Conversation with Patrick Wensink

We might call this book an "environmental memoir." Tell me about weaving together the threads of your personal life and Lake Erie's environmental catastrophe.

"Environmental Memoir" is a great name for it. The Great Black Swamp is primarily about an ecological disaster on Lake Erie that poisoned the entire city of Toledo's drinking water in 2014. I was originally aiming to just write a straight-ahead nonfiction book about that catastrophe. But, then, I discovered that my family was partially responsible for the environmental disaster, and simultaneously my marriage fell apart. That's when my story became relevant, so the book became a three ring circus of a story: one part about the 2014 toxic algae scare, another about how Northwest Ohio used to be one of the most terrifying swamps on the planet and how its deforestation led directly to the toxic algae, and then a third about my own attraction to toxic relationships. I discovered that the more I wrote about all three, the more they had in common.  

Thanks! I'm glad you found the book funny! Since I spent over 250 pages discussing unsexy things like toxic algae, corn farming, ditches, and the history of Northwest Ohio, I wanted to harness my inner Mary Poppins and deliver a huge spoonful of sugar with this medicine. I was in an improv comedy troupe for nearly a decade and teach a lot of humor writing classes, so the blend of serious and funny was a natural voice for my work. That's my hope with all the fun language, and poking fun of myself a lot, and finding quirky stories within this world (like how in 1973, the city of Toledo basically threatened to kill John Denver if he ever showed his face in town). Essentially, I want the world to care about this story as much as I do, and I'm not above taking a pie in the face if that means folks will listen. 

Yes! It absolutely is a love letter to this part of the world, and it's a part of the world that is sorely overlooked by just about everyone. Even some folks who live there. Northwest Ohio isn't really a tourist destination, and we don't really have any celebrities born here, and we don't really appear in the news much (Except for when our lakes turn bright green with deadly algae!). 

What I hope people realize is that every place is interesting when you start to look close enough. I was raised to believe Northwest Ohio was not interesting and not special, and that couldn't be further from the truth. The more I started digging, the more obsessed I grew. This place was home to a swamp that was considered by many to be the unhealthiest place in America for a time due to ridiculous malaria rates, and bears, and wolves, and snakes, and tree cover that blocked out nearly all the sunlight. Beyond that, it was home to an inventor who talked to imaginary friends and eventually helped drain the land that would become Disney World, and how John Dillenger supposedly hid a lot of his loot in a farmhouse out here, and dozens of other stories. It's made me a firm believer that every place has a history, and that history is probably fascinating if you look long enough. 

So, I hope folks walk away with a new interest in Northwest Ohio, but also in their own homes. 

Tons of research. It took over five years to research and write the The Great Black Swamp. I used everything from historical documents, to books, photographs, documentaries, newspaper articles, and hours of boots-on-the-ground reporting. My favorite bit of research, which appears briefly in the book, was the Great Black Swamp board game I found in a university archive. It looked like a cross between "Life" and "RISK", but had oddball spaces like "Musquitoes A Plenty! Go Back 2 Spaces!". Sadly, nobody at the library would play it with me. However, weird discoveries like that are the best part of research. I love when I uncover a physical item or learn of a story that surprises me. When those moments happen I feel like a guy on a beach with a metal detector who found a buried chest of treasure.

Laypeople are exactly the ones I'm hoping to reach. The Great Black Swamp is a scientific book for people who might not know or remember much about science. I admit pretty early in the story that I'm a creative writing professor who is a real dummy about science. The last time I even thought about biology was when I got a C+ in the science class my college forced me to take back in 1998. But I have a lot of curiosity and I start teaching myself about hard science as the story progresses. So, all the things I don't know become an advantage because the reader gets to learn in real time as I learn about science, ecology, and environmentalism. That means anyone, no matter their connection to science, can embrace the story and walk away with a much richer understanding.