We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cassie Premo Steele a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cassie, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

The summer before I started kindergarten, I used to put my head into the bright, flowery plastic book bag (it was the 70s) my mom had bought for me because I wanted to inhale the scent of school.

I knew I wanted to be a writer. And I knew that school was what would get me there.

By the time I was six years old, I’d written (and illustrated) my first novel. On college-ruled paper. The thickly lined paper was for babies. I stapled it together myself.

I used to label my journals with things like “2nd out of 3 journals from 1978” so biographers would know if one had gone missing.

I was a weird kid.

I did become a writer.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an environmental poet, novelist, and essayist, and my writing focuses on the themes of trauma, healing, creativity, and mindfulness, and I teach classes on these themes online and in person. I’m really excited about the classes I’ll be teaching this spring and summer on dealing with eco-anxiety and healing from trauma through poetry.

My newest book is the environmental novel, Beaver Girl, chosen as the 2024 One Book, One Community selection for the City of Columbia, South Carolina. Past authors honored by the program include the novelists Pat Conroy, Lee Smith, Carla Damron, Min Jin Lee, and Leonard Pitts, Jr.

I have a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The author of 18 books, including 3 novels and 7 books of poetry, my poetry has won many awards and been nominated 8 times for the Pushcart Prize.

For the past six years, I have led seasonal Forest Wellness Journaling Workshops at Congaree National Park, and I am currently part of a team editing an anthology of art and writing to benefit the Friends of Congaree.

“Still Here” is my monthly column for The Post and Courier’s Free Times, which highlights the wild and rural places across the state of South Carolina, where I live with my wife.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I see my creative mission as a path of writing and teaching about trauma in ways that help all life on the planet to develop resilience.

The German word, Nachträglichkeit, means backwards-looking-ness – and too late.

We are living in an age of trauma.

We must resist the urge to blame or use anger at one another. These are convenient attempts to push away the pain. Sometimes, in certain circumstances, they can serve as teachers to strengthen us, create the boundaries that have been invaded, and give us the courage to stand up and use our voices.

But they have been for too long the only acceptable emotion in the public sphere, especially in times of stress and loss.

When we sit with the truth of the deep uncertainty in which we all live, have been living, and always will live as humans on this planet, and the deeper truth that the only certainty is death, then it is understandable that waves of emotions will come up and demand to be heard and welcomed.

Grief. The fear of loss of those we love. The memories of joys they gave us. Sorrow at all the ways we let them down. Guilt at the things we did to hurt them and ourselves. Regret at time we wasted.

Fear for our own lives. Terror at our lack of control. Desire to protect ourselves and those we love. Judgment against all of those we see doing something we think is wrong.

Each of us comes with a particular path – it changes as we grow and change and make new choices.

My path has always been to be a writer.

To sift through each grain, each letter of each word I write, and look at it gracefully, admiring the shape and smell and color before taking a bite. Let the flavor break on my teeth and burst into bloom on my tongue before swallowing.

And when I swallow, I smile, knowing that feeding myself in this way mindfully, writing for myself in this way deeply, is my path, is why I am here, and this is the lesson my body gives my mind currently, gratefully.

This is what years of trauma study, mindfulness, journaling, lovingkindness, self-care, and practical wisdom have taught me:

In this time of Nachträglichkeit, we still have time.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

In all I write and teach, feelings are the key to truth and wisdom.

Feelings are the conduit and communication, cresting and creating the path forward. Keeping us human.

The intimate exchange of feeling is when true learning occurs. This is why, as a teacher, I write when others write. We must be in it, intimately, together but apart. Sharing that sacred space of listening and feeling the feelings and writing them down.

This moment in time is a call for collective strength, and yet, we must each do this individually because each body that gets traumatized either recovers or continues to suffer until it dies.

Facing trauma and feeling our feelings are a true coming to terms with the meaning of being human and mortal.

I will be teaching a class about this in April called “Navigating Eco-Anxiety: Creating Calm in a Climate Collapsed World.” Visit https://consciousdyingcollective.com/navigating-eco-anxiety-creating-calm-in-a-climate-collapsed-world to learn more.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cassiepremosteele.com/
• Other: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/cassiepremosteele.bsky.social

  Substack: https://cassiepremosteele.substack.com/

  Insight Timer: https://insig.ht/xJSWhzxgA1b