Dan Lyksett
Rice Lake writer Dave Greschner, who recently introduced his acclaimed first book, Soul of the Outdoors, will host a book talk on Thursday, Feb. 1, at 6:15 p.m. at Dotters Books, 307 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire.
Soul of the Outdoors is a new addition to The Back Home Series published by UW-Stevens Point’s Cornerstone Press and is a collection of Greschner’s updated columns from his newspaper career and newer work.
Greschner agreed to answer a few questions in advance of his reading.
Dan Lyksett: You are writing about land and all it contains that you’ve been traversing since childhood. How does that lifetime perspective impact what you discover and reflect on?
David Greschner
David Greschner: There has come over the years a realization of how the land I grew up on and the places I have enjoyed since led to my appreciation of nature and wildlife. Discoveries of childhood—squirrel nests, pollywog eggs, a honey bee hive in winter—fuel an intense fire in me to enjoy such discoveries again, now with more knowledge of what I’m seeing and experiencing while revisiting those carefree days. I like to think of the land as a friend, a sanctuary, I can visit for peace of mind, and a place where nature and wildlife flourish if we are stewards of the land.
DL: Some of your essays deal with the experience of performing specific tasks, like cutting firewood, but sometimes you go into nature to just “practice seeing.” Do you notice a difference between the two in what you end up putting on paper?
“There are times I go outside, to the woods or to the water, to simply ‘see,’ with no expectation of what I’m going to see or experience. It’s like, ‘Surprise me!’”
DG: No, I don’t see a difference, because I never know where the next story may surface. There are times I go outside, to the woods or to the water, to simply “see,” with no expectation of what I’m going to see or experience. It’s like, “Surprise me!” But it’s really no different than when I’m cutting firewood, mending a fence, removing buckthorn, etc. I keep my eyes open, my hopes expectant. My tasks are not urgent, and so they are often pleasantly interrupted by the discovery of an orb weaver spider’s web, the den of a fox or badger, or colorful hepatica leaves beneath the snow in the dead of winter.
DL: You refer to a diverse collection of writers and thinkers throughout the book, ranging from Emily Dickenson to Jackson Browne. If you could share a hot chocolate around a campfire with any one of them, who would it be and why?
DL: The proper answer from the names that show up in the book would be Annie Dillard. It was her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, that has influenced how I look at nature and how I write about it. However, I’m going to go with Jackson Browne for the campfire (and perhaps he would play a song or two!). Readers and reviewers refer to “lyrical poetry” in my writings. I do not work at the poetry that crops up, instead, I think it’s something that is in my subconscious from years of enjoying music and studying song verses. I think that the most influential poets of my lifetime have been songwriters, from Browne to Kristofferson, Dylan to Willie. I always hear descriptive song verses going through my mind, such as from the Beach Boys—I hear the sound of a gentle word on the wind that lifts her perfume through the air—or Al Stewart—She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a water color in the rain. These songs aren’t about nature, but the words have the flow and description all writers strive for. Browne says his songwriting has to be about the listener because the song’s details, even if about his experiences, are somewhat universal. Of his song “These Days,” he talks about the gravity the song can hold. I would hope my writing has a measure of gravity for the reader.
DL: How much of where your essays lead are thoughts that occur to you in the moment of experience as opposed to what you discover later while writing?
DG: It comes from both the moment and later when putting thoughts on paper. My writing method, even in my newspaper days, has normally been to let the story simmer a bit in my thoughts. I often take notes when I’m outdoors, but not always. What is constant is that the thoughts, sentences, and direction of the story are forming mentally in the “moment of experience.” I find that what has been etched in my mind, sometimes subconsciously, on a hike or other outdoors activity, resurfaces later proportionate to the strength of that imprint on my emotions.
DL: You mention some traditional “outdoor writer” topics like hunting and fishing but never in the context of a harvest or a how-to. Is that intentional or just your natural bent? Does that relate to the title, “Soul of the Outdoors?”
“...at this point in my life, even while hunting, I will often choose not to pursue or kill, but simply watch. Perhaps ‘soul,’ in part, derives from how an outdoors experience plays out, including in hunting, on an emotional, somewhat spiritual, basis. ”
DG: It is rather intentional as I respect the readers who are not hunters and may have strong feelings regarding that. But I don’t hide the fact that I do hunt, and believe in the biology of hunting while at the same time having a reverence for all wildlife. I feel no need to go into the details of the outcome of the hunt. Instead, I prefer to describe what I and other hunters experience in nature when we spend hour after quiet hour in the woodlands and fields. Further, at this point in my life, even while hunting, I will often choose not to pursue or kill, but simply watch. Perhaps “soul,” in part, derives from how an outdoors experience plays out, including in hunting, on an emotional, somewhat spiritual, basis.
DL: You shy away from anthropomorphizing the critters you encounter, but you don’t shy away from trying to consider what they may be perceiving at the time. Is it difficult to balance those two approaches?
DG: Yes, I do shy away from assigning human traits and intentions to animals, mostly for the animal’s sake because I don’t want to burden them with something that may seem to subtract from their innocence and natural instincts. When I walked up on a deer in the wild this summer, it appeared calm and showed little fear of me. I didn’t take this as a human trait of the deer being a friendly animal wanting to meet me. I think that the deer somehow knew I meant no harm, and that we just happened to be sharing the same trail. I didn’t try to determine what human trait the deer was displaying because it was a wild animal, no matter what. Instead I wondered how the deer perceived me.
DL: The book’s illustrations look like exquisite woodcuts but are derived from your own photographs. What was the process and where did the idea come from?
DG: I did not want the books to have photos, per se, but instead black and white graphics of a line art nature. I enjoy photography, and have always veered to the power of black and white photos, going back to my darkroom days. For the book, I found photos—most of them color photos—that connected with the writings, many of them actually taken when I was experiencing what I wrote about. I selected the photos that would lend themselves to black and white—those that had plenty of blank spots and were not “busy”—and removed the color. At that point I added contrast and posterization to get the black and white graphic I wanted. All photos in the book are mine, except for the “author photos,” which my wife, Cathy, took, and the photo leading off the first chapter, of me sitting by a snowman with a country school in the background. Incredibly, that photo was taken by my mother, with a box camera in 1957.
DL: What do you hope readers take away from your book?
DG: I’d like to think that readers will think about how our interaction with nature and our experiences outdoors have a positive effect on our daily emotions and well-being; nature can awe and calm at the same. Several readers have said the book has inspired them to make a conscious effort to become more involved with the outdoors, as in hiking or simply something like birdwatching. For those who have physical limitations, I hope the book provides a vehicle to tag along with me on the experiences I have and describe—I hear this “tag along” comment often. My hope is that some of the book’s essays reveals and ponders nature’s wonders and mysteries, while providing a variety of stories, including about rural life, that is entertaining and resonates with many readers’ own experiences.