An Interview with David Carroll, 2006 MacArthur Fellowship winner
by Sally Metheany, former YBP Library Services Customer Service Bibliographer
David Carroll, naturalist/writer/artist, was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in October. He has lived in central New Hampshire for nearly forty years, publishing and illustrating books on his observations of the natural environment and advocating for wetlands protection. Sally Metheany is a long-time friend of the writer.
David Carroll (click for larger image)
SM: In preparation for our discussion I visited the MacArthur Foundation website to see exactly how they had framed their description of your work and their decision to honor you for it. Have you seen the website?
DC: No actually, I have not had time over the past two weeks. There's been a lot going on.
SM: Here's the opening section of your MacArthur profile:
"David Carroll has the eye of an artist, the mind of a scientist, the voice of a great storyteller, and the soul of a conservationist. An illustrator, author and naturalist for over forty years, he has made voluminous, detailed observations of the ecology of the deciduous hardwood forests and wetland habitat around New England, especially near his home in central New Hampshire. His understanding of the plants and animals that comprise these natural systems makes him a valuable resource for herpetologists, ecologists and conservationists, providing a meticulous chronicle of life in areas threatened by human encroachment and imparting essential insights for those attempting to protect them."
Two phrases jumped out at me as a starting point - "voluminous, detailed observations" and "meticulous chronicle." Your work in wetlands advocacy and protection would not be as widely known if you had not been a writer at heart; in fact, you might not have come to the attention of the MacArthur Foundation without your talents as a storyteller.
DC: When I got my first book contract, for The Year of the Turtle, I knew that I was following an idea that I had had in my mind since adolescence. I knew I was going to have a voice in the turtle and habitat preservation debate and perhaps an entry into the political issues of conservation. Publishing a book meant being heard in a way that would be respected. Although I was 45 when I got that first contract, it was a culmination of all my work to that point in writing-art-natural history.
I said at that time to Laurette [David's wife], "this is what I need to do. This is the stepping stone. I will have to put aside some of the working of a visual artist. The art will serve the writing and the writing will serve the natural history, which I love and respect. I will leave behind my surrealist-cubist work and concentrate on the world of turtles and frogs for the foreseeable future."
SM: Needless to say, the award you just received affirms that decision. Could we go back and see how it played out?
DC: Once the first book came out, it was the leverage for completion of the "wet sneaker trilogy," which had been in my mind for a long time. And, it added up to a 17-year period during which I was under contract for a book without a break.
As for the sequence, in about 1980 I had presented my agent in New York with the first proposal. In 1987 I was awarded the contract for The Year of the Turtle, which was finally published in 1991 (a publisher change mid-stream slowed the process). Trout Reflections, next in line, came out in 1993 and then the very long time of 7 years to complete Swampwalker's Journal [This book received the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing in 2001 based on the literary merit and scientific accuracy of the work].
SM: Did you always envision these works as a trilogy?
DC: No, actually, more than a trilogy-- I had a fourth book in mind, something along the lines of Brooks and Streams: a Hydromancer's Notebook.
SM: But, that is not what came along next. What we got instead was Self-Portrait with Turtles: a Memoir. How did that come about?
DC: I was finishing up Swampwalker's Journal and thinking about the fourth nature book. My editor at Houghton-Mifflin had been interested, but in the final months of preparing the manuscript, he thought I should consider a more personal book as a next step. He said, "You've got three books out, widely read, and people may be wondering about the author." I was reluctant to go in that direction, since Memory Lane is not my favorite street, but my editor was looking at my next book from the publisher's perspective.
SM: You had always focused on the natural world you were committed to explaining and protecting. You were not eager to look inward or backward. How did you manage to turn that around?
DC: It took awhile. While I didn't relish that particular challenge, I finally envisioned a context - following the turtle path, realizing that if I let my own life experience unfold within the course of my life as naturalist, I could redeem the memoir concept in my own mind. And, I realized that with a shift in genre I might reach a wider audience, that this kind of book might bring people unfamiliar with my previous work back to the trilogy. And I saw that this would be a welcome opportunity to give praise, to point out the importance of the people who had mattered so very much in my own life -Thoreau, through his writing, my own teachers all the way through school and college, and students I have taught.
SM: What did you find particularly challenging along your own memory lane?
DC: I knew I did not want to involve other peoples' lives in the story I had to tell, although I was generally aware that revelation of personal and family issues sells lots of books. I alluded briefly to my early life, but once I got to my "First Turtle" chapter, I could hold onto the turtle thread and keep that as my focus.
SM: How did you structure the book? Unlike the nature books, you didn't have field notebooks for reference.
DC: As you know, I spend April through September pretty much out in the swamps. That particular summer, while I was contemplating this project, I kept a little notebook, separate from my field notes, and I let my mind wander into the past, jotted down ideas and images, names and the like as they came to me. In the fall, I was surprised that I had more material than I had thought and, more importantly, had found a way to be not only comfortable with it, but excited as well.
SM: What was the response to your first draft or chapters?
DC: My in-house editor (wife Laurette) is always right on target, so after she and our daughter Rebecca, also a writer, had given their enthusiastic go-ahead, I sent it to Houghton-Mifflin, where my editor and everyone involved there wholeheartedly approved of my approach. They may have been concerned that if the rest of the book mirrored the 2 ½ pages covering my first eight years of life that it would not be much of a book, but they also knew that I am not the master of brevity and that I would no doubt be more expansive as the years moved forward.
SM: How was the book received when it came out in 2004?
DC: Actually, the reviewers generally did not see this book as a departure from my other work, which was a good thing from my viewpoint. And I didn't mind being identified as a memoirist when the Smithsonian magazine review stated, "he proves himself a master of memoir…"
SM: You have put together three complimentary disciplines -art, writing and science. How far back does this fortunate merging go?
DC: It started with teachers who encouraged me, starting in elementary school; they learned that I was setting up environments for turtles and other small creatures and they even visited my house to see what I was doing there. One teacher in middle school told me he was grooming me for a career in natural history and science. When I was 15 I won 2nd prize in a New England-wide science fair.
SM: What was your project?
DC: I studied a fungus infecting the turtle shells of dime store turtles.
I was also being encouraged in creative writing in 6th grade, when I was turning a small writing assignment into an epic. Since I was not a master of brevity, even then, it was becoming quite an opus. As I produced chapter upon chapter, I was encouraged to read the installments to the class.
My writing continued to be encouraged through high school and college. English teachers we both had in high school and college-Harry Nelson and Larry Chick at Fitch and Henry Coolidge at Tufts. The art-writing-nature connection all came together when I started working with Bill Miller, the high school art teacher. Our very first project was to make a hand-bound book.
SM: How did he bring it all together for you?
DC: The idea was to make the book which we were to fill with our own art work; we were also to do some writing related to our images. This is when I began to understand art with a capital "A". My first drawing was an alder swamp with skunk cabbage, and a page with a snake and leaves. My nature interest came together with art and writing with that project. And I found it a pivotal project to do with my own students when I became a high school art teacher.
SM: Do you have plans or ideas for future writing, or is anything in the works now?
DC: Since Self-Portrait I have been reluctant to pitch another proposal. The 17-year period required to complete the first three nature books and the memoir was unbelievably laborious. Along with my own observations, I was in frequent contact with experts in the various disciplines I was writing about and doing additional research in professional journals and the like and was not sure I could undertake more of that kind of writing. The books in themselves have not made much money, but they have opened a point of contact and market for our other work -- Laurette's paintings and my lectures, readings, and paintings, too. We had been getting by this way so I had been letting some time pass before making a major writing decision.
However, I have had a children's book in mind and have continued working on the Hydromancer's Notebook. I organize my work in piles and one called "Hydromancer" sits on my writing table, including notes and citations from my field notebooks.
SM: How many field notebooks do you have?
DC: I must have several hundred. They are small, cheap notebooks, chosen because they can fit into a pocket of my field jacket. They are actually numbered and dated - I do attempt to keep at least a chronology.
SM: Are the journals in a form to be publishable?
DC: I have had people say things like, "I wish we could see the magnificent journals themselves." I cringe. I make very brief notes in the field, without literary merit. They are primarily records of weather, water temperature, turtle shell size. I'm often standing knee deep in cold water, or surrounded by insects, and can't take time to write. I am focused on observation and searching for turtle signs, so both the writing and any drawing I do on location is very rough. The drawings are completed in the studio, using the notes for accuracy.
SM: How do you retrieve specific material for something like the Hydromancer project?
DC: I stumble onto it. I do go through some of the journals pretty regularly. I have co-written some work with academic colleagues in scientific journals. While hunting for some scientific data, I accidentally come across entries of interest - I'm thankful for post-its - I tag text to come back to later.
SM: Do you think Hydromancer will take shape and turn your trilogy into a quartet?
DC: My current thinking is that it may become a series of essays, less formal than the earlier books. As the culmination of a three-book concept, Swampwalker is considered something of a natural history classic, thoroughly researched, tightly structured, and it would take a lot of stamina, and time, to take that approach again.
SM: What about the children's book?
DC: Believe it or not, last spring I found a draft written many years ago in one of those hundreds of notebooks, an idea for a children's book, a turtle's journey from nest to water. I do hold onto ideas for a long time before they come into being. I sent sample drawings and a simple text to Houghton-Mifflin. I don't know what will come of it. My original dedication page was to the children of parents of my generation. If it does go ahead, it will have to be dedicated to the children of the children, or maybe one further generation.
SM: Does the MacArthur Fellowship weigh in here as you look ahead?
DC: Yes, definitely. I am evaluating my options and thinking about other interests calling for my attention, which the grant associated with this award will provide. Foreign language study has become a passionate endeavor. In addition to my own study, I have been a guest teacher in the advanced German classes at Concord High School. I have taught the students to make hand-bound books, which they used for writing in German, and doing something visual - painting, drawing, collage, photography. This year we are all going to write and illustrate children's books in German. Maybe I will translate my "turtle's journey" book into German. And, I imagine a return to the serious work in drawing and painting, not related particularly to observation of nature, which I broke away from when I entered into the long period of book contracts.
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