By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Though she edited the 2007 Michigan Notable Book "Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes," Alison Swan of Saugatuck, who visited Dowagiac for the first time Wednesday, writes.
She also taught writing for a year at a private high school after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1991.
"I'm not a scientist and I've not done a lot of editing, either," Swan said in an interview at Wood Fire Italian Trattoria prior to her book discussion at Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic Church sponsored by the Adult Social Committee.
Her hosts, Howard and Charlotte Poole, became aware of her from Swan's appearance at the Hartford library.
As to whether she believes there's a uniquely female perspective on environmental issues in general or the Great Lakes specifically, Swan thinks differences between men and women, whether they are nature or nurture, or a blend of both, are overemphasized in ways that are simply not useful and probably harmful.
However, she adds, a person's perspective on anything will be informed by their live experiences.
And, "Let's face it, many women's lives are sill very different from their male peers. I will say that in the process of editing this collection, I was struck by two themes, and this was true for the pieces I didn't include, as well as for those I did. First, the authors, almost to a one, express a comfortable connectedness to whatever landscapes they are writing about – though that comfort level is often called into question – even a frigid and windswept Chicago beach. Second, human relationships play a key role in this collection, with children, of course, but also with friends, lovers, family, even enemies."
"I was very burned out after the book and you're going to laugh, but I realized just the other day I was nurturing 55 women's voices for three years," Swan said.
After signing the petition opposing British Petroleum increasing discharge into Lake Michigan, Swan was heartened at the outcry vociferous enough that the company backed away from its unpopular plan.
"As my husband likes to say, 'We're dumping poison in our drinking water.' "
Reflecting on "Fresh Water," there were times, Swan concedes, "When I wished I'd solicited the writings of men, too. There are so many men writers who write about the Great Lakes who are close friends. But in the end I'm glad the book has been a project by women."
In the 1960s, a Great Lakes reader appeared containing 58 male authors to just seven females.
Even a decade ago, she says, "Something like 88 percent of books published were written by men. I don't know if the balance has shifted. We all – men and women alike, for so many reasons – need to hear about the experiences of women. Great Lakes scholar Victoria Brehm has observed, '(The writings of women) tell us less about mastering a landscape and more about adjusting to it – a lesson we may find necessary for the future.' My reading of writing about place from all over the world has borne out this observation, including submissions to 'Fresh Water.' "
Several things converging at once inspired "Fresh Water."
There was "Writing Down the River," about the Colorado River, which she ran across at a bookstore in Seattle one rainy April day.
"What we need is a book like this on the Great Lakes," she remembers telling her husband, David.
Her daughter, Sophia, now 8, was another nudge. Alison liked the idea while she was immersed in mothering of collaborating with mothers and other women on a book that paid to homage to their home landscape, the Great Lakes basin.
She lived in Seattle, Fort Lauderdale and Boston, as well as Chelsea outside of Ann Arbor, and knew, from "every place, conversations I would have," even people who lived in proximity to the Great Lakes didn't appreciate their magnificence: "The whole state's industrialized, like Detroit, right? Lakes are really polluted and you wouldn't swim in them."
The Great Lakes region is vast, bordering eight states and two Canadian provinces. Ten percent of the U.S. population and 25 percent of Canada's rely on it for water. The shores of Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario range from boreal forests to concrete cities.
"Everyone is familiar with the statistic that the Great Lakes hold almost 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water," she says, "but many people don't know, and I just learned, that they hold fully 95 percent of the U.S.'s surface fresh water. The diversity and complexity of the lakes' various ecosystems – and thus their health and well-being – is also widely unknown, too often unconsidered – especially outside the region."
"I just started talking to people," Swan said. "I know so many people in the book business and in the literary world. I worked at a bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor for four years. My husband's been in trade publishing for 20 years. The idea slowly got refined. I knew my own writing would not represent the Great Lakes in the way that I felt they needed to be presented with a lot of different stories," though she contributed "The Kettle" in addition to writing the introduction.
Stories help people connect, and "when we connect, it's easier to care, and when we care, it's easier to act. Passivity is the most destructive, if understandable, habit of contemporary Americans."
Her mother is from Marquette, her father from Detroit. Swan's parents met each traveling in a different fishing boat. Into her 30s, her family had a cabin which "devastated" her when they relinquished it.
"The Kettle" essay is about her deciding " to break in, all the way to Big Bay by myself in May" to attach herself to a physical piece of property by which she could cling to her fond memories.
"At one of my readings, a lady said, 'You know, you're not the first person who's done this,' " Swan said. "My sister took a chair."
She especially remembers a New Yorker who thought Lake Michigan small enough to hike around in an afternoon.
Hiking is one of her family's passions and how she became active in environmental politics.
"I describe myself as a reluctant environmentalist," she said. "The state park in Saugatuck is completely undeveloped except for trails. It's been completely left alone by the state. We discovered it because we're hikers. Two local municipalities started seriously discussing it as the location for a water intake and treatment facility."
Their activism won leadership recognition from the Michigan Environmental Council, but she's also "taking a big step back" on that front, though she still participates in panels, most recently "Healing Our Water" in Chicago.
She remains optimistic about the future of the Great Lakes and suggests, "When you feel daunted, imagine your own childhood without access to these incredible bodies of water, then fight to make sure they endure."