Photo by John Sinal

‘Storytelling is the Secret Sauce’ according to heralded Writer in Resident John Vaillant

By Jelissa Julmist

John Vaillant is a literary force, a master storyteller whose works have captivated readers around the globe. Vaillant served as Writer in Residence April 30-May 2 at the main campus and presented at the Port Townsend campus as well. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for narrative, Vaillant delves deep into human experience, exploring themes of survival, resilience, and the intricate connections between humanity and the natural world. Through his meticulously researched non-fiction and gripping fiction, Vaillant transports readers to the farthest reaches of the earth, from the remote wilderness of the Russian Far East to the untamed landscapes of British Columbia’s coastal rainforests. With each page, he weaves together a tapestry of history, culture, and environmentalism, inviting readers to confront the complexities of our modern world. While climate change accelerates, John Vaillant, sheds light on the forces behind the headlines and the profound impact of it all.

Vaillant’s journey into the realm of storytelling began in the historic city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was raised amidst a community where “the currency of the realm… was words and the ability to use them.” It was here, in the nurturing embrace of educators who fueled his insatiable curiosity, that Vaillant’s passion for storytelling first took root.
“I feel really lucky to have gone there, I remember all my teachers I learned something from all of them,” he reflects, underscoring the pivotal role of education in shaping his literary sensibilities.

Yet, it was not until later in life, after a stint in commercial fishing in the rugged waters of Alaska, and working with learning-disabled children, that Vaillant found his calling as a writer.
“The empathy and experience of previous jobs allowed me to connect with others who went through a tragedy… you learn to be more sensitive to people who are different than you, you are not so stuck in your own bubble,” he explains, highlighting the formative influence of his diverse life experiences on his storytelling craft.

With a keen sense of empathy honed through diverse life experiences, Vaillant embarked on a literary odyssey, penning tales that traverse the vast expanse of human emotion and experience.
“(Environmental storytelling) is the secret sauce of communication, I can wave all kinds of stats in your face, or I can introduce you to a relatable character like Shandra Linder.” Vaillant uses relatable characters like Shandra Linder a woman who had made casual plans for a regular Tuesday afternoon, like dropping off her dry cleaning, when her life changed in an instant after she came around the bend on Highway 63 and saw a wall of fire. Vaillant’s continued use of pertinent characters allows the reader to be transported into an intense story like “Fire Weather”, displaying Vaillant’s ability to inform his audience without narrating the story himself.

Within a three days of his Writer in Residency, “Fire Weather, Stories from a Hotter World” was named as a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. On Tuesday May 7, Vaillant’s “Fire Weather received the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen award for Political Writing in Canada.

  Vaillant’s narratives serve as windows into worlds both familiar and alien, inviting readers to confront the complexities of our modern existence. When writing his only novel, “The Jaguars Children”, a story about genetically modified corn and ancient tradition intertwined with the heavy and intense immigration issues, author Vaillant lived in Oaxaca Mexico for a year with his family from 2009-2010. Neighboring an indigenous family, Vaillant had many amazing opportunities to see places that most tourists don’t get the chance to experience, like visiting an old cathedral in a rural part of the state. While being in awe of so many honored native traditions and establishments, Vaillant also noticed the effects of American corporate companies, “I often saw American companies coming in with different kinds of seeds and basically trying to corporatize this ancient way of life, I saw tension there and it was kind of a metaphor for where we are in the world right now, the tension between honoring and deserving and valuing natural systems and this love affair we have with technology,” Creating strong tension between maintaining a healthy connection to the land and the exploitive and capitalistic impulse to take away from it without giving anything in return.

  Central to Vaillant’s storytelling ethos is the belief that narratives have the power to transcend the barriers of intellect and ideology, fostering connections that transcend geographic and cultural divides.
“I want my stories to be accessible to someone who doesn’t necessarily have the same education that I have, someone who wants to know, basically, it is creating a more inclusive space, you don’t have to have a science degree you just have to be literate,” he observes, emphasizing the transformative potential of storytelling as a vehicle for social change and inclusivity, essentially creating “books for the people.”

Through his meticulously researched works, such as “The Jaguars Children” and “Fire Weather,” Vaillant shines a light on the urgent environmental challenges facing our planet, urging readers to confront uncomfortable truths with courage and compassion. “This book has a PSA (Public Service Announcement), folks this is happening… it’s not an abstraction anymore,” he asserts, highlighting the urgent need to address pressing environmental issues through the power of storytelling.

Yet, for Vaillant, storytelling is not merely a vehicle for conveying information—it is an act of communion, a shared journey into the heart of the human experience. “Don’t make it too obvious that you are conveying a message,” he advises, emphasizing the importance of trusting readers to draw their own conclusions.

Vaillant has had and continues to have a remarkably successful writing career, winning many notable awards and even being featured in The New York Times with his National Book Award Finalist book, “Fire Weather”. “(The most meaningful award) … was being in the top ten for the New York Times in 2023 for both fiction and non-fiction, to have “Fire Weather” be essentially top 5 that’s really huge.”  Vaillant has won multiple awards for “Fire Weather”, another being “The Baillie Gifford Prize that I won in the UK that I also won for “Fire Weather”, that’s a global prize, every book, every nonfiction book published in the English language anywhere in the world and I won it, so I’m really proud of that.” This award is very highly honored and Vaillant taking home the prize truly displays his literary merit and ability.

When asked what professional advice he would give to aspiring writers passionate about environmental storytelling, Vaillant stated, “Write about things that you genuinely care about; you are trying to write from excitement, from energy and if you write well that energy will transfer to the writing on the page, what you’re trying to do is convey the excitement that you feel about the subject to the reader through their eyes and their mind.”  highlighting how much trust he puts into the reader and their capabilities to produce their own conclusions and takeaways.

In the hands of a master storyteller like John Vaillant, the art of environmental storytelling becomes a transformative experience, illuminating the beauty and fragility of our world with unparalleled clarity and grace. In many ways Vaillant challenges the reader to look into one’s self, giving his audience a bit of a literary reality check, “It is very easy for us with our intellect, with all the apparatus of our civilization to consider ourselves separate from nature and that is a dangerous fallacy,” in a way, Vaillant tells the same story with every book, they’re all about the importance of the land and how we as people have taken advantage of its resources without feeling the need to give back. Vaillant noted, “One way to think about petroleum is that it’s like oxycontin, oxycontin has a valid use as a pain killer, it can really help people not suffer, petroleum has a valid use but the way we’re using it, were abusing it and now we’re addicted to it,” throughout all of Vaillant’s books, he is shown warning the reader of the nearby future if a change is not made in the ways we use natural resources, we will become like the people he has written about, caught in the middle of these unfortunate circumstances.