What happens when you begin to feel that the end of the everything you love is near? When the constant reminders of our current climate crisis affect our ability to move, to live, to think? What happens when you realize that the status quo has for far too long created inequalities on a scale you cannot even begin to calculate, much less imagine? Do you throw up your hands and hoist a white flag? Or do you roll up your sleeves, take up the cause for equality and begin to change not only your ways, but the fundamental system that got us into this position in the first place? In In This Ravishing World, Nina Schuyler grapples with such existential questions in the nine connected stories that unfold. With an eclectic cast of artists, activists, and dreamers that are as ambitious as they are fearful of the direction the world is heading, we see not only the internal battles that are waged to effect significant change, but the external obstacles that seek to keep our current condition between the haves and have nots.
The author of Afterword, The Translator, and The Painting, Nina Schuyler has won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction and has been shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize and the Calfornia Book Award. It was an honor to sit down and speak with Nina about In This Ravishing World, her writing process, and how we can move the social and environmental needle forward in a ever changing world.
Esteban Rodríguez: Nina, thank you immensely for your time. In This Ravishing World is a fascinating collection of interrelated stories centered around a family and a cast of characters attempting to connect with nature, themselves, and others. In the backdrop of these unfolding narratives, however, we see San Francisco, a city that offers as much joy as it does uncertainty for these individuals. How did the city shape these stories, and what about San Francisco provided inspiration for these narratives and characters?
Nina Schuyler: San Francisco is drenched in so much natural beauty, with water-lined edges and wind-sculpted cypress trees and steep rollercoaster hills opening the curtain to astonishing green or golden hills just across the bay. And as if that isn’t enough, the eye can travel beyond to the Bay Area, which hands you more fistfuls of exquisite beauty: lakes, the Pacific Ocean, dirt trails through the hills; everyone looks like they’re dressed to go hiking, biking, or running. It’s a city that lives in yoga pants and spandex. So, yes, let me say, yes, San Francisco inspired these narratives and these characters, a city with eye-popping beauty.
And yet, the green and the beauty aren’t spread everywhere. The wealthier neighborhoods have gobs of it, and the poorer areas are stripped of it. That sharp divide between the green-haves and the green-have-nots finds its way into this collection.
But regardless of income, we’ve all been through the years of drought and heat waves and the reckoning of massive wildfires and floods and the recent hurricane-force winds striking down trees and power lines. During the pandemic, we were double-sheltered from the virus and the dangerous air quality because of smoke. Everyone had an air quality app on their phones.
How fragile it all is; how much could be lost if we don’t curb our fossil fuel appetite. It hurts to look. I can barely look sometimes. I’ve met plenty of people in San Francisco who can’t look. It’s broken, it’s too much, it’s debilitating, it leaves me panic-stricken. I’ve also met plenty of people in San Francisco and the Bay Area who stare right at it–like opening your eyes in the ocean, it’s that painful–but they do it, and they’re amazing stewards, guardians, activists, fighters, who have devoted their lives to saving the natural world. And I’ve met plenty of people who do what they can, while juggling work, kids, and other commitments. I wanted all those voices and all that emotion—joy, fear, dread, rebellion, on and on–in this collection.
ER: On a related note, I think it’s safe to say that San Francisco is a very famous literary city, and with cultural movements like the San Francisco Renaissance and historical institutions like City Lights Bookshop, the city has produced some of the most important and relevant literature to date. How has your writing experience with the city been? Do you think your work would be vastly different if San Francisco had not played a role in your life?
NS: This rich history is part of the attraction, I’m sure, for why so many writers live here. So many brilliant writers are creating brilliant work! I’ve been fortunate to be part of the women’s writing community and recently joined another vibrant writing community. We share ideas, troubles, struggles; we support each other, show up for each other’s readings, cheer each other. It’s wonderful! Writing is a solitary act, but living here has eliminated the sharp edge of loneliness that often comes with solitude.
ER: Almost all of the characters in the book find themselves in situations where they become increasingly anxious. Eleanor doesn’t want to accept her prestigious environmental award, feeling it is unjustified. Ed fears that he might not embody the rat he needs to be for his play. Hugh dives into survivalist preparations and comes to believe that escaping to New Zealand is the only logical step for his family. Can you speak about this sense of anxiety your characters experience and how you saw your characters developing because of their concerns?
NS: There’s a low hum—I hear it—of anxiety. And the anxiety is caused by thoughts of the climate crisis, and suddenly I’m in the grip of the threat of extinction, not only for humans but for other-than-humans. When I let myself imagine a future in which we muddle along the same worn-out road with the same infrastructure and the same behavior, the hum turns into a scream. My characters, Eleanor, Ed, Hugh, and other characters, hear the hum and often the scream. I’ve also woven other reasons for their anxiety. For instance, Eleanor’s husband recently died, and she has a strained relationship with her children. Ed has fallen in love with another ballet dancer who does not reciprocate. So, anxiety comes from multiple sources to mimic the human condition. Each of these characters develops and morphs in an effort to alleviate their anxieties and fears. Each of my characters ultimately acts—not the same action, but they try to quiet that humming in the best way they can. They know humans are creatures who wither if they don’t act.
ER: Can you speak about Eleanor and how she became the foundational character for this collection?
NS: Eleanor is an amalgamation of imagination and lived experience. I studied classical economics in college, and I remember when I was first introduced to the concept of externalized costs, those costs that a company incurs but society absorbs. Dumping waste in the river, for instance, or polluting the air, and the state or federal government cleaning it up. Even back then, it didn’t seem right.
Classical economics also assumes that people behave rationally; they take actions that benefit rather than harm. In my classes, benefit and harm were defined in terms of financial reward. Again, so much was left out. What about the benefit of clean air? Clean water? Of an earth that’s healthy for future generations?
Later, I met people who are environmental economists. They’ve integrated all that I thought had been left out into economic analysis. Their work is to convince companies to either assume these externalized costs or, ideally, eliminate them. They can speak the corporate lingo and argue, sometimes successfully, that it makes good business sense—i.e., it’s profitable–to reduce or eliminate these costs. I hadn’t seen a character with this profession in literature, and certainly not a female environmental economist. Eleanor is 70 years old, with two grown children, a sister, and friends, and the cast of characters spirals from her.
ER: I was really taken by this one moment in the story “Muscular Activity.” Jake is a young man who joins an environmental activist group that draws attention to their message by stopping traffic and climbing the Golden Gate Bridge. Jake becomes a bit terrified of the heights he’s reaching as he ascends one of the bridge’s cables, but as soon as he gains momentum, and his confidence grows, the followings occurs:
In the headlands, the coyotes come out of hiding and patter down to the beach, their fur a blend of gold and gray, black and brown; he’s doing it for nature and humanity because now he feels overwhelmed with emotion for people, a softness toward them a love he hasn’t felt in years, he’s doing this for the people, for—
“Fuck you!” yells a woman from below.
His right foot slips. His rope tugs, pulls on the wire.
“Shit,” shouts Baker.
Her voice cuts through the wind. “Fuck you and all of you!”
I love the comedic timing of the woman interrupting Jake’s newfound view of the world, but I found this moment tragic as well because the woman’s anger increases, irate that she is late for work. And that is the point that Jake and the rest of the group are trying to make, that work has caused such damage to the planet and everyone needs such a jarring interruption to remind them that the planet is dying. Jake, nevertheless, understands this anger, and goes on to say that that anger “will be projected onto us because we’re an easy target, because we bring change, and we’re an obstacle preventing them from continuing on their mindless ways.” What draws you to writing characters like Jake? What role do you see literature playing in the fight to pause and reverse the effects of climate change?
NS: Jake was getting carried away with his vision of a beautiful future. And that angry woman, focused on her very real needs—getting to work, picking up her children, putting food on the table—is also part of the complicated, chaotic, complex landscape that makes addressing climate change difficult. You can’t just dismiss her or belittle her because she stands in the way of your vision or ideology.
Literature can render our complicated dynamics so we have a deeper understanding of each other. It’s not going to work to yell at each other and point fingers and demean. That only leads to defensiveness, calcification of positions and beliefs. Literature can unveil the rich interior of characters so we can remember each other’s humanity. We need deep compassion for each other as we address the hardest thing humanity has ever faced.
Unlike facts, literature speaks to the heart and the body. What well-crafted stories do so well is create experiences for the reader. It’s a different knowledge. It’s a felt knowledge. If the story is written well, the reader engages with the fictional characters who both confirm our understanding of experience and change it by presenting what we can’t or don’t articulate. They can engender our sympathy, despite ourselves, rendering experiences the reader didn’t imagine but can believe.
With a fictionalized story, the building blocks are scenes that are lush with sensory details. These details—sight, smell, taste, touch, sound—speak directly to the body, and what the body feels is an undeniable reality.
ER: In “A Living Soul,” we see Eleanor again, picking up her friend’s daughter at school. In the classroom, she listens as young students toss around ideas about how to save the planet, and she says the following about their energy for change:
Here is the value of youth and ignorance; the ability to forge ahead without the worry of Big Money, with fights to keep the status quo. And even when Big Money’s ugliness rises up, it doesn’t stand a chance against these young ones; those two girls standing up to Kellogg’s, one million signatures. The boundless energy, the imagination for what can be, what must be. It’s their future, and they’re not worn-out shells of themselves, they’re going to shape the world to their liking. If you don’t like it, get out of the way.
How do you envision future generations of writers, thinkers, and everyday people changing our current mindset about the environment for the better?
NS: For years, I volunteered for the nonprofit, Children for Change. It’s a school-based program focused on addressing climate issues, as well as income disparity, and it’s student-driven. The adults in the room are to help facilitate it, but they don’t run it. My god, to sit in that room! It’s like receiving an injection of jet fuel. The ideas from the children would fly around the room: let’s start a used-sports clothing swap; let’s get Amazon to recycle all their boxes; let’s get rid of plastic. I haven’t attended a Sunrise Movement meeting, but I imagine the same energy radiates. You need that energy. They are not convinced and won’t be convinced that things can’t change.
As the pressure to create a sustainable world becomes stronger, more writers, thinkers, and people will be reevaluating our current paradigms. A paradigm is nothing more than a concept adopted by a society at a given period in its history. Once we remember it’s not an absolute truth, more people will be looking for and finding paradigms that lead to a healthier world. One way to discover a new paradigm is to have a new experience of the world that doesn’t fit the existing concept of reality. Art and writing offer people new ways to experience the world, opening the door to possible paradigm shifts.
ER: How do you see your work contributing to environmental literature?
NS: The Judge for The Prism Prize for Climate Literature made a very generous comment about the collection: “I could barely put it down for the three days it took to read the compelling stories of a diverse cast of characters: there is someone in these pages for every reader to relate to.” I hope that’s true. I hope that when people read my work, their hearts beat hard for the natural world. I hope the gap between humans and the natural world closes. To keep this dream going, I hope indifference or neglect or negligence — whatever stands between the reader and the natural world — transforms into care, and then care, antsy and luminesce, moves to collective action to save this marvelous, ravishing planet.
ER: What does a day of writing look like for you? What conditions help facilitate your creative processes?
NS: My ritual, if you can call it that, is to print out what I wrote the day before and edit it at night, changing words, syntax, images, or whatever needs to be changed. I love words, I love sentences! I need to make them sing whatever song is required. Sentences are my entry back in the next morning. Soon, I’m in the story, full immersion. Since I have children and have never gone on a writing retreat, I’m highly adaptable about when and where I write: a car, at doctor’s office, on a bench at the soccer field. I love a silent room, but I often don’t get it. True, true true what Doris Lessing said: “Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
ER: You’re quite successful writing a number of books, from novels to books on craft on improving sentence structure. How did writing In This Ravishing World differ from your previous work? Did you discover something new about yourself, or your writing for that matter, that you didn’t know before?
NS: Thank you! So kind! For each new writing project, I set out to do something different from the previous work, otherwise I’d be bored out of my skull. I’d never written an interconnected short story collection linked by characters and theme. I was immensely influenced by Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” a call for new types of stories beyond the overpowering narrative of the singular hero’s journey. This collection feels like a big bag with many different kinds of people and myriad responses to the earth in peril. I can imagine my future writing will continue to play with form. I’ve learned I’m more than willing to take risks in writing. Life is short. As Carlos Fuentes said, “Death is the great angel of writing. You must write because you are not going to live any more.”
ER: A fascinating aspect of the collection are the codas at the end of nearly every story. At first, I thought it was a narrator that would appear in a story later on, but then I thought it was God speaking, and then I believed it was the Earth itself speaking, commenting on the lives of all these people. However, when I reached the end of the book, I wanted to believe it was a combination of all of these entities. Can you talk a bit about these codas in the stories, and how they helped tie together these characters and narratives so well?
NS: I like that it could be a combination of all these things! I talked about a new paradigm–well, I wanted the reader to experience a new paradigm in which Nature is alive and has a voice. Can you imagine? Try walking down the street and shift the paradigm and feel everything is alive, absolutely everything—the rocks, the sidewalk, the trees, flowers, all of it alive.
Since the book came out, I’ve learned the planet has what’s known as “natural frequency.” It’s called the Schumann Resonance, and the planet pulsates at a rate of 7.83 hertz. I’ve said to readers that I anthropomorphized Nature, but maybe I need to drop that word “anthropomorphized” and just say, I tried to capture Nature’s voice or the Schumann Resonance.
It took a long time to find the right tone. But when I remembered Nature wants people to listen, that helped me a lot. It also helped to remember it has a different sense of time. What kind of view would you have if you’ve lived 4.5 billion years?
I wove this voice in and out of the human stories to symbolically show what Nature says early in the book: “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.”
Esteban Rodríguez is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Lotería (Texas Review Press, 2023), and the essay collection Before the Earth Devours Us (Split/Lip Press, 2021). His work has appeared in New England Review, Seneca Review, Colorado Review, Adroit Journal, Poetry Daily, and American Life in Poetry. With Jennifer De Leon and Ben Black, he coedited To Never Have Risked Our Lives: An AGNI Portfolio of Central American and Mexican Diaspora Writing. He lives with his family in south Texas.
Nina Schuyler‘s novel, Afterword, was published in 2023. Her novel, The Translator, won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize. Her novel, The Painting, was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Award. Her nonfiction book, How to Write Stunning Sentences, is a bestseller. She teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies and the University of San Francisco. She lives in California.