Anuradha Rao: One Earth The Ethical Interview: Lifting People into the Spotlight

Anuradha Rao is the author of the amazing One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet, a collection of twenty biographies of people of all ages from all over Earth. Anuradha is a scientist, a conservation biologist. Her dream of this book arose from her wish that more people of colour were recognized for their work in the conservation and environmental communities. To provide a mirror for youth.

“Until recently, at work,” she says, in her introduction to the book, “I had usually been the only one with a brown face.”

WordWorks: Tell me more about your mission for the book.

Anuradha Rao: I wanted to focus this project to make it a celebration of diversity and its contribution to environmental success, rather than to get in depth on why the movement isn’t more diverse, or get into the negative side of things. I wanted it to be uplifting and hopeful.

The imagery in the book is part of the reason I did it, because in the environmental movement, and in books in general, people need to see themselves and the actual world reflected in the media. Even for a young kid who can’t read yet, the images alone can contribute to their self-esteem and to their broader understanding of the world: who is important in it and whose voices and actions are important.

WW: The photographs are beautiful. Orca seems to have designed the book in a loving way.

AR: We wanted the book to be very visual, and I think we achieved that. One of the editors gave me great advice on photo captions. There is a tendency for people to flip through the images, captions, and pull-out quotes before they read the text, so we used captions to tell more than just what the photos were showing: to bring out something that wasn’t mentioned in the text, or to highlight a piece of the story.

WW: That’s great advice for writers. Did writing for young people come naturally to you? I loved reading it and I imagine a lot of other adults will as well.

AR: Well, it’s funny. It’s officially intended for ages 12+. But of all the talks that I’ve done, I’ve only had a couple to the lower end of that age range. Everything else has either been for younger children or undergraduate students or the general public, which included adults. And I sold books in my own network to mostly adults, so I think it’s just a readable book.

I didn’t know if my writing would be suitable for the age range, but through working with the editors I realized how much faith Orca has in young audiences to understand mature subject matter. I didn’t have to simplify it very much. I could basically write as I would write, but just not be overly technical about it. Speak normally about a mature subject, explain things that needed to be explained, and then have faith that the readers could look up information or could understand topics that were maybe not as prevalent when I was a kid.

WW: Orca sounds amazing.

AR: It was important for me to be able to review the edits and the layout as it was being produced and to have input. Orca was supportive of that. I also got their agreement that I would be able to send drafts to the contributors, and have them be able to review them. Basically every step of the way the contributors got to see what was being proposed and suggest any changes or identify errors. And so I feel really good about that whole process and how the book definitely is true to the people who are featured in it.

WW: Do you have any advice for writers who are learning to interview people? How did you put people at ease and build rapport with people so far away from you?

AR: I started with my friend Nitya, one of the people in the book. I know her very well and she agreed to be my guinea pig through the process.

My interviewing techniques and

my story-writing techniques progressed through working with her, then with a mentor, and then with the publisher, and that all got refined. I went back to her over and over to keep working things through. From that experience I landed on ten questions that I realized would be enough to give me an initial outline of what the story would be.

The other thing was that I had a very clear picture of what I was doing, who I was, what the project was, what the outcome would be, and what my relationship with the individual would be, so that I would be legitimate and transparent all through it.

Then I gave them the elevator pitch version of that up front so that they could see if it was something of interest to them and if they felt like they identified with it, because they had to self-identify with the project.

From there I gave them all the details, sent them the questions in advance if they wanted them, which some did and some didn’t.

I also told them just because I’m interviewing you does necessarily mean that your story is going to appear in the book, that there might have to be a publication decision to cut.

I gave them all the information up front, so that there weren’t any surprises.

Everybody saw their own words, their own stories, from the initial Word documents to the laid-out drafts—where their photos would be and the captions and the pull out quotes, to where their draft fit into the bigger work.

And I think that that helped me to feel comfortable that I was doing the right thing, and I’d like to think that it made them comfortable.

I did the first interview with them using those ten standard questions; then I would go away and write up their story incorporating the uniqueness of each individual. I had kind of a set way, which was starting all the stories from their childhood to their turning points to their successes.

I would then go back to each person and fill in holes by asking them more questions. It was very time-consuming, but it was all within the time frame and the deadlines that I had been given to work. WW: I really, really love the way you told me about your process! I noticed you gave each person in the book a chance to tell readers what they could do to help protect our world. May I challenge you to tell the same to writers?

AR: As writers we have the power to affect people’s emotions. And so we have to balance the we’re in a climate crisis, we’re in a diversity crisis, we’re in an everything right now crisis, with the we can do this or that and to show those roads.

Writers can do their homework on issues and find out things like whose traditional territory they live and work on, and what those Nations’ environmental and cultural priorities are, and try to align themselves with those priorities and be an ally in that work, and not speak for other people but research, understand and write in parallel and support of the things that people are pushing for.

Anuradha Rao is a is a Registered Professional Biologist, writer and facilitator with a focus on coastal and marine ecosystems. www.ekalogical.com

“I was one of the few people of colour at the 2016 Surrey International Writers conference among hundreds of people. It was very obvious and very lonely. And so I think it’s as important to be lifting diverse voices in the writing community as well. Writers need to be looking at uplifting Black, Indigenous and people of colour. If you have a platform, step aside and offer it to help somebody else whose voice doesn’t usually get heard.”