The Interview: Trish O'Kane
Issue #28
September 13, 2024
Friends,
Trish O’Kane and I had a fabulous interview about Birding to Change the World, her book published by HarperCollins in March of this year. And…we forgot to record! When I admitted our oversight to a dear friend, she responded, “Two sisters doing the thing and forgetting to do the thing…makes me chuckle.”
My editor, Lauren Graeber, received an advance copy of Trish’s book. She recognized Trish's critical contribution to the canon of nature writing, particularly her focus on muscular citizenship.
Trish writes from a rare perch. As a social justice worker, she is skilled in the art of interviewing people. In Birding, Trish writes about her change of focus to environmental justice due to the cascading effects of Hurricane Katrina on her community. Her book is a memoir of a place. After Katrina, Trish and her husband moved to Madison, Wisconsin. There, she focused on Warner Park, a two hundred acre city park with a troubled wetland.
Trish is a senior lecturer in environmental justice at the University of Vermont, where avians are her teaching assistants. She is a former human rights journalist in Central America and the Deep South, and she has written for the New York Times and other major publications. HarperCollins will release Birding to Change the World in paperback in April 2025. You can find my original story on Trish’s work in Issue 25.
Trish was vibrant throughout our conversation, even though she had recently testified at the Rock Creek Park hearing (Read more in Issues 26 and 27), where the lives of over one thousand trees will be compromised this fall for the sake of a golf course renovation. Thank you to all who spoke up to Deb Haaland at the Department of the Interior. Sadly, the planning commission of the National Park Service voted almost unanimously to send the trees to the chipper. (More on this when our Rock Creek friends release their new plans.)
I was nervous, and stumbled during the second take, but it was important to me to capture our conversation. At one point, I was so focused on whether the technology was functional that I lost the stream of my thoughts and you will hear that. Despite my flaws, Lauren and I wanted to publish the second interview in its original form. I hope you will listen to the Voiceover at the top of this issue.
in kinship,
Katharine
Author’s Notes:
Trish recommends buying Birding to Change the World at your local independent book store, if you have one. Also bookshop.org.
A postscript from Trish: If you want a signed book, order it from Trish's favorite Vermonty bookstore Phoenix-Burlington and they will ship it.
The following is a list of authors we referenced in our interview:
William Cronon: Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, 1995, W.W. Norton
Bernd Heinrich, The Naturalist At Large, 2018, Mariner Books
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, 2013, Milkweed (Lauren has an advance copy of The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Kimmerer’s new book goes on sale on November 19, 2024.)
J. Drew Lanham, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, 2016, Milkweed Editions
50 States, 50 Stories, & 50 Women United for Climate Action, 2023, BroadleafBill McKibben, The End of Nature, 1989, Random House
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, 1999, Milkweed prayers not meant for heaven, 2021, Toad Hall editionsAnn Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape: A History of America’s Wetlands, 2012, Island Press
Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, 1991, Pantheon Books
Lauren Graeber can be found at: the previvor archives by
. She created the art resting on the sister books 🌱Additional Author’s Note:
In the future, Matters of Kinship may have a podcast component.( I’m still working out my relationship with technology.) In the meantime, here’s where the main interview points are located in the recording, which is up at the top of this issue. kbw
0.51. Trish O’Kane’s bio
1.55. Dedication to the wetlands and the rivers
3.38 Trish’s personal history with Hurricane Katrina
4.30. Recognizing water as a living entity
Decision to move to Madison, Wisconsin. How to interview a wetland?
“I swore I would learn to interview the water.”
New home in Madison was across the street from a city park with a wetland.
History of wetland destruction
8.20 “I want to learn how to live on the planet without destroying it.”
9.40 Warner Park: “…a cause we could take on.”
Chapter 9 is a case study of citizen advocacy for the geese in Warner Park.
11.03. Relationships that involved working outside together, attending city meetings, dividing tasks, and getting along despite differences.
17.25. The city’s plan included elements of GeesePeace’s model. Recognizing our role in creating the geese population problems.
23.20. How to reduce the geese population without killing them.
27.5. Geese formations in flight. What environmentalists can learn.
30.49. Trish’s writing coach and mentor is Robin Wall Kimmerer. The story!
We name drop some more: Bill McKibben, J. Drew Lanham,
36.44. Where to purchase Birding to Change the World and other authors mentioned. Paperback release 4/25. Another interview is in the works.
I’m giving it a like just because I’m excited to listen to it this weekend!!
Katharine, your thoughtful questions really sparked an informative and passionate conversation. It's obvious that Trish and you are devoted to teaching us how to better care for the wild places that lie right in the middle of our busy towns--and ideally looking for ways to let nature find its *own* solutions (like the eagles!). I'm looking forward to Part 2.