A monthly feature written and photographed by Southwest Washington native and Emmy Award-winning journalist
Hal Calbom
Production Notes The Writing and Reading of Books A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~ Chinese Proverb
It’s tempting to do nothing but seek out and interview authors. After all, we are a “Reader,” self-proclaimed. We assemble words, paragraphs, stories, essays and reviews, all readied to be read. Reading is a privilege and a gift. It seems we are not wired to make sense of lines of symbols organized into systems and presented to us in endless marching rows of prose. Thanks to work my wife does with dyslexic children and those with other profound learning disabilities, I’ve learned that those to whom reading comes naturally are, in fact, a relative minority. Educators say only 10–20 percent of all learners take to reading easily. The rest read slowly, hesitantly, out of necessity and often not very well at all. I enjoyed my conversation with author Ann Stinson as much as I enjoyed reading her book in manuscript. We’re curious about the people behind the prose (and the pose) that the author creates. We lionize great writers, or vilify them, for their idiosyncrasies and the sacrifices and indulgences they’ve made for their art.
people+ place The Forest and the Trees: Ann Stinson Ann Stinson knows what she wants to say, but like most writers she’s particular how she says it. We walk her property in search of exactly what she does. “We do struggle with that. The description. When I tell people it’s a tree farm,” she told me, “they immediately assume it’s Christmas trees. It’s not.” As we wind among her 230 acres of fir, western red cedar and ponderosa pine, we emerge into acres of clear cut suggesting industry more than husbandry. We dismiss both political extremes — they are neither tree huggers nor tree muggers at Cowlitz Ridge Tree Farm. And we agree that “preserve” denies the working nature of the place, and has a jellies and jams feel anyway. Tramping over soggy fallen needles and leaves, we debate the nuances of “farm,” a place which usually grows “crops,” which in turn become “food.” And we agree that all the talk of “stewardship” and “conservation” belies the bare-knuckle business of the place. Tree farming is work: planting and protecting the shoots, fighting drought and root rot, setting the price against international markets and regional competition. Put simply, it’s cutting trees down and growing them back — sustainably. We sit down for a chat. The walk is exhilarating. The semantics are tiring us out.
Ann Stinson resides
Toledo, Wash., and Portland, Ore. occupation
Tree farmer, author of The Ground at My Feet: Sustaining a Family and a Forest from, Toledo, Washington known for
Gathering friends and family for food and conversation reading The Committed: a Novel, by Viet Thanh Nguyen and Rare and Wondrous Things: A Poetic Biography of Maria Siobylla Merian by Alyse Bensel
Hiking, reading, exploring new restaurants, playing with her godchild
for fun
And more often than not, we ask them a very basic question: how much of this book is “you” and how much did you make up? Or, in the case of non-fiction, a deeper probe: How much of this is felt experience, gut feeling and reaction, versus research and regurgitation?
recommendations
Memorizing a poem, reading and re-reading Beloved by Toni Morrison.
AS: How about “working forest?” HC: Sure. I’ll settle for that — including the cutting and merchandising of the trees, too?
As I talked with Ann I realized my pleasure in her book derived from an elegant integration, very candid and straightforward, of what she was thinking, feeling and then writing down. It’s not seamless, in fact it calls itself out, almost like a series of excerpted diary entries or collections of scratchings and poems.
AS: Yes, that’s what we do. Our business is timber, which is wood used in building, carpentry, industry. The end products. This place is beautiful but it’s not hands-off. It’s a livelihood, too.
The writing and reading of books is so much more than an academic exercise. It’s a perpetual translation of thought and feeling into a very arbitrary and demanding system of signs and symbols. When done well, it both transports us and brings us home. •••
NICE TO MEET YOU
HC:: Is that side of the business — the timber and lumber side — still alive here in Southwest Washington? We hear so much about exporting whole logs and that the saw milling gets done somewhere else? cont page 22 Courtesy photo
HOLIDAY 2021 / Columbia River Reader /November 25, 2021 / 21
