country on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, where he is from. There, through the people and places she comes to know, she sees another future taking shape.

She meets filmmakers, farmers, CEOs, Elders and shopkeepers who, like her, are asking: what now? From the push to make Melbourne’s River Yarra swimmable again to people-owned power in Bristol, England, and children speaking Gumbaynggirr in a Coffs Harbour school hall as if the language never left, these stories show what happens when people stop waiting for perfect solutions and start changing things from the ground up.