Dear writers, editors and other interested parties,
We hope this finds you as well as possible in the latter half of 2020, the year which keeps on giving.
But let's not dwell on that. Let's dwell on books and things.
At Lester HQ, we have a new feature we're rolling out: The Lester Interview. To start, we have Jonathan Slaght, whose book, Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl, was just long-listed for the National Book Award. We asked him a few questions about fish owls, influential works and what it means to be a Minnesota writer.
But first, a few bits of news:
NEWS
Marcie Rendon, was awarded the McKnight Distinguished Artist Award: McKnight honoree wants to use award to 'encourage other Native artists' (Star Tribune) Author Marcie Rendon is first Native American woman to receive $50,000 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award (Pioneer Press). (You can also read her poem, “Lake Street Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet” in Under Purple Skies.)
Help get this project off the ground: Grow a Young Black Farmer in Minnesota (Arts and Agriculture)
EVENTS:
Normally we don't post much about events, but these are not normal times! Here’s one real one, and sereral virtual ones:
John Rosengren is hosting an outdoor reading in his yard called Lakeside Live! Sunday, October 4, 2:00 p.m., 4654 West Lake Harriet Parkway. Limit 50 people. Featuring: Carolyn Holbrook: TELL ME YOUR NAME AND I WILL TESTIFY and Neal Karlen: THIS THING CALLED LIFE: PRINCE'S ODYSSEY, ON AND OFF THE RECORD. Rosengren writes: “The event is free, but we do encourage you to support the authors by purchasing their books. We will have a bookseller on hand, and Carolyn and Neal will sign copies afterward.” Register here.
Rain Taxi also announced it’s excellent lineup for its The 2020 Twin Cities Book Festival October 15-17.
Talking volumes will feature Helen Macdonald, Claudia Rankine and Sarah Broom. (Yaa Gyasi had to cancel).
The Loft's Virtual Wordsmith will take place October 1-4.
Because we are Luddites, we didn’t realize people’s online readings remain online. Maybe we’ll post more of these in the future. Here’s one, from Magers & Quinn:
BOOKS:
We have (purposely) been out of the loop, so if you know of any news along these lines, please let us know! Here are a few things, in no particular order.
A great list of books here by Minnesota writers, compiled by the legendary Mary Ann Grossmann. Include books by Jane Lamm Carroll, Thomas Maltman, Mindy Greiling, Bill Souder and others: Readers and Writers: Minnesota writers give us plenty to read while we stay home this fall.
The Hilarious World of Depression, by John Moe (Missed the one earlier)
REVIEW: 'Black in the Middle,' edited by Terrion L. Williamson NONFICTION: A new anthology edited by a University of Minnesota professor brings many voices to define what it means to be Black in the Heartland. (Star Tribune). Purchase: Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest, edited by Terrion L. Williamson
STORIES, ETC:
38th and Chicago, Holy Ground: Visiting the corner of 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis, and the transfiguration of George Floyd, by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl (MSP Mag)
Kids May be Using Laptops Made with Forced Labor this Fall, by Mara Hvistendahl (The Intercept)
Zubaz, Cougar Attacks, Bridge Collapses and more: An Audio Walking Tour of the Minneapolis Waterfront, by Frank Bures (Voice Map)
What I Learned From the Worst Novelist in the English Language, by Barrett Swanson (New Republic)
Mike Osterholm's Last Stand: Minnesota’s homegrown epidemiologist has spent a lifetime preparing for this pandemic. Can he rise above the chaos to be heard? by Steve Marsh (MSP Mag)
THE LESTER INTERVIEW
Bio: Jonathan C. Slaght is the Russia & Northeast Asia Coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He manages research projects involving endangered species such as Blakiston’s fish owls and Amur tigers, and coordinates WCS avian conservation activities along the East Asia-Australasian Flyway from the Arctic to the Tropics. He received a B.A. from Drew University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota. Slaght’s writings, scientific research, and photographs have been featured by the BBC World Service, the New York Times, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, The New Yorker, and Audubon Magazine, among others. He is the translator of Vladimir Arsenyev’s 1921 natural history classic, Across the Ussuri Kray (Indiana University Press, 2016), and he authors a blog for Scientific American about his fieldwork titled “East of Siberia.” His new book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Lester: What were the origins of Owls of the Eastern Ice?
Jonanthan Slaght: The book started as my journal notes when I was living for weeks on end in a truck doing fieldwork looking for the owls in Russia. The whole fieldwork experience was so immersive in all things Russian (i.e., living in a Russian truck with 2-4 Russians in the Russian woods and speaking Russian all the time) that I tried to take a few minutes every day to express myself in English, my native language. It was an outlet for the inevitable frustrations of fieldwork and a cathartic exercise.
Every once in a while I’d compile some of these notes into a pdf and, when we were back in town to resupply or something and I could access the internet, I’d send these “fish owl updates” to friends, family, and to the organizations that were funding my graduate project. At some point someone asked me when I’d turn all these adventures into a book, and the idea stuck. Ten years later I dusted these notes off and began assessing if I could, in fact, turn it all into a coherent book.
L: How did that process work? How many pages of journal did you have to go through to find the threads?
JS: When I combined all the journal notes into one document I had about forty pages of text, so the core narrative was already in place. It was just a matter of finding passages to expand on and deciding which to condense or delete entirely. For example, most of my final field season (in 2010) was cut because the story was becoming too repetitive, as fieldwork often is.
L: What’s been the reception of the book?
JS: I’ve been flabbergasted by the response to this book in the United States (and the UK, where it was published by Penguin). I’d have thought that a book about owls in Russia would attract readers from a rather narrow niche of Russophiles and birdwatchers. Strong reviews from the Star Tribune, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal (among others) gave people a nudge to give this one a shot. And the recent news of a National Book Award longlist…yikes. I never expected anything like that. It wasn’t even on my radar as something to aspire to.
L: Did you always want to be a writer? If not, when did when did you come to that?
JS: I’ve always enjoyed writing, at least as long as I can remember, but I’ve never had any formal training in it. I probably took a writing class in college, but I don’t specifically recall. Writing grant proposals to fund my work (my job is grants based) has been a good training exercise: there are a lot of people looking for funds from very limited sources, so telling a compelling story is important to make your own projects stand out.
L: What are some of the books/authors that influenced you?
JS: Without question, an early influence was Bernd Heinrich and his book Ravens in Winter. I remember working as a laborer at a Value Village in Anchorage when I bought and read that book, and it was the first time I realized that my interest in birds was something I could do professionally, and then also write about.
L: What are the challenges of working in a place like Minnesota?
JS: The main challenge for me is that Minnesota is thousands of miles from where I work! I get my inspiration for writing from my interactions with the people, wildlife, and landscapes far from here, so being stuck in a Minneapolis closet (my pandemic office) since March has put a damper on my creativity for sure.
L: What does it mean to you to be a Minnesota writer? [Or is there another way you think about yourself?]
JS: I think because I grew up in a diplomat’s family, bouncing from one country to the next every few years, that I don’t form particularly strong ties of allegiance to wherever I happen to be living. As such, even though I’ve lived in Minnesota for 18 years now, far, far longer than anywhere else in my life, I don’t consider myself to be a “Minnesota writer.” In fact I’m only just starting to consider myself to be a “writer” at all, to be honest. I identify more as a wildlife biologist better able than some, perhaps, to articulate the work I do and make people beyond my immediate peers care about it.