Josephine Woolington wasn’t quite prepared to write a book when, in early 2021, she took a class on how to do nonfiction book proposals through Literary Arts, a nonprofit based in Portland, where Woolington lives.
“My teacher, Liz Rush, had a contact with Ooligan (who said) that they were looking for nonfiction manuscripts for fall 2022, and she recommended my project,” Woolington said. “I wasn’t expecting to write it this soon.”
Nevertheless, the 32-year-old journalist and musician is the proud author of “Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest,” published in November by Ooligan Press, a student-run publishing house at Portland State University.
The book features essays in which she takes a deep dive into the natural and cultural histories of 10 Pacific Northwest plants and animals. Woolington will give a presentation on the book at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Roundabout Books, 900 NW Mount Washington Drive, in Bend.
The idea to write about Northwest species was triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Woolington has a background in nonfiction writing. After earning a 2013 journalism degree from University of Oregon, she worked at the Eugene Register-Guard until July 2015.
After that, Woolington moved back to her hometown of Portland to pursue music as a singer-songwriter.
“I was writing my own music and performing, playing with other people in Portland. I did a couple of tours, and then the pandemic hit and changed everything. I felt called to get back into writing, so that’s how my career has unfolded,” said Woolington, who continues to give voice and piano lessons.
Stuck at home in the early days of the pandemic, “My partner and I would be sitting out in our backyard, and notice a bird, and we’re like, ‘Oh, wow.’ We’d have no idea what this bird is. It was just a bird. We started becoming more interested in actually identifying who these species are around us. So it started with birds and neighborhood trees.”
That led Woolington to begin reading books on Northwest history, geology and natural history.
“I was realizing, stuck at home, how little I knew about my home, even though I’m from here, and take pride in being from here,” she said.
She began to take an interest in certain species, such as the Western bumblebee. “I’d never heard of this particular bumblebee, and it turns out that their population has declined about 90% in the last 20 years,” Woolington said.
“Once I started learning the names of native plants and animals, I felt a greater connection to them, a deeper sense of place, and it inspired me to learn about their long histories in these landscapes and the reciprocal relationships that people formed with them for millennia.”
For the book, she sought species — a mammal, a bird, a plant, a flower, a tree — based on their ability to highlight larger issues they, and Northwesterners, are facing. The bumblebee, for example, highlights development and pesticide use.
She wanted to include creatures representing the diverse bioregions of the Northwest, including the sandhill crane of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the Olympic marmot in the Olympic Mountains, and moss in the Hoh Rain Forest.
“I would love it if readers simply noticed native plants and animals around them — big and small — and learned their names. In my introduction, I write that I hope readers will, for example, notice a camas patch off the side of the road and think of who took care of the prairies before they were plowed,” Woolington said. “I hope that maybe they’ll notice huckleberries and think of all the lives the fruits have nourished since before anyone can remember.”
— David Jasper, djasper@bendbulletin.com