Nina Schuyler is the author of the new story collection In This Ravishing World. Her other books include the novel Afterword. She lives in Northern California.
Q: Over how long a period did you write the stories in your new collection?
A: That’s a very hard question. I wrote In This Ravishing World during the pandemic, when time sloshed around. We never knew what day it was. We’d look outside and see it was light, so it was day, but what day, exactly? Even after we figured it out, we forgot it because one day was like the next, and for weeks on end, we stayed in our house.
With nothing to differentiate one moment from the next, I began to write this collection because I was tired of the people I lived with—i.e., my family. I began to spend the shapeless days with nine different characters who had unique points of view about the climate crisis. My life, stripped of everything, as everyone’s was, felt peopled again.
Out of the blue, the voice of Nature arrived and joined the chorus of my collection. I was happy, the happiest I’d been in days.
Q: The writer Lucille Lang Day said of the book, “In This Ravishing World is a magnificent story of hope and despair, love and fear, and the ongoing quest for personal and planetary survival. Both scientifically accurate and emotionally compelling, this book is necessary, timely, and wise.” What do you think of that description?
A: I’m incredibly honored and humbled that Lucy read my book and blessed it with these words. She’s a magnificent writer.
Her work focuses on the environment and combines science and stunning language. It’s a tricky combination, inviting such different kinds of language into the same space: facts and numbers, which are often cold and stark, rubbing shoulders with the lush and sensate. This is something I tried to do. That Lucy calls the collection “magnificent” sends tingles up my spine.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I love the word “ravish” because this verb means two opposite things: 1) to seize and take away by violence and 2) to fill with delight and enrapture. A writer friend told me a word with two opposite meanings is called a contronym.
“Ravish” encapsulates our complicated relationship with the planet: we see it as a resource, drilling, cutting, chopping, and destroying ecosystems. And we are ravished with wonder and awe at nature’s endless beauty.
In this collection, characters embody both aspects of “ravish.” Some swoon at a pink tulip or the sweep of blue sky; others take what they want from it without thinking they might be disturbing or destroying it. That’s who humans are—at least right now.
The double meaning offers a dilemma and therefore a choice. What aspect of this word do we want to render in the world?
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: At the basic level, I hope readers are entertained by the stories and the ideas. In this collection, I’ve anthropomorphized nature, letting it speak, feel, dream, and imagine.
I took to heart Ursula K. Le Guin’s comment made at a conference (I’m paraphrasing): Let’s give subjectivity a try because look where objectivity has gotten us.
What she means is that anything nonhuman has been turned into an object. It’s a lot easier to destroy an object than it is a being who is alive. I hope that hearing Nature’s voice lifts the shade of a window and allows the reader to see the world in a different way.
I populated the collection with many different types of characters (they are always people to me).
I hope that Eleanor, who is struck by grief for the planet and yet finds a way to keep going, gives the reader hope.
I hope the children who see the future they want and are willing to work for it give the reader hope.
I hope the ballet dancers who try to embody a rat and a cat provoke the reader to consider that nonhuman beings are far more intelligent than we’ve previously understood.
I hope Hugh, who wants to escape the calamity, engenders understanding and empathy and shows the problem's complexity.
There are other characters, too, who grapple with the threat of climate upheaval.
The judge for the Prism Prize for Climate Literature who chose In This Ravishing World as the winner said, “Riveted, I could barely put it down for the three days it took to read the compelling stories of a diverse cast of characters: there is someone in these pages for every reader to relate to.”
I hope the reader finds that to be true and that the full-throated chorus moves the reader to marvel at the exquisite beauty of our world and find a way to help write the as-yet-unwritten future.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a new novel and helping my middle school son take those tentative steps toward adulthood.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Thank you so much. I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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