Melissa Sevigny—Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon

BRAVE THE WILD RIVER:
THE UNTOLD STORY OF TWO WOMEN
WHO MAPPED THE BOTANY OF THE GRAND CANYON
Melissa L. Sevigny
W.W. Norton, May 23, 2023
Hardcover $30, ebook $14.99, audiobook $20.99
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9780393868234
Ebook ASIN: B0BHPRKW1Y
Audiobook ASIN: B0C2JKSTH8

Sevigny reports:

In 2018, I went to see an exhibit of Grand Canyon photographs at Northern Arizona University. There, on the wall, was a black-and-white photograph of the botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter on their 1938 journey down the Colorado River. I knew they had made the first-ever formal plant collection in the Grand Canyon, but not much else. Hardly anything had been written about them. I realized if I wanted to know more, I’d have to write the story myself.

Relying on their diaries and letters, I published Clover and Jotter’s story as a longform article in the Atavist Magazine in 2019, but I wasn’t done it with it yet. There was much more to say about botany, science, and the sexism they faced. I connected with an agent, Laurie Abkemeier, after she shared my article on Twitter, and we worked together to write a proposal for a book. Laurie sold the proposal to W.W. Norton in 2020.

I had intended to start my book research by visiting several university archives that housed material about the 1938 expedition, but the pandemic changed my plans. With the country shut down, I had to start working on the book with just the diaries and letters I had already copied. In a way, that worked out for the best, because my first draft centered the women’s voices. Later, I was able to access the archives and fill in the gaps.

I also interviewed descendants and former students of my characters, and I did something I never expected to do as part of book research: I rafted the Grand Canyon with a botany crew. I funded that trip by volunteering my time to dig up an invasive plant species.

Brave the Wild River is my third book, but different from the first two, Under Desert Skies and Mythical River, in the intensity of the experience. I wrote on weekends, during the isolation of the pandemic, with a kind of compulsion that showed up in my dreams at night. That’s my advice to aspiring writers: find the story that grabs you and doesn’t let go.

Contact info:

• Melissa Sevigny, 520-440-2926, melissa.l.sevigny@gmail.com, https://melissasevigny.com/, @MelissaSevigny
• Book: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393868234, https://melissasevigny.com/books/brave-the-wild-river/
• Publicist: Will Scarlett, wscarlett@wwnorton.com
• Agent: Laurie Abkemeier, laurie@defliterary.com

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Banner image adapted from original photo by Melissa Sevigny.

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