Horrifically, as of 2022, Roe v Wade was overturned. U.S. women are denied constitutional protection to terminate unwanted pregnancies. That’s why (when I took a break from querying agents to represent my novels) last week I did a double-take at Costco, then broke into a jig, at the sight of Opill. The women’s daily contraceptive pill is affordable and finally sold OTC/over-the-counter prescription-free!…
Smiling the entire drive home, I stuffed the groceries into the fridge and zoomed over to a nearby Zumba class. Yup, Zumba, the all-out dance party workout, is stronger than ever. Only a few months ago, I started attending and now I wish I’d started earlier. Everything about it is a celebration of health and good cheer, from the music and the moves, to the super friendly students of all fitness levels, shapes, sizes, ages, and genders…
The writing of today’s guest also celebrates life at its best. Short story writer/novelist/author Nina Schuyler has penned an impressive list of award-winning fiction and non-fiction that I urge you to check out at her site. Today she explains how she pushed through self-doubt to include Nature’s voice in her short story collection, IN THIS RAVISHING WORLD…

Anthropomorphizing Nature by Nina Schuyler
After one of the many California wildfires, Governor Gavin Newsom stood in a charred forest, the ground blackened, the trees blackened, a land stripped of life, and said, “Nature is talking.”
I’d already begun writing story after story, set in the Bay Area, a full cast of characters responding to the climate crisis. An older woman who devoted her entire life to saving the planet falls into debilitating despair. A young boy who lives in urban blight wants to bring nature to his neighborhood. A ballet dancer tries to inhabit the consciousness of a rat. Interconnected stories, one leading to the next, suggesting the intricate weaving that is the world. What if I added Nature?
I had no idea how to write the voice of nature. An imaginative leap, for sure. Is it even possible to embody nature, a word so loaded with interpretations and imagery? But why not try? Writing– all art–is equal parts play and rigor.
The unknown is familiar land for the fiction writer. Often, we find ourselves groping in the dark, hands outstretched, trying to sense a shape, a mood, an atmosphere. What’s that up ahead? Is it moving? Friend or foe? So it went with inventing the voice of nature. At first, Nature was enraged with humanity. How could Homo sapiens cause such destruction in such a blip of time?
When I mentioned to a friend I was anthropomorphizing nature, he asked, “Are you writing a children’s book?” His reaction didn’t surprise me since, for most adults in the West, the last encounter with anthropomorphism was in childhood. I remember reading as a girl and to my son many lushly illustrated books with talking frogs, dogs, cats, spiders, on and on. My friend’s comment did do something to me: it awoke doubt.
I reminded myself that when you write something that doesn’t adhere to the dominant paradigm, people will question it, criticize it, say it doesn’t work, and gently try to lead you back to the traditional form. On the other hand, when you take a risk and create something different, it’s not only thrilling, but it can give people a new way to see the world. Isn’t this the role of fiction?
I tried again, and this time, Nature’s voice veered too far into the poetic, speaking with such eloquence it seemed far removed from the human world. But there, a small paragraph–I’d written a small shimmery section in Nature’s voice that sounded right and true:
“We’re enmeshed, we always have been, tightly knitted together whether you like it or not. Our lots are cast together, and as things have become more urgent, we’ve become even more entangled, fine threads connecting us, billions of them. I’m not sure what to do because the alarm bell is ringing. Do you hear it? I know the sound waves are in your frequency.”
Here was a cadence, a rhythm, blending into a voice talking right to the reader—Nature’s voice like a hand reaching for the reader’s hand, or like a mouth near an ear. A voice full of compassion and grief, a voice pleading and searching for joy and beauty. Doubt crept back into its dark corners, and I kept writing. When I read in science journals that octopuses can use tools and bees are talking to each other, and bats, too, are talking, I got a surge of energy. What do we know, truly? Maybe I’m not anthropomorphizing at all; maybe I’m in the realm of realism that is only now being studied.
Nature’s comment about being “enmeshed” with humans led to a structural decision: Nature’s voice would weave in and out of the stories as an omniscient first-person voice. I kept going, revising and writing more. As the collection slowly took shape and I became more assured, maybe, I thought, Nature has something powerful to say, and maybe we’ll finally listen.
Do you experience nature as a tangible entity?
Source: Vids + The Pill: OTC + Zumba + Nina Schuyler Gives Nature a Voice – Happiness Between Tails by da-AL




Source:




You must be logged in to post a comment.