LifeWriters Talk About LifeWriting

June will bring the SCN/Southwestern Writers' Collection conference, "A Land Full of Stories," celebrating the launch of the new anthology, What Wildness Is This, published by the University of Texas Press in association with SCN. Susan Wittig Albert and her conference co-chair, Paula Stallings Yost, (two of the four editors of What Wildness Is This) spoke to the Journal about their fascination with place in writing and why they are excited about the upcoming conference.

Story Circle Journal: How did the idea for the book and conference come about?

Susan Wittig Albert: In many of our story circles, the subject of place—home places, wilderness places, urban places, ancestral places, historical places—comes up over and over again. Several of us were reading women writers whose focus is the Southwest: Barbara Kingsolver, Terry Tempest Williams, Linda Hogan. We thought it would be interesting to couple their writings about place with the work of emerging writers in a book about the Southwest. The University of Texas Press was interested in the project, and so it was born. The conference seemed like the right kind of venue to celebrate the book's publication and bring together people who are deeply interested in the idea of place.

SCJ: Tell us what you think members will find most exciting about the "Land Full of Stories" conference.

SWA: I think members will be interested in the writing workshops, both the field writing that's scheduled for Thursday, before the conference starts on Friday, and the small-group interactive writing workshops that will be held on Saturday. I'm looking forward to having a chance to explore different ways to experience and write about place—how we belong to a place, what happens when we are displaced, how our identities are tied to and shaped by place.

SCJ: What are some of your earliest experiences of the natural world? When did you first become aware of the importance of nature (and place) in your life?

Paula Stallings Yost: Before we can speak or understand the words of others, our five senses alert us to the world around us. Through sight, smell, sound, taste and touch, we begin to explore our environment. My earliest memory is as an infant being playfully tossed in the air on a warm and sunny day. Sixty years later, that moment is still branded in my mind complete with a clear recollection of the blueness of the sky, the light breeze stroking my body and the sweet smell of the outdoors. Those special moments in special places, in the sun or rain or even an occasional Texas ice storm, have continued throughout my life and are a joy to recall. Like the people I've encountered over the years and the lessons I've learned, those moments have contributed to the whole of who I am.

SCJ: I know you have some particularly strong ideas, Susan, on the importance of place in peoples lives—our connection (or lack of connection) to the places where we live. Is there anything you or Paula would like to say about that?

SWA: It's often been said that we live in a placeless culture, where much of the uniqueness of places is being homogenized. We are casually mobile in our daily lives, without thinking of the place we've been or the place we're going. We eat at fast-food restaurants, shop in bigbox stores, drive on interstate highways—and all are the same, whether you're in Miami or Seattle. We may deliberately avoid becoming attached to the place we live because we know we're on the move. And many of us change our dwelling-places frequently. I moved dozens of times until I finally settled. When we don't have a "here" to which we feel attached, we go "there" and "there" and "there" in a constant state of restless confusion, with an insistent desire to find a "somewhere" that feels right. But in spite of our rootlessness, it is possible to become attached to place once again, to feel ourselves related to a particular land, neighborhood, city, people—to become conscious inhabitants of a place. That's one of the things we want to address in the conference—how we can fully and mindfully inhabit the place we call home.

PSY: For some time, I've recognized that our physical environment plays a vital role in our lives. Perhaps because of my work on What Wildness Is This, I've come to think of place as a key character within our stories. A character with its own distinct personality and with some degree of influence on human characters.

SCJ: Unlike other SCN events, the conference will be open to both men and women. Why did the conference planners decide to make it coed?

PSY: You're right. This conference will look a bit different from previous Story Circle get-togethers. Our co-sponsor for this event is the Alkek Library's Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University. In addition to providing space for the conference, the library is creating an exhibit for the summer months that will spotlight the publication of What Wildness Is This and its contributors as well as historical data about Story Circle Network. Naturally, we want to encourage all students, faculty and Alkek Library supporters to attend the conference to celebrate the publication of SCN's new anthology and to share or learn more about a subject of interest to men and women alike—place writing.

SWA: "A Land Full of Stories" is a unique conference, and I hope that SCN members will take advantage of this unusual opportunity to join with like-minded others in a deep, rich exploration of writing about place. At this conference, we hope to forge a continuing community of writers and readers who will make the conference topic—finding our own stories in the stories of a place—an essential and lasting part of our lives.

SCJ: "A Land Full of Stories" is a writing conference, yet the suggested topics on the website reveal an interest in understanding place through other arts as well (music, painting, etc.). Why is that?

SWA: Place doesn't just come down to natural history, which is why I'm always a little unhappy with the term "nature writing". When we write about place, we need to consider all the important aspects of human culture. How can you think of New York without thinking of Broadway, or San Francisco without Chinatown? Can you imagine the Grand Canyon without hearing the echoes of "The Grand Canyon Suite" in your head? Can you travel through the Smokies without wanting to know something about those pioneer homesteads—the food women prepared, the clothing and quilts they made, the songs they sang, the stories they told? Every natural place is now a human place, too, and to fully understand and participate in that place, we need to share in its cultures, its arts, its stories.

SCJ: Do you think there is a difference in the way men and women approach nature writing?

SWA: Historically, men's attitude toward the natural world has been one of conquest, of putting nature to the service of man. It's a habit of mind that's often revealed, openly or in subtle ways, in their writings about nature. This has begun to change in the last few decades, with Aldo Leopold's understanding of the community of nature and Barry Lopez's quiet observations of the natural world. But still, men writers often seem to stand outside nature, looking at it, measuring and evaluating it as though it were an artifact. The best women writers seem to me to write from inside nature, as participants in the natural world, not observers. The relationship goes both ways, as it does in Cindy Bellinger's essay (in our book) called "This Land on My Face." And they often see place as an essential, shaping part of their stories, as Nancy Mairs does in her essay, "Writing West." Nancy sees the world from a wheelchair, and her experience of traveling through the deserts and canyons of the Southwest helps us to understand more about the challenge of just getting there and back again. This is honest writing, real stories. Women writers about place often seem more open and transparent to me.

SCJ: SCJ Do you believe nature writers have a crucial place in today's world?

SWA: Oh, absolutely! All around us, we see the terrible consequences of ignoring the natural world, of believing that mankind's ingenuity and technologies can solve any challenge that nature throws at us, from hurricanes and tidal waves to earthquakes and the melting of the ice caps. Global warming is not a myth or a story, it's a real event, and it is going to shape all human life in ways we can't now imagine—regardless of what our politicians tell us, or how they try to spin the story. Every day, we lose some part of the world as we know it now. Writers must document that loss, using all the tools at their command. And people who write about nature are part of the advance guard that has to remind the rest of humanity that human-caused climate change must be confronted, understood, and reversed. Nature writers must urge, encourage, strengthen, and hearten everyone else to do all we can to keep our ecosphere in balance. This is a global imperative, and nature writers bear a huge responsibility to tell the rest of the world what has happened, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. The earth can't speak for itself. Nature writers must speak for the earth!

—Email interview conducted and edited by Lisa Shirah-Hiers

Susan Wittig Albert, the founder of Story Circle Network, is the bestselling author of both fiction and non-fiction, including Writing from Life: Telling the Soul's Story. Susan is currently working on a memoir of place called Landscapes of Solitude: Journeys into the Interior. Visit Susan's website at www.mysterypartners.com.

Paula Stallings Yost founded LifeSketches/Heirloom Memoirs Publishing, a biography service based in the piney woods of East Texas. She helps others preserve their family or personal histories by writing the real stories of real people from all walks of life. LifeSketches produces everything from simple oral histories to limited edition books of distinction, including a visual record of treasured photographs and other memorabilia. A popular speaker, Yost offers comprehensive lifewriting workshops in person and online. Visit Paula Yost's website at www.alifesketch.com.

Last updated: 03/07/07