Why I Wrote American Wild

It’s Not What You Might Think

I know its possible to “back into” being an author because I did. Why I wrote American Wild had nothing to do with scholarly pursuits or money-making ventures. It had everything to do with being broke, broken, and lost. But enough about me. Let’s stick with the story.

Early in my thirties I moved from New England to Kentucky, quite by chance, not knowing a soul there previously. After spending the bulk of my twenties in the music industry, you can imagine my cultural shift in moving to rural farm country. To be quite honest, I’ve never been so bad at everything I put my hand to in my life. Beside never having a house of my own before (read: touring with band), I also didn’t know how to garden, farm, or re-light the pilot light when the gas stove went out.

The End of Everything

Within the first few months after moving the band stopped touring, I moved into my first trailer, most of my prior relationships disintegrated, and my car was more or less repossessed. Plus, I was in debt. Work came hard: putting up goat fencing in January, feeding the 200-some chickens the wrong food the wrong way, needing and using tools I had never even heard of before, and always being unsure of what tomorrow would bring.

Most of the women my age in that county were already married with several children and could boast of being great cooks. While I aspired to those accolades, I had as yet accomplished none of them. Did I mention my dyed-red hair was growing out and the majority of my closest neighbors were Amish? Yes. I lived a “fish-out-of-water” experience.

The Kindness of Strangers

The biggest problem was me and I don’t mean just in an existential sense. I mean, I had been pursuing business and the arts, often in the spotlight, and here I landed smack dab in the middle of hard-working, kind-hearted, quiet, country people. I hope I wasn’t a blundering idiot. Even if I was they were too gentle to tell me.

Then, an eighth-generation Kentucky woman brought a gift. She laid a little green book of local history on the kitchen counter. Casually, she mentioned she’d always thought someone should write the second story in that collection into a movie.

Focused

Do you know the camera shot in movies where the focus zooms in and pulls back at the same time? Well, that was that moment for me. Amidst all the arguments, failures, can’t-get-my-feet-under-me days I’d been having, writing a story into a screenplay was something I understood. I found an unused, sparkly-pink notebook in my disaster of a room and scribbled the original title inside the first page.

Whenever I visited our Amish neighbors or any locals in my travels to the feed store or auction, I’d ask what they knew about it. Often, they knew a little but not much, and usually the same parts of the story. They’d ask me why I was asking.

Wild blackberries were part of my original Kentucky experience and will always mean home to me.

They didn’t know how unsettled I was at that time. Or maybe they did. But in humility that I now know comes from their own personal losses they never let on. I am grateful for them in my life.

Why I Wrote American Wild

After a year or so of such question and answer periods, with me dashing home to scratch down the information gathered, I couldn’t let it go. It gave me indescribable purpose during an era when I felt so devalued. I appreciated my new landscape and its people, their wildness and their fruitfulness.

They’d taken me in, taught me their ways, welcomed me though I didn’t deserve it, and treated me with respect. All the while I was digging deeper into the historical battles, geography, and timelines of American Wild. The facts I learned astounded me. I couldn’t believe how cool these actual people were yet no one knew about them – their trials, tragedies, nor triumphs. We were tramping over the same soil they had, ignorant.

That’s why I wrote American Wild. As an honor to those who lived it and as a memorandum to those of us living still. We are creating history, just as they did, with or without knowing it. So, now you know.