GRCC professor talks about new novel, “Land Marks”

Grand Rapids Community College professor Maryann Lesert says she writes about people and the places they love, with the landscape as central as her strong women characters. 

That’s the case with her newest, “Land Marks,” about several eco-minded students, a few seasoned activists, and some wildly creative locals coming together to save Michigan’s forests from being devastated by fracking as leaders refuse to act on climate change.

They are up against North American Energy (NorA), which connects a corridor of fracking well sites deep in the state forests. When NorA expands in unexpected directions and an awful, bigger plan becomes clear, the action begins. 

The novel, published by She Writes Press, has been described as suspenseful, poignant, and galvanizing.

Kirkus Reviews called it “an impassioned story of anti-fracking activism,” and Publishers Weekly “a polemical outing is both an elegy for ecosystems already lost and a call to action.” 

Her first novel, “Base Ten” (Feminist Press, 2009) featured an astrophysicist’s quest for self, aided by Lake Michigan’s forested dunes. “Land Marks” grew from two years of on-site research on fracking.  

Before she took up novels, Lesert wrote plays, including three that are full-length, five one-acts, and collaborations with a memoirist and a local symphony.  

Rapid Growth connected with Lesert for a Q & A about her new book and career journey. 

Rapid Growth: Your writing career encompasses various genres, including playwriting and journalism. How have these different forms of storytelling influenced your journey into novel writing?


Maryann Lesert: The type of energy that each genre requires has influenced what I write, and why. Playwriting, for instance, is a collaborative, energetic form of writing, and this makes sense because a play is a compilation of scenes, of interaction. Playwrights tend to interact with others during the writing process. Actors read scripts so a playwright can hear and revise dialogue. When a play is produced, directors and stage managers add another layer of collaboration. Finally, having a play produced offers the energy of an audience. 

Journalism, too, has a lot of outward energy. Most of my articles have focused on local and regional activism related to fracking and tar sands pipelines. Writing to increase public awareness relies on interviews and site visits and a lot of research, which can make the writing feel urgent. During the years of 2012-2014, my “boots-on-well-sites” research phase, I visited frack well sites around the state, and what I saw compelled me to write about the dangers of fracking. 

But I also wanted to write the deeper, sensory story: what fracking smelled like, sounded like, felt like, and how it affected the places and the people who experienced it.

To write with a more poetic sense of place, I needed to slow down and immerse myself in a larger story. That’s when I knew I needed to write a novel. Only by creating characters who were deeply connected to their places could I honor the rivers, lakes, and forests in a more poetic and interconnected way.  

RG: You have nearly two decades of experience as an English professor at GRCC. What initially attracted you to teaching, and in what ways has this role enriched your own writing practice?

ML: I love the work of being a writer, partly because with every new project, I get to turn my attention toward new characters, new places, and new learning. The act of learning and being inspired by research has always been important to me, and teaching writing helps me to express that passion. When teaching research-based writing, I can draw on my own research methods, and when students understand that research can be exciting, they get excited about what they learn. I’ve taught writing courses at GRCC for 17 years, and it’s still inspiring to watch students get drawn into totally new areas of knowledge.

When I’m teaching creative writing, I get to share my love for the craft of writing – for immersing yourself in a narrator, for creating a strong sense of place, for developing a level of description and imagery that becomes poetic – and watching students develop their own love of craft inspires me to keep challenging myself. Sometimes students surprise me with a new approach or insight or a new level of creative play, and that kind of artistic drive feeds us all.
 
RG: Can you delve into the inspiration behind the storyline of your novel "Land Marks" and provide an overview of its central themes?
 
ML: In the 2010s, when fracking was quietly spreading throughout Michigan’s state forests, a remarkable thing happened. Individuals and groups from across the state gathered over a period of two to three years at a southwest Michigan environmental center. People brought whatever gifts or skills they had to offer to what we called the “common ground” table. Storytellers, water well drillers, doctors, Indigenous community members, musicians, students, teachers, lawyers, and ban petitioners shared their research, their pictures, and their stories. And it was fun to work together.

We didn’t talk about our voting records. We talked about our love of place, about our duty to protect water, and the public’s right to be involved in how we treated public land. I wrote “Land Marks” to honor the creativity and the solidarity that flourished during those years.

Like one of my characters says, “We’re coming together, not becoming each other.”
The power we have when we stand together against wrongs is one central theme. Another theme is the power of place: how place affects us and we affect place. How we interact with the more-than-human world affects our human communities and health, too.
 
RG: In your novel that addresses a real issue, how do you balance factual elements with fictional narrative?

ML: In “Land Marks,” the balance came when I decided to organize the novel in two parts.

Part 1, “Showing Up,” follows the characters through a learning curve. They visit frack well sites across the state, experiencing the industrial might of drilling and fracking, and they befriend the people who are living with fracking. They participate in public meetings and stand up in protest at oil and gas leasing auctions where bidders bid on the right to extract oil, gas, water, and minerals from public lands. “Showing Up” is largely based on real-life experiences and the places in Michigan where fracking has occurred.

In “Showdown,” Part 2, I was able to fictionally do what many activists dreamed about during those years of anti-fracking protests. “Imagine what we could do if we all came together,” was a common refrain. With this novel, I was able to enact that hope. “Showdown” is the story of a very large, effective direct action. When the industry attempts a “superfrack,” (a dangerous process of fracking two shale layers simultaneously) the characters gather in an action camp and train to try and stop it.
 
RG: What key messages or insights do you hope readers will take away from your novel?

ML: I hope readers feel the joy and the power of solidarity, resisting the story that we are too divided to act on issues as critical as climate change and social and environmental justice.
 
Culture is a story, and environmental and social justice movements often highlight the saying: “Culture changes at the speed of narrative.” The arts, then, have a critical role in changing culture. We need stories that show us our potential for change.
 
The definition of an activist is important, too. In “Land Marks,” everyday people with a wide range of lived experiences band together and inspire each other to stand up and say “No more!” when their places are endangered. These characters aren’t superhuman. They weren’t born to be activists. Instead, the events taking place around them inspire them to stand up, even when they aren’t sure what, exactly, to do.
 
I hope “Land Marks” inspires readers to feel the power of place and our people power, too.