The vast majority of environmental nonfiction follows a predictable pattern: The writer goes out in nature and then tells us why it’s important to preserve the thing they experienced. But what if we could reach more people and maybe even change their point of view with a more experimental, more whimsical approach?
Jess Miles is a recent graduate of Chatham University and author of the MFA thesis ‘Midnight Sun,’ a collection of essays about her time on the Arctic island of Svalbard. On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Jess joins Ross to explain what inspired her to pursue science communication, sharing what she does to persuade readers and how she approaches environmental writing differently.
Jess opens up about her frustrating experience with canvassing for an environmental organization, describing what she learned about people (and herself!) and how she turned that bad experience into good writing. Listen in to understand why Jess incorporates elements of whimsy in her work and learn how experimental forms of writing can help readers see climate issues in a new light.
More from the show
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Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
Carbon Removal Memes is still going.
Resources
Sadly, too many books referenced and character-capped! Sorry about that, listener!
Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland
‘Hopepunk and Solarpunk: On Climate Narratives That Go Beyond the Apocalypse’ on Lit Hub
Arizona State Center for Science and the Imagination
After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration by Holly Jean Buck
Jonathan Safran Foer on RCC S2EP29
Books by Gabriel García Márquez
Climate Fiction on Reversing Climate Change S2EP12
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Who’s Saving the Planet? Podcast
Jess’ Blog on VR and Animal Rights
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. Today I have with me maybe a first, Jess Miles, one of our Patreon patrons and a recent MFA alumna of Chatham University. Jess, you had sent Send me your MFA thesis, which is called Midnight Sun. It’s a collection of essays and stories about your time in Svalbard. And it really captured my imagination. I was reading it. I thought we had to do a show and have you on. I think you are the first patron.
So that is cool. And you made it really easy for me because the MFA is a very interesting treatment of a bunch of things that I like. So yeah, thanks for doing it. Thanks for being here. Yeah, of course. I’m happy to be here. I am happy to. I don’t think that people know where Svalbard is. That’s probably the most logical place to start. What is a Svalbard?
Jess Miles: Yeah. So it’s actually an island off the coast of Norway. I believe it’s officially a territory of Norway. They have a governor, but it’s just a small place above the Arctic Circle that has polar bears and the sun never sets in the summer and it never rises in the winter. So it’s pretty cool.
Ross Kenyon: Wow, that is quite interesting. I imagine it’s quite a unique place. Does it have a similar Galapagos kind of diversity? Is it unique or is it kind of typically Arctic?
Jess Miles: I believe that it’s typically Arctic. I mean, there’s Arctic terns, polar bears, and then the same kind of marine life that visits the high Arctic in that area. But Philip Pullman did write about Svalbard in his Golden Compass trilogy. So maybe it’s unique in that way.
Ross Kenyon: That is certainly unique. And especially so now that there’s a show based on it, which it sounds like you’ve probably, as a professional of Svalbard, you must keep up with it. So you saw the show. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I haven’t read it. I hear it’s like C.S. Lewis, but if he was kind of like an atheist. Is that true? Yeah, basically. Okay. That’s a pretty good summary. Given that it’s such an unusual place, how does your life lead you to ending up in Svalbard?
Jess Miles: Well, I did read Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass when I was little, and I wanted to be the main character, and I fell in love with polar bears. So that kind of kicked off my obsession with them. And then I ended up at the University of Michigan studying environmental science, and I was given the great opportunity to travel to Sovalbard as part of the National Science Foundation’s research experience for undergraduates in 2014. So I got to spend... Roughly five weeks up there continuing a undergraduate science project that I had been working on while I was at Michigan.
So that was, you know, probably the highlight of my life so far.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, this definitely stood out to me too, because I find science really challenging for me. In fact, I have oftentimes had to have science people, I believe they’re called scientists. I always make them explain it to me in the most basic ways possible, or if it gets a little bit complex. The episodes that are much more scientific in nature, I’ll end up bringing someone on from the Nori team, much more well-versed in that sort of thing than I am. But seemingly you have both skills. You’re able to do creative, artsy things.
You like literature. You are also involved in science. That’s a double threat. How do you do both of those things? How did that happen?
Jess Miles: I was a scientist. She’s right. We really should care about this place. And that’s how I would be able to, you know, save the polar bears or save other parts of the environment. So it just kind of came naturally to me, I guess. Do you still have so much faith in persuasion? Oh, boy. I think prior 2016, I did... But it feels like a brave new world since then. And I’m not sure. I think a lot of people tend to silo themselves.
So that makes it hard. Did something happen in 2016? Just a small thing.
Ross Kenyon: Small thing. Yeah, it’s been frustrating to watch because I’m a believer in communications too. And a previous guest called me a science communicator, which I’m reluctant to apply to myself given that I am not naturally at home in the sciences at all. Yeah. Whatever. So I do this show and I think it’s important to have conversations that are deep and fair and interesting. And hopefully some people will have listened and changed their minds on some things before. Or maybe it just further entrenches them in what they already thought.
I wonder how many people listening to this maybe started out and didn’t actually believe in climate change. I doubt very many of them are seeking out shows called Reversing Climate Change. Yeah.
Jess Miles: I think that you’re definitely a science communicator. I mean, you guys have had such a diverse group of people on this podcast, which is definitely what attracted me to it in the first place. And even when you have more conservative-minded guests, you present it such a way and they present it such a way that I feel like I’m really being challenged and I consider other perspectives. So I wouldn’t sell yourself short. I think you’re definitely a great science communicator.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, thanks. Yeah, I’m happy to hear confirmation of that. And we used to get emails like that once in a while where people would say like, wow, I didn’t know you could be a combination of these things. That was so interesting. I never hear anything like that. And yeah, I think those are fun ones to do. And I always Seek out unusual or unexpected alliances or synergies in that kind of way, but maybe a little bit less so these days. But yeah, I’ve seen a lot of research saying that people have their minds made up and then they look for evidence.
Yeah, I mean, I think one way to persuade people
Jess Miles: is definitely through humor. And if you can get them laughing at something, they’re more likely to A, like you, which then means that they’re more likely to agree with you. You can just look at all of the late night talk show hosts. But I also think leaving room for nuance is important. Not being so entrenched in I guess your beliefs are what you’re trying to prove that you’re only speaking to one certain audience. There’s definitely a place for that, but I don’t find that very persuasive.
I know that you have mentioned Naomi Klein’s book. She was obviously speaking to people who already agreed with her, and so I didn’t find her book, This Changes Everything, that persuasive. And then I guess also, as the author, putting yourself on the side of the reader. So using things like we, we need to do this versus you also helps shorten that like, you know, psychic distance. Yeah, I guess also just being willing to be vulnerable and admit that like, you know, I’m struggling to be an environmental person too.
And I don’t always... Go without using plastic products and I drive my car. I think that goes a long way in just persuading people because then they feel less attacked. And so they’re not automatically defensive. And once they’re not automatically defensive, then they’re more receptive to what you’re actually saying. That was a really long answer.
Ross Kenyon: No, that’s okay. There’s plenty there. Yeah, humor is really a fantastic tool for that. I think if you’re able to laugh with someone, there’s definitely less chance you’re going to be yelling at each other. And once the yelling starts, it seems unlikely that people are going to walk away. By the way, having their hearts or minds change. And you use humor quite a bit. Many of your pieces in here are, I don’t even know. There are satires, I suppose you could say, but many of them are straight up farcical and very silly.
And we can get into those too. But you also do, and especially in earlier portions of the MFA, Are making yourself quite vulnerable or talking about insecurities and like playing at science, believing these things, but not really living up to them all the ways that you really should be. How are you supposed to persuade people when you are baseline a hypocrite? Because I don’t know, because basically everyone probably consumes more than they produce in terms of environmental benefits, I think. So I thought all those things were very endearing about it and they made me trust you more where I think is if you prevented like a very stern, but also like, oh, I do everything right.
I think I would kind of hate you. Is that probably what you’re trying to say?
Jess Miles: Something like that? No, that’s totally fair. If that had been the tone of what I wrote, I would also hate me. Yeah, you don’t seem like that person having spoken to you previously either. Try not to be.
Ross Kenyon: Be like, in person, I’m very warm and funny, but my writing is all very mean and laconic and not nice. I’m glad you didn’t adopt that harsh writerly persona. Me too. Yeah. Well, then you have these three sections here and we’ve skipped over them a little bit, but you’ve been exploring personal nonfiction, persuasive opinion and speculative fiction. So how did you land on these forms?
Jess Miles: Yeah. I definitely went into my program knowing this is how I wanted to structure my thesis. I had the benefit of having some exposure to environmental writing prior to my graduate program, and I was struck by how homogeneous the Essays and books I had read were in that most of them are about the author going out into nature, you know, experiencing something or studying something and talking about the importance of saving that or the, you know, biological importance of that species, which is great and definitely persuasive. But once you read one or two of those books, it becomes kind of predictable.
And something that would maybe keep the reader off balance and want them to read where I was going to go next. And I also just like speculative, funny stories. So I wanted to do that as well.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, fair enough. I’m trying to think of sort of like what we consider canon in terms of environmental writing. And I guess why you got John Muir is in there. You mentioned Edward Abbey. Edward Abbey is sort of like a special case because he’s such a rough around the edges. Yeah. He’s like the batman at the club.
Jess Miles: Yeah. I mean, I think Terry Tempest Williams definitely deserves to be mentioned as a classic in terms of feminine writers. I’ve not read her. Oh my gosh, you should. She’s so good. You have to read, especially since you’re out West in Seattle. She writes about the West a lot, but her book Refuge is amazing. It deals with her family, the female side of her family, and like There are health issues in terms of getting breast cancer because when America tested the atomic bombs, it poisoned the people living in that area.
But yeah, it’s just a really good book. I would read that. Oh, go ahead. Oh, no. I mean, I could list off a bunch.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Yeah, you could. I mean, Rachel Carson, I’m sure, would have a fine place in there. She’s writing about birds in the ocean. So these are all kind of a similar theme. Yeah, I can see that. The Terry... Terry Tempest Williams? Yeah. What else might be in that classical canon?
Jess Miles: Yeah, I think Gretel Ehrlich is definitely in there. She has a book called The Future of Ice, which is specifically about the Arctic. Bill McKibben, obviously, huge environmental figure.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, for sure. Stuff in The New Yorker, too, I’ve been revisiting lately. And Elizabeth Colbert, of course. But whatever, we sort of covered stuff that’s more contemporary and then some of the classics, older pieces. But yeah, you’re saying that this is mostly people or Aldo Leopold. He could be in there too. Yeah. Sand County Almanac. Yeah. That book is actually remarkably funny. I had no idea going into it that it would be nearly so hilarious. Yeah. It’s very funny.
I usually describe it as being like a funny Mary Oliver. Oh, yeah. Like celebrating these weird little places that he has, but also, yeah, cracking you up. Anyways, though, yeah, so you’re saying that those pieces of writing tended to be like the importance of saving a particular kind of place, going into them, exploring them, writing about them, leaving, or it’s actually where you live. And you’re saying that didn’t feel, that felt kind of played out to you, something like that? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So how could you approach it in a different way?
Because that pattern just seems like it’s almost built in a way.
Jess Miles: Yeah. So I guess I tried to approach it definitely through the speculative fiction portion of my thesis. I’ve always had a fascination with what could be in terms of the environment, direct air capture, that sort of thing. And so I wanted to... With that portion of my thesis specifically, try and show a different environment that wasn’t necessarily all doom and gloom. It was different, but different in a way that was almost hopeful, where humans were living with nature kind of thing, rather than it being an apocalypse situation.
Ross Kenyon: I think we’re on to something. And it seems tonally you do go back and forth. And maybe this is in your own person as well as in your writing. But there’s something mournful about you watching a Glacier Cav over Over and over and over again. And there’s many things in your MFA overall that feel painful or are causing you anxiety and doubt and horror about the present and the future. But part of you really wants to believe or you think there’s good reasons for optimism and environmental writing doesn’t only have to be like the broad archetypal story is the fall from grace, the loss of Eden, human screwing something up.
I’m not asking easy ones. I recognize that. I think...
Jess Miles: Well, on a personal level, I’m hopeful that I’ll get to go back to the Arctic before it’s all gone. I think from a society point of view, I’m hopeful that eventually we’ll get to a point where the environmental choice or the eco-friendly choice will just be... The baseline of what people do. And not even like a Jetsons, you know, flying cars kind of way. Just every house has solar panels on it. And it’s okay if you fly because we can take the CO2 out of the atmosphere.
So much more, I guess the subgenre is solar punk, but living with nature kind of thing is what I would like to see because, you know, Humans are so innovative and I think that we can do it and we don’t have to constantly be ashamed for our choices or live how we don’t want to make it happen. I think that we can fix it. You’re sounding mighty wizardly. I know.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. We’ve had a lot of profits on. If you’re listening, you don’t know what we’re talking about. Charles C. Mann’s The Wizard and the Prophet. So yeah, hopeful that tech, that our lives will look the same. Prophets want to go back to a simpler time, simplify, cut out a lot of the consumption, ask forgiveness from God, the universe, whatever you believe, et cetera. Yeah, so you tend to be optimistic. I imagine as an environmental writer, that is not the most popular position among your peers.
It definitely feels like I’m in the minority sometimes. But like anyone, because no one is all one thing or all the other, I’m sure there are parts of you where you are actually mourning and disappointed and have less hope than other days.
Jess Miles: Yeah, for sure. I know like the current administration is really moving aggressively on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and I can’t even open those stories to read them because it’s just I know it’ll be too painful.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. So I try to be, well, you know, I try to be fair and understand where someone’s coming from. I don’t really get why we got to do that with the Arctic. Yeah. I haven’t found the like, oh, I could see how someone might think that. I’m really like, we need to be like transitioning really seriously right now. Also, let the caribou hang out. Can’t they just have like a single place? Yeah. They’re not doing anything to you. Just let them be.
Yeah, I can’t say I really get that one. Maybe there is a case where I’d be like, all right, I don’t see it the same way, but I could see how someone would want that. Okay, it feels a bit more mendacious to me. Okay, all that aside, you dropped a genre term and those will always catch my ear if you do that. What is solar punk?
Jess Miles: So it’s, to the best of my knowledge, it’s a subgenre of cyberpunk or steampunk. It’s very similar to those two, but it is climate friendly. And so it’s a reaction to You know, typical climate fiction that’s very dystopian. And instead, it’s more focused on returning to a balance with your environment and living in synergy with it. So like solar panels, windmills, that sort of thing.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. Is there something I can read? Are people writing novels on this?
Jess Miles: I think recently there is a book that came out with specifically like solar punk and eco speculation stories called Sun Vault, colon stories of solar punk and eco speculation. I haven’t had a chance to read it myself yet. There is a story in there about Svalbard. Are you like, hey, that’s my territory. What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. I just want to quarter it for myself. There’s a few articles on the internet. I think I saw someone tweeting about it recently, which is the only reason I know about it.
Yeah. There’s an article on Lit Hub that talks about like Hope Punk and Solar Punk. But it’s been around for a while, I think since 2015. Hmm. I could send you the article.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I can see why people would read things that are a bit more grim, but I suppose some people probably like some literature to be a bit more upbeat. But I also imagine stuff inside of solar punk, is it at least aspirationally literary? Like it’s trying to be like high art or is it more genre fiction in some kind of way?
Jess Miles: I don’t know that I know the answer to that. I would imagine that people who write it do both, that there’s some genre fiction and some that’s high art. Yeah, you got some solar punk that’s just real campy and then some. I certainly hope so because everybody needs a good campy book every now and then. Arizona State has a whole Center for Science and the Imagination that does more like, you know, imaginative ego speculation type stories, which is pretty cool.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, that’s cool. I didn’t know that they did that. I like that though. And I see it pop up all over the place using these speculative fiction devices as, for instance, I don’t know if you’ve read it yet, but Holly Jean Bucks after geoengineering has a series of vignettes in them about what will happen with various types of geoengineering. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. That’s the one that’s like choose your own adventure, right? Yeah. I was going to get to that, which by the way, is just such a super fun thing, especially to see in nonfiction as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jess Miles: I started reading it after hearing about it on the podcast. I haven’t finished it yet because it didn’t really fit into my thesis, but I definitely want to get to it because I loved that aspect of the book. Hey, Holly, if you’re listening, we’re digitally waving to you right now. Very hard.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I think that’s one of the most successful parts of that book and many books that some other one I read recently that did it too. And I think it really helps one wrap one’s head around the future Have you seen her? I have not. Okay. It’s a great film and certainly worth a viewing, but the vision of the future is very much, and it’s a near future, probably like 5, 10, 15 years ahead. And everything’s just a little bit easier, right?
The colors are, it’s shot in a very, the depth of field is super narrow for the cinematography. So there’s like everything behind what’s in focus is just this like We oil painting looking like it’s nice. Oh, but everything’s like a bit better, but people are still unhappy. It’s like things are easier, but we haven’t solved the core relational inability to connect problems that exist in the social media age. And I found that to be like a very accurate prediction because it also wasn’t it wasn’t like the road from like, oh, God, everyone dies and eats each other.
Yeah. And it wasn’t, you know, like a caricature of eco modernism, which is, oh, we solved all of our problems and we all we have a fully automated space communism or whatever. It’s just kind of similar. But I don’t know. Maybe you don’t buy that because it’s hard to even say that with a straight face, given all the wildfires and everything else that’s happening right now. I’m like, oh, God, is everyone just going to be a climate refugee? What’s going to happen? Oh, no.
So I’m confused. That’s horrible. There’s a bunch of things in there.
Jess Miles: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we’re in our own choose-your-own-adventure dystopian novel already.
Ross Kenyon: We are, although those things are written in a way that individual choice matters and they have agency. You as the reader have agency. I think that’s the problem with climate change where I imagine most people are like, does anything I do matter if I recycle? I don’t. What do I do that actually matters? I’ve long been trying to figure out that. Maybe you have certain thoughts on it, but I don’t want to advise people to do some sort of activism that leaves them feeling drained or is costly but doesn’t do anything.
But also, I’m never quite sure what people should actually spend their time doing. The only thing I know to do is to talk about it and to try to... I
Jess Miles: would agree with you. I don’t have anything to add to that. I think it’s a very hard thing. And it probably just gets harder every year to figure out what it is you are supposed to try and do. I guess the only thing that I do differently having grown up in Washington, D.C. is I’m more attuned to like writing. Your legislators and stuff or calling them to support a specific bill. But even that can feel a little unimpactful sometimes. I’m told that actually works, though, assuming it’s not a form letter.
I don’t think form letters really work. Right, right. I guess, maybe this is the cynical part of me, but I feel like it matters more when your representative is a Republican or a Democrat who can be pushed on But unfortunately or fortunately, the part of Virginia that I’m in has the honor of having, you know, pretty environmentally conscious senators and now Democratic representative for my district. So a lot of times, at least on the Senate level, they’re supporting things already. So I guess that’s just why I feel frustrated sometimes with it.
Ross Kenyon: I can imagine that’s the case. Well, in terms of activism and what you can do, a very frustrating experience sounds like you had was canvassing, which is a large piece of your MFA. I don’t know how much of this is meant to be fictitious, but I imagine a great deal of it is inspired by the truth or just the truth. Yeah, I tried to keep it as true as possible. Yeah. What was that like? And you don’t have to name the organization if you don’t want to, but it sounds rough.
Jess Miles: I started off on a bad foot because I didn’t know what canvassing was going into it. So I think my expectation was a little bit too high on what I would be doing. It was definitely an experience that I learned a lot from. Canvassing is a lot like writing, I guess, where you get a lot of rejections. And a lot of times people would tell me, oh, you’re so earnest. It’s very clear you care about the environment. That’s great. You should keep doing it, but I’m not going to donate.
I was like, well, if you don’t donate, I can’t keep doing this because I have to hit a certain quota. So thank you. But I’m going to go cry now. Yeah, I don’t know. You learn a lot about people, I think, canvassing and about yourself. Yeah, certainly imagine you can get a pretty quick read on someone. Oh, yeah, for sure. The other hard thing about canvassing is that the more people do it, the more no soliciting signs I saw tend to come up on people’s doors, which then makes them automatically unreceptive to anything you might say, which, you know, I respect people’s time, but it’s just kind of funny.
We haven’t even said anything. They’re like, nope, I don’t want it. Thanks. Bye. Bye.
Ross Kenyon: Cool. I’ve never had one of those signs, but I had someone come to my door recently and he was saying something like, hey, one of your neighbors just got some like pest control services. Would you be interested in doing some? I can do them quite cheap because I’m here anyways. I was like, oh no, I’m okay. Thanks. He’s just like, oh yeah, what kind of pest would you say that you have here? I’m like, I just told you no. Yeah. So are you putting me in a position now where I have to like restate it more firmly or be like borderline rude?
And I was like, I don’t even want to be here in the first place. It sounds like you just put this sign on. But the worst though, they ask questions that like you are required by society’s politeness to answer. And once you’re in, they sort of like abuse it. So they ask you- I think it’s just like anyone. They’ll be like, Oh, hey, that’s a cute dog. What kind of dog is that? Oh, that’s so great. And you can’t just be like, no, thanks.
But then once you’re starting to talk, the average person isn’t going to like shut them down. I always feel like it’s very manipulative, but you have to. Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean to just go on a rant.
Jess Miles: No, no, this is great. I think you should just when you walk your dog, if anybody asks what kind of dog it is, you just say, no, thanks.
Ross Kenyon: It’s a really mean one that bites people with clipboards. That’s what it is. Yeah. Well, I imagine you probably had to, you know, you only have like a split second to get someone, especially for like an environmental cause. How did you get someone on the hook like that? Or did you have a script that you just like had to follow?
Jess Miles: There’s definitely a script that was recommended we stick to pretty closely. A lot of times, I think if people are already willing to donate, it wasn’t necessarily anything that I said. It was just more that they, you know, had five bucks on them or were willing to put a credit card in and donate rather than I guess I didn’t change a lot of people’s minds canvassing, which was a little bit discouraging.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you’re more like collecting money from the base. You’re rallying the base or something like that. Yeah. I’m sure you would knock on doors and you would see like a certain bumper sticker or maybe even like the way their yard was maintained. You’d be like, hmm. Yeah. This doesn’t seem like an environmentalist yard to me. I don’t think they’re going to like it.
Jess Miles: Yep. No, definitely. There are many times where people were publicly expressing their views and I was like, okay. This isn’t going to go well for me. I know that one person in particular brought out the very common climate change isn’t human caused and Jesus will fix it. So, which is, you know, believe what you want, but I would like to live in a habitable country. So...
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Jesus also doesn’t like it when you ask for miracles or proof of that. I feel like he yells at people a few times for like, what do you need more proof? You could just ask me for a miracle. So I don’t know. I don’t know that I would hold my breath on that one. Probably shouldn’t test the guy if that’s what you’re into. But yeah, I don’t know. I like that one. That was pretty funny. There’s a lot you can do with such a terrible experience.
And as someone who’s written a fair amount myself too, that’s the one consolation you always have with a bad experience, right? Yeah. I can write about it at least. That’s the one thing you can hold on to. Yeah. No, that’s definitely a lot of food for or a lot of writing material. Yeah, certainly.
Jess Miles: Out of that. But now my parents are always like, because I cried after my first day. I just laid on the floor and cried. And so now any job I’m considering, my parents are like, are you going to lay on the floor and cry? If yes, don’t take the job.
Ross Kenyon: I think that’s pretty sensible parenting, all things considered. Cool. Well, let’s keep going. Get into some of the portions of your writing that are, yeah, I said fantastical earlier. And you engage in a fair amount of whimsy. Would you say that’s fair? Yeah, definitely fair. Why is whimsy attractive to you or important to you?
Jess Miles: Because it’s just fun. I mean, who doesn’t want to live in a whimsical, fun, not serious world sometimes? I enjoy reading it. I enjoy writing it. And also, I mean, I imagine you’re talking about the essay I did about a polar bear meal delivery service.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, yeah. I mean, that certainly qualifies. Yeah.
Jess Miles: That’s been a running joke in my family for a while, as well as shrinking polar bears down to a miniature size so that I can just keep them all in a small confined space around me. And so that’s just kind of, I don’t know where my brain lives.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I mean, is part of it too commentary about... There are many tech startups that exist where you’re like, oh God, did we really need another one of these? Or is this the best that our minds can come up with? You have people who can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and get equity in startups and afford to live in the Bay Area. And they’re making some dumb app. And they probably would come up with a polar bear food delivery service. Is that like part of like there’s like a mean satire paired with the whimsy or am I imagining that?
Jess Miles: That definitely wasn’t my intent, although I like that it could definitely fit. It was more intentional of just thinking, you know, why not? Or like this could happen. So why shouldn’t it kind of thing? And imagining solutions, however, fantastical or unrealistic because, you know, you need a lot of bad ideas to get a good one.
Ross Kenyon: This is like the rejected ideas heap. Yeah. So you do a fair amount of this that belongs in the realm of fantasy. And then you also do some things that even the formal elements of what appears on the page is, yeah, otherworldly, fantastical, or unusual at the very least. Things like there’s a page that just has bear scratches through it. What got you to do that? I know people like to do that. In fact, one of our previous podcast guests, Jonathan Safran Ford, did a fair amount of playing with the typeset and stuff like that.
Like, yeah, why do it?
Jess Miles: I read Ander Monson’s book, Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, which was the first time that I was really exposed to an experimental form. And I just kind of fell in love with it. I think it’s very, it can be very visually eye catching. And in a way, it makes your nonfiction almost like poetry, because then the reader is looking for meaning in blank space. And They’re looking very closely at what you’re saying. And so that’s kind of what drew me to that. And specifically with that bear claw graphic, I thought it just really fit with kind of the anxiety and emotional turmoil that I was feeling in the moment and also thematically
Ross Kenyon: with polar bears. You also have drawings in it too. Did you draw them yourself? I did. Okay. I think people are used to books just being very simple words on the page. So I’m sure there’s some literary term for this, but it feels like intertextuality or some sort of like invasion or intrusion of other types of media. Is it like mixed media literature? What do you even call it? What is it supposed to signify? At the very least, it’s like some sort of like playfulness, but yeah, what’s going on?
Jess Miles: Yeah. So a lot of, or at least some environmental or naturalist books have like those scientific drawings of birds or the flowers that they’re studying or describing, right? And so I kind of wanted to take that, but then make it more political and personal to myself, or just express an opinion on what I felt was going on With each section of my writing. So my personal essays, I did a drawing of myself mixed with a polar bear because the Arctic is so close to me. And so I’m so passionate about it.
And then in terms of the persuasive or opinionated writing, that climate anxiety got mixed in there because a lot of times when I’m reading environmental stuff, it So I just kind of wanted to give visual cues to the reader on how I was feeling as the author as a way of breaking it up so it’s not just text.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think that various pieces within your MFA ever crossed the line into magical realism? What even is that and does it apply here? Do you see it as that or no?
Jess Miles: I don’t think any of my pieces qualify as magical realism. Magical realism, as I understand it, is being in a mundane world or But it’s inhabited or imbued with something that’s not of this world. So it’s like rooted in reality, but then there is an element of magic or mysticism in it. And I think my work is more speculative because there is so much unrealism in it. Magical realism is like, you know, Franz Kafka’s metamorphosis, that type of thing.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Like, so matter of fact, Gregor Samsa woke up to discover he’s a cockroach or however that famous first line is. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just like, yes, this is a thing that could happen, even though it absolutely could not. Yeah. The taxonomy of these things are for genres is quite interesting. And I wonder.
Jess Miles: Yeah. And I think it’s also very fluid. Right. So what one person would consider magical realism, a different person might not.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I wrote a sketch once that, do you know that book? It’s like a thousand places to visit before you die. Have you ever seen that book? I have a thousand and one baseball places to see before you die. Oh, nice. I imagine it’s the same like series. I’m sure they made a boatload of money off of that series. But I wanted to make a sketch that was a thousand and one places to visit after you die. And it would take for granted, be like, if you visit the 15th dimensionality of color, and it would take for granted the various types of demons that might exist.
Oh, my gosh. I don’t know. You should write that. That’s awesome. I don’t know how long that could have gone. Obviously, the premise is important, but you have to have that amazing ending twist to really pay out. I’m not sure I had it. Whatever. Is that magical realism? Because it takes for granted that this is a thing. Maybe it’s not rooted enough in reality because Gabriel Garcia Marquez is using this As a way to make political commentary about Latin American politics and it serves a purpose, but it’s still rooted in a world where that happens.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Kafka has things to say and the rest of the world has just adapted to the fact that this is the way that it is. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. What were we talking about? Why did magical realism come up? Why did we originally start talking about it? It might have been after the other episode you did on Cli-Fi specifically, and I might have made a comment about it, is how we originally got on the topic. Oh, yeah.
I think, okay, yeah. And we started talking about magical realism, and you had mentioned a book that you thought was a very nice treatment of the genre, but also had some climate implications, right?
Jess Miles: Oh, yeah. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I’d be curious to read more in that because most of the cli-fi I’ve read has been more plausibly dystopian, I guess. It doesn’t have that sort of bending of the rules or the laws of nature kind of feeling to it. But you thought it was well done? Yeah, definitely. It’s very compelling, the entire story. I’ll have to check this out. Well, Jess, are you trying to publish this as a book? Are you going to try and get it out there? What’s your next step with it?
Jess Miles: I think I am just trying to get the essays and stories published individually in different literary journals if I can, rather than trying to sell it as a whole book because the three parts of it are very distinct. I think I would have to put a lot more work into it to make it Okay.
Ross Kenyon: That’s cool. If you’re listening and you are a literary journal editor. Oh my gosh. No one has ever emailed me and that has been a thing that they do. Yeah, I would love to see that. I imagine you’re going to keep writing. What are you going to be doing moving forward now that you’ve graduated? And congratulations.
Jess Miles: Thank you. Yeah, I’m definitely going to keep writing. Right now, I’m helping out with a different podcast and helping them with some blog stuff. But other than that, I don’t know. It’s very exciting. Just trying to see what’s going on. What’s the other podcast? It’s called Who’s Saving the Planet.
Ross Kenyon: Who’s Saving the Planet. Yeah, I have not listened to that one yet, but I look forward to doing so. And the link is in the show notes if you’d like to check it out as well. You’re running blogs for them? Yeah, I’m helping them build out their blog content. I just did one on how VR is ushering in a new era of animal rights, actually. Oh, God, I hate to ask how that would work because I can already imagine some scenarios. But it does seem to be very effective if it’s what I imagined.
Yeah, I’m sure that it is what you’re imagining. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, I hope you keep at it and keep writing. I look forward to reading more things you write in the future. And thanks for making it easy to do more episodes on writing and literature. That was fun.
Jess Miles: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you. You’re awesome. I love you guys. And you’re very nice. You’re awesome.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, thanks. Yeah, I’m happy to have had a chance to do it. And thanks for hanging out with me. And if you’re listening, you’re kind of hanging out with us too. And thanks for listening. If you wouldn’t mind, could you open up your Apple podcast app right now on your iPhone and write us a quick review? Because it only takes a couple minutes, but it actually helps us a lot in getting this out to more people. So if you would please do that, I would be most grateful.
No worries in any case if not. And thanks so much for listening. Oh, and also Jess is a Patreon patron. And so we hang out there in Slack. We end up keeping in touch, sharing stuff with each other. It’s a pretty good time. If you’d like to come hang out with us, you could do so as well. I imagine, Jess, you would give a thumbs up. Yeah, for sure. It’s a wildly fun time. Wildly fun time hanging at book club.
Thanks for listening. And I hope you have a lovely day. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it in Apple Podcasts and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience. If you think what we’re doing is useful, interesting, fun, hopefully all three, we’d certainly appreciate your rating and review. You can keep up with Nori at nori.com where there is a newsletter that’s nori.com slash subscribe. There’s podcast, there’s a whole bunch else, or you can send us an email at podcast at nori.
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