We'll talk with author Elizabeth Gilbert about her new book, which takes her back to her
fiction roots and back in history.
The thought being was the only science that was open to women because it was about plants
and flowers.
Plus planting a food forest and securing seeds for the future.
I'm Susan Barnett and this is 51% the women's perspective.
I don't usually feature fiction writers on this show.
There is so much news and so much to learn that there just doesn't seem to be the time.
But once in a while, I read a book that is so good I just have to tell you about it.
The signature of all things is Elizabeth Gilbert's first work of fiction since Eat, Pray,
Love, Catapult, and Her to Global Fame.
It's the story of Alma Whitaker, an educated wealthy woman whose love of the science of
botany leads her to discoveries of revolutionary scientific importance.
Alma is a great character and the signature of all things is a ripping good read.
I know it's not what people expect of me but it's where I got my start and that's something
that people don't know and I also don't expect them to know and it was the only thing
I ever wanted to be and deal with my life.
And then, you know, if anybody has 10 bucks for a copy of Eat, Pray, Love knows, my
life fell apart and I used my writing over the subsequent 10 years or so to, you know,
not to explore literary invention but to did myself out of the hole that I had gotten
into and kind of write my ship again and to mix metaphors.
And once that was done, I just wanted to return to where I came from, you know, and I also
felt this sense of tremendous liberation after committed the finish.
The hardest thing I ever had to do was write the book that came after Eat, Pray, Love.
And once that was done and everybody had gotten out of their system, whatever they needed
to get out of their system, about me, I just felt kind of invisible in the best way.
I felt like nobody was expecting any sort of me never again and that I could do whatever
I wanted and that's what I did.
It was such a two way.
I've never had more fun writing anything than I have already.
When you say committed was so hard to write because of the expectations of you?
Yeah.
And I mean, it's a very difficult position to find yourself in.
I mean, first of all, let me just clarify right up front that that problem is, I think,
that's a very definition of a champagne problem.
I know what I mean.
Like what's not confused that with an actual human problem?
You know, I think what should be very clear.
But within the framework of calling it a champagne problem, the puzzle, I think of it more
as a puzzle than a problem was.
It's difficult to begin a project knowing that whatever you do, you're inevitably going
to disappoint a whole bunch of people.
You know, because there's no way that I could have written a book after he'd pray love
that affected people or read that book.
It was a once in a lifetime thing and I knew I couldn't repeat that.
So I had to launch into several years long book projects knowing ahead of time that the
result would be that people would be disappointed in it.
And that's difficult, but I felt that it was important to do it.
Otherwise, I would never write another book.
And that wouldn't be a tragedy for the world, but it would certainly have been a tragedy
for me because I loved my work.
And so once that hurdle was over, then I just felt like I'd paid all my debts.
You know, the biggest homework assignment of my life was finished.
I didn't owe anybody anything, nobody owed me anything.
There were no expectations in any direction.
And then I could just be the most free I have ever felt as a writer.
And I also have really fallen in love with my readers.
I've gotten good to know them more intimately because of the prayed love because the relationship
they had with that book was so intimate.
And my feeling and my desire with this book is that I want to invite them to come on this
journey as well because I wrote the book for readers.
And I wrote it as a book that I hope to would delight and transport people.
And that said, I don't feel any pressure on my readers or me with this.
You know, if they want to come along on this journey, they are so welcome and so invited.
And if they don't want to, they don't have to because they've done so much, they'll
already, including providing me with a life where I could do something like take three
years and study nothing but the technical history.
You know, that's not something I would have been able to do at any other time of my life.
But you'd pray love a lot that's happened.
So I'm grateful for that.
I mean, the whole thing just feels like zero stakes to me to be perfectly honest.
All right.
And I'm interested about who came first?
Alma or botany?
Botany.
Botany came first.
And I knew that I wanted to put a woman into a botanical setting.
I had just started gardening and had gotten very passionate about gardening.
And I knew that whatever I was going to do next was going to have to involve plants.
They are interested in.
And once I started looking into the history of botany, I discovered that that little magic
window between the end of the age of enlightenment and the beginning of the industrial revolution
was the most fascinating moment in botanical history.
There's one of action adventures going on there around plants.
And so you know, I wanted to base the book in that time.
And I knew I wanted to be about a woman.
And so I started to do research on actual female botanical researchers and explorers from
that period.
And well, Alma is not based on anybody in particular, you know, choosing forms by their lives.
And I tried, as far as I could, to make sure that the research is historically plausible.
They found people who did some work.
So that's where she came from.
Well, she is a wonderful, wonderful character.
And by the end of the book, I felt as though I had gone through her life with her and I knew
this woman.
And she was a very likable woman.
But she was not an ordinary woman of her time.
Was that true of the botanist that you studied?
Yes and no.
I mean, the reality is, I'll be honest, if you want to initially start writing a book,
and then I'll be able to tell you a story that was about a woman who had a towering intellect
and fantastic ideas, but the world wouldn't listen to her because she was a woman.
But once I started looking into the history of female botanical explorers and researchers,
I found out that it would have been a real discredit to their memories to tell that story,
because some of them were really pretty well regarded.
And we were able to publish and we listened to.
There was a woman here in a German engine, she's very treat, who was a correspondent of
Darwin for years.
And you read the letters between them and they are every inch of letters between two equal
peers.
Like there's no patronizing from him.
You write to her when you need information that only she can find.
And you ask her a opinion about things.
And I realized that because botanism was the only science that was open to women, because
it was about plants and flowers, which were considered to be a woman's realm in a certain
extension.
So it was a science that women were able to kind of sneak into from their back garden.
And so, while Alma was certainly, you know, magnetically educated, you know, there were
examples of women who had that kind of education as well.
So she was unusual, but she was not impossible.
How much travel and study did you have to do to make this book accurate?
I think the proper verbies get to do not have to do.
I got to do a lot of research and a lot of study.
I spent about three and a half years working on this book.
And very, you know, constantly.
That's all I did.
That was a nice full-time job.
Before I started even writing it, that was just the research.
So I read hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of books, not just about thought in exploration,
and missionaries, and 19th century pornography, and all those things that show up in there,
but also I read hundreds of pages of the letters and diaries, because that's really where
you sort of dip the sound of people's voices, most clearly, which helped me come into the
characters' minds.
And then I went to French Polynesia for several weeks to make sure that the Tahitian part
of the book was taken care of.
Oh, you poor woman.
I know.
It was horrible.
I mean, that is why I suffered.
And I went to London to actually what it was really fun, because I took my mother with
me to London.
My mom's an amazing garden.
We went to Cucu Gardens and they had the mechanical librarians there, let me into that.
They were fast, I missed it her very own.
I got to study so it's just that banks are letters and Darwin's notes, and all of that
was very exciting.
And then Amsterdam to the Hortus Botanical Garden there.
So quite a bit.
And again, that's another thing that I have you pretty much a thankful.
Did this story get mapped out on paper or in your head or do you discover what happens
to your characters as you're writing?
Some little aspects of it I discovered to my surprise if I was writing, but I don't know
how other people do it, but there's no way I could have told a story of that scope if
I didn't have it mapped out.
So I had written a 70 page outline of the novel before I even began.
And I needed, just for my own context, before I started, I needed to make sure that I knew
exactly what was going to happen.
So there were some changes along the way as I went, but it was all my like.
It was very well.
She and I have more than one similarity.
It was very, very well planned before it began.
Are you already thinking about your next one or are you taking a mental break?
I take a break in that I'm not starting to work on it yet, but I am definitely thinking
about it every day.
And I do want to write another novel because it's such a good time.
I've come to be so fond of her.
And there's really no way anybody can convince me that she wasn't real because she seems
so real to me after having spent this many years with her.
And I like the idea of bringing her story out into the world and saying, you guys need
to know about this amazing person even though she was.
Thank you very much, Mrs. In My Imagination.
And hopefully we'll catch the imagination of readers as well.
Elizabeth Gilbert has been a pleasure to talk with you and Bravo.
That was a really, really good read.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of the signature of all things.
Up next, alternatives to industrial agriculture, turning urban parks into intricate food systems.
If you missed part of this show or want to share it, visit the 51% Archives at WAMC.org.
This week's show is number 1264.
Across the country, communities are creating alternatives to the model of industrial agriculture
and finding ways to both care for the earth and grow healthy food.
One of these solutions is called a food forest, a sustainable method of growing edible plants
and trees.
One of the nation's largest is Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, Washington, where the urban
food movement is transforming Parkland one acre at a time.
Martha Baskin has the story.
Standing in Seattle's inner city neighborhood is called Jacku Kramer, a few hundred and
hundred years from the ground and the South-East, the Bollinger's, bringing food for us to
live.
We're standing right now in the night and fruit gild and these are not trees.
We're looking at the base.
Here is a clover nitrogen fixer.
You can use those red blooms for a tea that's high in iron.
A cluster of plum and walnut trees show what's in store for seven acres of deforested Parkland,
trees, ground covers and fruit-bearing shrubs are planted in proximity so they can work
together as families or guilds to create beneficial relationships.
And when we look out at the food forest now, it's a bunch of young saplings.
But as it grows, we'll see those trees getting bigger and more shade being cast.
What's being nurtured is a model of permaculture that combines the best of edible landscaping
with the natural environment.
The goal is to create an ecosystem that can sustain itself and at the same time nourish
the bellies and spirits of the local community.
After years of meetings between the city of Seattle and those committed to expand the
locally grown urban food supply, groundwork is in high gear.
At a Saturday work party, a hundred volunteers show up, eager to turn Jefferson Park's
dry grassland into something it may have never been, a living ecosystem of food and trees.
The rural barrel after wheelbarrow of wood chips and cardboard are spread over the urban
food growers, common enemy, grass, raised beds are framed meticulously in urbanite or reused
concrete for both family plots and community plots.
We're going to use every bit of space we can for edible or medicinal or herbal or crafting
guilds.
Glenn Hurley-He is another gardener behind this inner city transformation.
We will have a certain number of 10 by 10 family plots that are for the family to raise
food for their table.
But where we're stretching the bounds is we're creating a food forest that's basically
a public gleaning area.
There's not many of those out there that really advertise that idea.
Fruit and nut trees, blackberries and goomy berries, the medium sized shrubs from Asia, gaining
popularity and Western gardeners for their medicinal and sweet taste, will be free to harvest,
as Hurley-He.
People will be trusted to harvest ethically, he explains, and only take what they need.
That's kind of what we're promoting and that's kind of what we're challenging humanity
with.
While he works a patch of strawberries ripen in the sun and pumpkins transition from
green to modeled orange on a bed already terraced, lavender and sunflowers, beckon pollinators.
As more volunteers arrive, the drummers maintain a steady beat.
Deputy Mayor Daryl Smith drops by for a tour and chat.
If the food forest goes according to plan, he says it will be a new model, not just for
Seattle, but for the country.
Where you can take public property and put it to good use in an area that really needs
to have sustainable food.
The Beacon Food Forest is a partnership with the Department of Neighborhood's Pee Patch
program who lease the land from Seattle Public Utilities, owners of Jefferson Park's
Western Facing Grassland.
So if this helps us in the south end, more folks have access to healthy food and also
demonstrates a new way of gardening, that's fantastic.
While the food forest takes root, another urban farmer, Christina Olson, wanted to see
more immediate results.
With support from the Beacon Garden Club and Rocket Community Arts, she came up with
a demonstration garden she calls Beacon, a hill of beans, a seasonal project to introduce
the wide world of beans to the neighborhood.
Cross the other side of the park from the food forest, pass the ball fields, and you'll
see what looks like an edible apparition.
Olson calls it bean hinge.
It's actually more like a bean tepee, but we like the name Bean Hinge better.
Scarlet Runner Beans, Italian Fire Tongue, Calypso and other varieties climb trellises attached
to a bike spoke, balanced horizontally on top of a metal pole.
The opening of Bean Hinge is aligned to the setting sun.
Olson convinced the community center, local teens, merchants along the avenue, and the
neighborhood's well-known El Centro de la Raza, or Center for the People to Join the
Project, for a culturally diverse neighborhood adds Olson, growing beans in their infinite
variety seemed perfect.
While food forest gardeners push wheelbarrows of woodchips to cover grass, these gardeners
pull buckets of water down Beacon Avenue every day to make sure the beans thrive.
Volunteer Betty Jean Williamson checks beans growing on a metal fence at drying an auto
repair, agate, soy beans and tiger's eye.
Now they're just getting tall enough to start reaching the fence to vine up, so we have
to try and train them over as they get enough length to get a hold.
As the bean vines continue to spread, the Beacon Food Forest gardeners are preparing
for the fall planting, learning how to propagate more plants from existing ones, and how to
develop their own genetic seed bank.
The biggest success story says hurly he who feels calls about the food forest from all over
the world will be to create enough food for everybody.
If we really want to put our action where our words are and say we want to create a local
food source that actually can actually supply a large amount of food, this has potential.
This has a lot of potential just because the land is ready to grow.
Two acres are under cultivation to date with five more waiting for the community's energy,
vision and spirit.
Martha Baskin, FSRN Seattle.
Wasted food is costing the world $750 billion each year that's according to a report released
by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the FAO, Dianne Penn has this report from UN
Radio.
The study finds that the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted annually, which represents
one-third of food produced globally, is also harming natural resources.
Jose Graciano da Silva is FAO Director General.
The implication of this massive food waste for food security and sustainability is huge.
If we reduce food loss and waste, we have more food available without the need to produce
more and put less pressure on natural resources.
The UN Agency says with 870 million people going hungry every day, governments, farmers,
the food industry and consumers must reduce and prevent food wastage.
A companion toolkit to the report contains recommendations for all stages of the food chain,
including improvements in harvesting techniques, transportation and consumption habits.
Dianne Penn, United Nations.
An genetically modified wheat was found growing in Oregon earlier this year.
It didn't take long for accusations to start flying.
No one knew how the unapproved wheat ended up in the ground.
A flurry of finger pointing cast potential blame on a federal seed vault in Colorado, which
housed the same strain of wheat.
The facility since been cleared of wrongdoing.
But that led harvest public media's Luke Runyon to wonder, just how secure is a seed vault.
I'm standing here in front of the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation,
which is just a fancy way of saying seed vault.
It's a pretty nondescript building.
It's beige with a red roof, three stories tall.
But it's the nation's largest collection of seeds, genetic material for livestock and
microbes.
So let's go inside and see what's going on.
Inside the facility, good luck getting past the lobby without a key card and pass code.
Locked doors are around every corner.
Luckily, I have a tour guide.
My name's Dave Deereg.
I'm the researcher leader here at NCGRP.
That's the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Deereg is in charge of the seed vault.
And one of the six people inside who has access to the main vaults, where seeds and animal
embryos are kept.
So these are the doors to the vault.
We're about to head into the facility's black box storage room.
Think of it like a series of safety deposit boxes in a bank.
Other seed vaults throughout the world send their backup collections here.
So does some private companies like DuPont and Monsanto?
The room is kept at the same temperature as your home freezer, fur-lined harcass hang
on a rack just outside large gray metal doors.
Is it chilly inside?
Yeah, it is.
You may want to put on a jacket, but it actually feels kind of good now that it's for summertime.
To the right of the door, a TV screen shows a live stream of the seed vault.
It serves as another reminder of the building's security.
In this place, you're always on camera.
And a deep breath.
We won't stay in here too long, but...
Inside, sealing high shelves hold seemingly endless rows of white pouches.
In this room, there are 600,000 seed packets, which puts the total number of seeds in the
billions.
Some are here purely for storage, but researchers can also request seeds for studies.
And then they're all barcoded, so we know exactly where everything is.
That's another security measure.
Looking at a seed pouch, there's nothing that tells you what kind of seeds you're holding,
but to barcode, you need access to a secure database to find out what's inside.
Downstairs behind another series of heavy metal doors, and under the watchful eye of security
cameras, are long rows of stainless steel capsules.
They're filled with liquid nitrogen to store seeds, livestock, semen, and fish eggs.
We have anything from fish to cattle to sheep.
We even do some cattle blood.
It pretty much says what we do so that we can put it in our big database, and it's accessible
and we know where it is.
Lab technician Angela Sosa is transferring Chinook salmon eggs from one container to another,
placing them back into the liquid nitrogen.
She's another of the handful of people with access to this room.
The facility has been compared to Fort Knox in its level of security, but earlier this
summer, that formidable reputation was thrown into question.
For seven years, the same vault kept about 1,500 pounds of Monsanto's genetically modified
wheat seeds, including the same strain found growing in small patches in Oregon.
It would really be a rare case where we would keep another company's seed.
There'd have to be some kind of extenuating circumstances for them to say, we need you
to keep this seed.
It's a rare occasion, but as in the Monsanto case, it does happen.
Research leader Dave Dereg says he can't comment on the specifics of the Oregon case, as
Department of Agriculture investigators are still trying to pin down the seed source.
A department spokesman says all of Monsanto's wheat seeds held at the vault were incinerated
two years ago at the request of the company.
With the investigation turning in other directions, this beige building in Colorado can return
to business as usual, securely storing the world's seeds.
Luke Runyon, Harvest Public Media.
That's our show for this week.
Thanks to Katie Britton for Production Assistance, our theme music is by Kevin Bartlett.
This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio.
Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Shartock.
If you'd like to hear this show again or visit the 51% Archives, go to our website at
www.amc.org.
If you'd like to connect with us on Facebook, you can find 51%.
You can find 51% there and you can also email me at esparnette.wamc.org.
Thanks so much for joining us.
We'll be back next week with another edition of 51% The Women's Perspective.
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