Why I Write About Place

Last March I went to the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point for a book launch. While there, I was able to talk to the press lab students. A question came up about how to write about a region or place. Even though I knew this question was coming, I didn't have the best answer. I broke into non-sequiturs that involve the speed at which people walk and how cold it is in Wisconsin. The professor then had to pull these jumbled thoughts together into a cohesive teaching moment for his students. Since then I have been thinking about place and what it means to write about it.

Something that has become apparent to me is place is not only a setting. If you incorporate place in a meaningful way to writing it becomes another character. What the environment does to characters and what they do in response to an environment are what makes it a place instead of setting. What I was trying to get at with my philosophical meandering last spring is that a rural place, especially a cold one, has residents who move and talk more slowly. Who is in a rush? The other end of town is right there! The wheat doesn't grow or die any faster if your run, whether it be your feet or your mouth. Conversely, when your bring many more people, with many more cultures, to a certain landscape, it will begin to take on a life and a character no one knew was possible (hello New Orleans).

Recently I realized how many people walk around with a place branded on their clothing. I am definitely one of those people. Roughly a quarter of my clothes have a national park on them. I also where my college's apparel (more often when they are winning). But take a look around next time you're in a public place with lots of people. You'll see Paris, Giordano's Pizza, or Disneyworld. These say "I was in a place and part of its culture, if only for a meal." I was briefly (or not) part of this mindset and engaged in the sanctioned behaviors. I said the words, made the hand gestures. I was of this place, and because of that, I now belong to a group of people. We share this place's identity.

We could make a philosophical leap that in joining the group from the place, it becomes our shared identity. Maybe it doesn't go as deep as, say, ethnic origin. But place, even for a long weekend, changes your identity. From what I have learned as a mental health therapist, there is only one way for change to happen: through dialogue. Dialogue isn't always a verbal conversation. It doesn't even have to be between two people. It can be within two parts of ourselves. Or, in this case, between us and a place. That's really why I write about it. It is always in conversation with us. It asks questions we respond to. It tells us things we argue with. From that conversation comes a new version of us. And if enough of those conversations go a certain way, the identity of the place itself changes. It may not be the main character, but it is the character that is always constant yet always changing. To me, that always makes it the most interesting character in a work.