MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews Emilie Buchwald, co-founder and publisher of Milkweed Editions, about nature essays. Milkweed Editions hopes the current debate over the use of the Boundary Waters will inspire people to put pen to paper and submit their writing in their essay contest.
From Wallace Stegner to the work of Minnesota's own Sigurd Olson--writing has often been used to spark political action. Milkweed’s Buchwald says contemporary writers and average citizens are also using their talents to protect the land they love.
Transcripts
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EMILIE BUCHWALD: Terry Tempest Williams and Stephen Trimble decided they needed to do something out of the ordinary. So they wrote to a number of their writer friends and asked them to contribute essays, brief essays, about their own feelings for the landscape of Southern Utah, those beautiful canyonlands. And writers responded very quickly, very wonderfully. So that by the end of September, they had a little book that they printed privately, that they called Testimony, Writers of the West Speak on Behalf of Utah Wilderness.
And they presented that book to every member of congress, both in the House and in the Senate. And up until this point, that bill has not passed. So the writers know that they actually played a part, that they did something with their writing that moved people to change their minds.
SPEAKER 2: Now, Milkweed is hoping to promote good writing and to foster some action on an issue that deals with something that's very specific to Minnesota, which is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
EMILIE BUCHWALD: Right. Because Milkweed is publishing Testimony by Terry Tempest Williams and Stephen Trimble, it's coming out in a couple of weeks. We decided that with all the attention being paid to the Boundary Waters right now, that we would invite Minnesotans to write their own essays about what the Boundary Waters mean to them personally. Because that's the kind of action that anybody can take, anybody who cares.
SPEAKER 2: So you are sponsoring an essay contest. And I understand you have a few entries that you've brought with you. And you're going to read a few snippets to maybe inspire some people this weekend to get their pens on to the paper.
EMILIE BUCHWALD: These are excerpts from Testimony. And they are about Utah wilderness. But I think that, as you'll see, they're about wilderness lands in general. This is one by Margaret Murie, who's now 94 years old and was one of the founders of nature advocacy, wilderness advocacy.
There may be people who feel no need for nature. They are fortunate perhaps. But for those of us who feel otherwise, who feel something is missing, unless we can hike across land disturbed only by our footsteps, or see creatures roaming freely as they have always done, we are sure there should be wilderness. Species other than man have rights too. Having finished all the requisites of our proud, materialistic civilization, our neon-lit society, does nature, which is the basis for our existence, have the right to live on? Do we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness this right?
Here is a piece of an essay by Steve Trimble. My place of refuge is a wilderness canyon in Southern Utah. Its scale is exactly right. Smooth curves of sandstone embrace and cradle me. From the road, I cross a mile of slickrock to reach the stream. This creek runs year round, banked by orchids and ferns. Entering the tangle of greenery. I rediscover paradise. I found this canyon in my youth, 20 years ago, and came here again and again. When my wife and I met, and I discovered she knew this place, I felt certain she knew a place deep within me as well.
SPEAKER 2: Emilie Buchwald reading a passage from Testimony, a book compiled by Terry Tempest Williams and Stephen Trimble. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between writing a letter to your representative versus writing an essay? It seems like the two writing styles would be very different.
EMILIE BUCHWALD: I think that if people remember what it's like to describe a memory, simply to put down in their own words how they feel about a place, that's the essence of what it means to write an essay. The word essay means I will try. It's an attempt. And so this is an attempt to put into words, very specific details, what it felt like to sit by the lake in the morning, with tremendous silence, or to hear a loon at night, or to share time with somebody you care about or love. The wilderness is different for each of us. Sometimes we share it with other people, and that's a part of our experience. Sometimes we go there to feel what it's like to be alone.
SPEAKER 2: Well, Emilie Buchwald, thanks so much.
EMILIE BUCHWALD: It's a pleasure.