Between the Lines: Wilderness Women

by Zinta Aistars

for WMUK 102.1 FM
Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate




Between the Lines is my weekly radio show about books and writers with a Michigan connection. It airs every Tuesday at 7:50 a.m., 11:55 a.m., and 4:20 p.m. (or listen anytime online), on WMUK 102.1 FM, Southwest Michigan's NPR affiliate. I am the host of Between the Lines.

This week's guest: L.E. Kimball

A cabin in Michigan's Upper Peninsula

CREDIT ZINTA AISTARS

Place is yet another character in L.E. Kimball’s new book, Seasonal Roads (Wayne State University Press, 2016), a collection of connected stories about three women living in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The three — mother, daughter, grandmother —are connected by blood but also by the wilderness in which they live.

Kimball understands the power of place. When she’s not teaching at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, she lives off the grid with her son in a cabin on a trout stream. Some of her inspiration comes from her experiences there.

“I live in a more remote setting than a lot of Yoopers,” Kimball says, referring to the name used for those native to the U.P. who can be resistant to newcomers. “At first, we didn’t have a bathroom. I showered outside the cabin with one of those water bags hanging from a tree. We either had a Porta-Potty or we used the woods. So we added things as we went along.”

CREDIT WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The two-room cabin where the lives of these three women intersect is accessible only by seasonal roads. They are open only during the few short months when the U.P. isn’t buried under snow. Norna deals with the wilderness head-on: hunting, foraging, fending for herself, and defending herself whenever needed. Kimball says she's the most perplexing and unknowable character. Her daughter Aissa is fresh from a divorce, trying to heal wounds, while Jane finds herself up against a forest fire.

“When I first started writing this, I wanted to write about how inaccessible we are sometimes to the people we are closest to,” Kimball says. “And I wanted to write about a woman who lived off grid in the wilderness. I started writing it before I moved here myself.”

Other aspects Kimball enjoys exploring in her work are ...

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