Editor's note: Alison Swan, who along with husband David Swan, won the MEC Petoskey Prize for citizen action in defense of the environment in 2003, is editor of a new book published by Michigan State University Press called Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes. We asked her to tell us about the origins of the book and its importance to the protection of the Lakes.

What gave you the idea for Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes? How long ago did you conceive of it?

Several things inspired Fresh Water almost at once, but the very first nudge was supplied by a beautiful book about the Colorado River called Writing Down the River, which I found at the Elliot Bay Book Company in downtown Seattle. I remember standing in that book lover's paradise on a rainy April day and reading the contributors' names: Annick Smith, Susan Zwinger, Teresa Jordan...Gretel Ehrlich wrote the forward. These Westerners are some of my literary heroes. "What we need is a book like this on the Great Lakes," I said to my husband David. This was 2000 when there were few books on the Lakes. (There still are not enough!) David was probably occupying our not-yet-one-year-old daughter Sophia as he often did when she was still so small so I could read or write (or, just as often, sleep). Sophia was the next nudge. Writing Down the River is a book by women. Especially while I was immersed in mothering, I liked the idea of working with mothers and other women on a book that paid homage to our home landscape: the Great Lakes Basin. I began to research the idea immediately.

Why do you think someone should read Fresh Water and want to read it? What audience are you targeting?

Fresh Water is full of great writing, almost all of it written or reimagined for this book. Anyone with love for or curiosity about the Great Lakes and their shorelines will be captivated. There is so much variety in this book!

I'm also hoping to capture the attention of anyone who cares about earth, likes to think about our responsibility to our home planet, and likes to read books on the subject. The diversity and complexity of the Lakes' various ecosystems (and thus their health and well-being) is also widely unknown, often unconsidered, especially outside the region. Every Great Lakes Basin resident who has been to the other coasts has their story: The person in Seattle who thought the whole region was "pretty much like Detroit, right, I mean, industrialized?" The person in New York who thought Lake Michigan was small enough to walk around in an afternoon.

From the beginning, I've shaped the book to represent a wide range of experiences. I hope that it will appeal to a wide range of readers. Fresh Water isn't exhaustive, but as an introduction to this part of the world in these times, it is unrivaled.

Do you believe there's a unique female (or feminine) perspective on environmental issues generally and the Great Lakes specifically? If so, what is that?

I think the 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, a person's perspective on anything will be informed by their life experiences, and, let's face it, many women's lives are still 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 landscape 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. So generally speaking, and I do think it's risky to generalize, the tired old concepts of Man [sic] vs. Nature or Man [sic] vs. Man, while certainly present, are backgrounded.

There were times in the process of editing Fresh Water when I wished I'd solicited the writings of men, too-there are many men writers I admire! But in the end, I'm glad the book has been a project by women. In the 1960s, a Great Lakes reader appeared, which contained 58 men authors and seven women. Even a decade ago, something like 88% of books published were written by men. I don't know if the balance has shifted, and 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.

How did you go about recruiting the individual essayists? What kind of reactions did they give and what are some of the more interesting and unusual essays in the book?

Like so many writers, I've held a variety of jobs, including many that have directly led me to potential contributors to Fresh Water. I graduated from U of M's MFA program in 1991. For several years in the 1990s, I directed events and publications at Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor. Also, from 1997 through 2004, I lived in a small town on Lake Michigan where I was a local leader in the environmental movement. I discovered and joined the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment at about the same time. Each of these communities has led me to many contacts, and many of these contacts have led me to others. I also sent letters to a couple dozen well-published strangers and heard back, by the way, from every single one.

I heard from writers all over North America, and one from as far away as Norway. (Rasma Haidri's prose poem about making peace with the drowning of a son is one of the first submissions I received.) Those who couldn't send work, sent enthusiasm. Alice Munro left a kind and encouraging message on my answering machine. Many, many writers sent work written especially for Fresh Water, and it was disappointing to me to not be able to include more of these pieces. In some cases, I had to cut truly fine writing about Lake Michigan because submissions on that Great Lake far outnumbered submissions on the other Lakes.

It's hard to single out anything because contributions were gleaned from such a large number of submissions that we really are left with the best of the best. There were several unexpected thrills: Canadian novelist Jane Urquhart enthusiastically sent work and support. Annick Smith, whose devotion to the wild nature of Montana grew out of her childhood sojourns in the sand dunes along Lake Michigan, allowed me to combine two essays about those experiences. Annick also helped me to shape my own essay for Fresh Water. Poet Diane Wakoski, one of my very first and most important mentors, sent a provocative, unpublished essay about Americans at the beach.

Would you call yourself optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the Great Lakes and why?

Oh, one has to be optimistic! We owe this much to our children-which is not to say the situation is not dire. It is dire. There are many smart and good people working tirelessly to protect the Lakes, but we need more so-called ordinary people to know what threatens the Great Lakes and be willing to vote against these threats, both in the polling places and with their pocketbooks.

Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes

will be published in September 2006.

To place an advance order, go to:

http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=3014