Cynthia Barnett: Humanity, Science and Sea Shells

We were honored to have Cynthia Barnett, award-winning author of The Sound of the Sea, join us virtually as we discussed the book together this past fall. We did not know what to expect from our first Outfall Book Club, but not only was it a wonderful discussion of the book, Cynthia shared some life wisdom with us all.

Her paperback is now available. To help celebrate, we are also giving away one FREE copy of her book, which you can enter to win here.

Transcript

Amy Anderson:
Welcome to The Outfall where we share the back stories about our water world. This is Amy. This time last year we invited you to join us reading the book by environmental author Cynthia Barnett, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans. Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning author and journalist who has written extensively on water for many different aspects. The Sound of the Sea is her latest book and was named one of the best science books of the year by NPR Science Friday and received many other accolades. We at The Outfall were honored to have Cynthia join us virtually as we discussed the book together this past fall. The Sound of the Sea is being released as a paperback today. And to help celebrate, we are bringing you some highlights from our book discussion. While this book is ostensibly about shells and the ocean, we learned that it is actually so much more. We did not know what to expect of our first Outfall Book Club, but not only was it a wonderful discussion of the book, but Cynthia shared some life wisdom with us all. Enjoy.

Something that I first wanted to ask you as you talk about sea shells being ambassadors, and on the surface it’s a book about sea shells but the more you read, the more you realize there are a lot of themes in the book. It’s about our history as humans. It’s about conservation. It’s about what we see the future. But I think what stuck out to me a lot is what seashells say about us as humans. And the question of looking at the left-handed shells versus right-handed shells and what we as humans say is right, is normal. Could you talk to us about what you feel seashells say about us or to us as stretching throughout time, influencing our ideas of what is right?

Cynthia Barnett:
Yeah. I love the way you asked me that question and no one has asked the question like that before. I loved how you picked up on that rightness. The right handedness to which she refers is all about this seashell. It’s called a Lightning Whelk. It’s a really beautiful shell. It’s a shell I always loved from my childhood. I grew up in Florida and I found so many of these when I was a kid and I actually didn’t know what they were called. I thought it was a Conk, but this is a Lightning Whelk. And the really unusual thing about it is that it opens on the left hand side. So this part of the shell is called the aperture, the part we hold up to our ear. They almost always open on the right, but this one opens on the left. In other words, the creature spirals the shell to the left as it’s under construction.

The scientific word has the name sinister in it because that’s associated with a sinistral spiral, a left handed spiral. And that comes from the word sinister. So, humanity sort of, many cultures, but more Western cultures, saw left handedness as something sinister or not right. So that is kind of a technical way of thinking about this. But the larger question is how we have lived in the world and treated each other. So it’s a big question to answer, but I will say that seashells just reflect humanity, the good and the bad. So they reflect the scientific wonder, they reflect incredible innovation in some of the science you get to by the end, whether it’s about a commercial development of pain relievers from cone snails, or the giant clams that I wrote about that may be inspiring some kind of algal bio energy.

They’ve also reflected humanity at its worst. And the interesting thing about that to me is that when shells symbolized us as at our worst, it often had to do with greed. So a couple of times shells have served as money, really longer than any other global money. Cowries served as a means of exchange for more than a thousand years all around the world. And they were used to purchase as many as a third of the enslaved people in Africa forced to the Americas. There are several different stories like that in the book. One involved wampum.
And so it seems to me that shells just reflect humanity itself. Like when we are good, we are very good and wondrous and innovative and take care of each other. But there are also these other times in history that we need to understand and face up to. And that was part of what this book was about. You know, that’s maybe the overwhelming part and the part that took me six years and the reason why you haven’t all quite finished the book yet. Because I did set out to write about seashells and the animals that make them. And what I realized is that I needed to write more about humanity.

So Megan said, I think it’s very interesting that an encounter at a museum inspired your latest book. What inspired your previous book, specifically the one about rain? And I have a good answer to this. So as Robert knows, my first two books were a little wonkier. They were more like policy and the pipelines. And I would get invited by the water engineers of South Carolina to give a speech or the AWRA or whatever it was. And I really knew after those two books that I was preaching to the choir. I love coming and giving a talk, but truly everyone in the audience already knew what I had learned because I learned it from people like you. So I really wanted to try to do something different with the next book. I have this audience I think of in my mind, this audience called the caring middle.

If I could speak to this larger audience, I could make more of a difference than if I am only preaching to the choir. And so for the third book, I set out very intentionally to write something more lyrical. And in my mind, I kept saying poetry over pipelines, poetry over pipelines. And I’m still a believer in poetry over pipelines, at least when it comes to telling the story of water. And so rain became the poetry because I loved rain. Like seashells, I loved rain ever since my childhood. Another thing about growing up in Florida, I just always loved rain. When I was a kid, when there would be these doldrum summer afternoons, where it’s just so hot and the sound of the cicadas gets louder and louder and louder, and it’s boring. And when there’s a rainstorm that lights up the sky and just turns the world so dramatic, that really made my childhood afternoons more exciting.

And so that’s what made me decide to build a book around rain and that worked. That book was more successful than the other two put together. And then this book too. Every book has gotten a bit broader of an audience. And that, I think, is a result of sticking to that mantra of poetry over pipelines. Not that pipelines can’t be interesting, because they can be, but I’m just saying that it’s good to blend the humanist side and the science side together. I think that’s the sweet spot. If it’s maybe not too much science and policy and not all human stories, but a really nice combination of the two is the sweet spot that I think can draw in audiences pretty nicely.

Amy Anderson:
Is there anyone else that has a question? Yes.

Speaker 3:
Hi. So you mentioned with your writing that you didn’t want to write just for people who already knew everything, but for the average person as well. So my question is how would you go further and relate that to people who don’t really read much in general, don’t really think much about science in general? How would you connect sort of the natural world to them in a way that can really get them invigorated into the science?

Cynthia Barnett:
So that’s a great question. And I think that’s the question of our time. When you look at both COVID and climate change and the science denial that is rampant in the society and the fear of science and the lack of trust of scientists and so on. I mean, for one thing, water, and I will say weather as well, which is something I learned from the rain book, water and weather are very good ways to connect with audiences about science and climate change. Even if they are not interested in the natural world, water impacts everyone, which you all know, their lives are dependent on it. And weather is especially of great interest. And I also come from a very conservative Southern Florida family of farmers, where they aren’t people who, if you met them, you would think they cared about the environment. But they really would love to have a conversation about the weather or about water.

And they know a lot about water because of farming. So I have always been able to connect with them on these issues. And I think that’s part of what’s helped me do so as a writer. So I think water, weather, sea shells were also that for me. You don’t have to be an environmentalist to care about sea shells. So those are the ways in that I have found. And the bigger issue, I think, for me and for you all in your field is trust. There is a great lack of trust in the culture and in all different kinds of audiences. And I think the way people like us can help repair some of that lost trust is to think increasingly about meeting people in person. Like with me, I do a lot, I mean, not so much during COVID, but now I’m going back out there and doing a lot of events.
I love going to rural areas. I speak at a lot of rotary clubs. I speak at churches, sometimes be in a pulpit and be speaking about water in a church. And when I first started doing that, I found it very intimidating. I thought I might be struck by lightning. But it really is a nice way to meet people and connect with people. And I would encourage all of you to connect with communities of faith as you go out and work on your engineering. Because these are communities who love to have speakers. They care about their community. Sometimes they’re not asked to help with things. And when they are asked, they really appreciate the ability to get involved. I know, Robert, sometimes I’ve thought if they could only have left the Florida Georgia water wars up to like the ministers or the soccer coaches or the kindergarten teachers, we might have gotten somewhere by now.

Amy Anderson:
Okay. Any other questions?

Kelly:
Hi, my name is Kelly and I was just wanting to say thank you for speaking and saying to meet people where they are, especially as scientists, because we sometimes forget how to talk to people as ordinary people. We like to use our vernacular and our hard to understand lingo. But I really appreciated your book and breaking it down on how to relate to the history of humankind and all of the things that we need to be thinking about where we came from, why we came from this and why we see the effects of it today. So thank you for that. And I just wanted to ask, are you working on a new book? Are you going to be doing more ocean or going back to your fresh water?

Cynthia Barnett:
That’s a good question. And I don’t have an answer. I’m not working on a new book and I feel a little guilty saying that. And I wish I didn’t feel that guilt. I think one thing COVID has taught us is that it’s not healthy to be so overworked constantly. And this might be, I hate to say that it’s especially true for women, but it has among the women professionals in my life, our generation grew up with this fallacy that you could be wonder woman. If you just worked hard enough, you could have kids, you could be a professional, you could publish four books, you could do it all, man. You could do it all. And when I look back over the past 15 years or so, when I look at the things that I dropped the ball on, like I was supposed to take My daughter to Kindergarten Roundup and I missed kindergarten Roundup because I was working on some book chapter.
I regret that I didn’t go to Kindergarten Roundup. And I would never even remember what book chapter I was working on at the time. So if I could answer that question in a really personal way, I would say I’m not working on another book right now. My daughter is in the middle of applying to colleges. I’m working really hard, I’m trying to promote this book. And I feel like it’s her last year at home and I really want to be there for her. And so I’m going to try to not feel guilty about that answer, even though I’m like, oh God, what am I going to do for an encore? What’s next?

Kelly:
Thank you. You basically wrote a PhD thesis in that sixth year. So I think you deserve a vacation, but it seems like [inaudible] Nichols might want to send you to Antarctica to study ice.

Speaker 5:
As I was digging around Cynthia, I found your resume actually. And I saw that there was a line item that you had an upcoming book called Oracles of the Sea. And I was like, oh wow, an upcoming book. And then I realized, oh, that must have been one of the envisioned titles for the book. But I like that thought, Oracles of the Sea. So this is a two part question. One, maybe give us a little bit of behind the scenes, like how does the title of a book get written and who all has a say in that. But also this word oracles. I find that one pretty fascinating. So if you could answer both of those, we’ll call it good.

Cynthia Barnett:
Sure. Oracles of the Sea was my working title for most of the six years. And I thought it was fine. My husband thought it was a bit over the top. It’s also nice to be able, I have a spouse who’s also a writer, so it’s very nice to be able to ask him to read things and talk to him about things like book titles. So I really liked that title, but there comes a point when you’ve turned the book in and everybody at the press is thinking about the title and you’re like constantly asking your friends and your family and these long lists of book titles are going around. And The Sound of the Sea was just one title on this long list of titles that we were thinking of. And my eye kept going back to that.

And it was especially the subtitle, when we put those two together, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, that just really seemed to ring. It had a nice ring to it. Everyone seemed to love it, both in my family and our family also sits around the dinner table talking about things like book titles. We did that for months and months and months. And we had some really cheesy book titles.

Like my son thought I should name it Shell, Yeah. And we would just laugh and laugh and laugh. So yeah, this is a stressful, it’s a stressful field. I’ll tell you a negative thing is that I’m not thrilled with the cover of the book. I don’t really like the cover. I don’t love the queen conk on the cover. And I don’t love the Bahamian blue water. It’s not what I had in my mind’s eye. And so that’s hard. I had three book covers that I loved and I was really proud of. And this one I’m not thrilled with. And the author doesn’t get to make the final decision on either the title or the book cover. So that’s a little bit of insider gossip.

Amy Anderson:
Thanks again to Cynthia Barnett for sharing her time with us. And to Dr. Ladner and Clemson University for hosting us. If you have not read The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, I encourage you to pick up a copy. We are also giving away a free copy, which you can enter to win on our website. If you would like to join our next book club, stay tuned. We will be announcing the new book next month. Thanks again for listening to The Outfall. As always, we love to hear your comments. So if you enjoy our podcast, please help us subscribe in your favorite podcast player. And better yet, share it with a friend. We’ll see you next time.