We recently connected with Ilyssa And Dave Kyu and have shared our conversation below.

Ilyssa and Dave, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

When we first started dreaming up ‘Campfire Stories’, Dave and I had steady full-time careers in our fields. We felt like we did all the things we were supposed to—go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house—but felt unfulfilled… perhaps because we hadn’t taken any big risks.

Wondering if we should do a cross-country move, the risk of starting over in a new place with no connections to the community felt daunting and like we would be starting over right at the peak of our professional lives. At the same time, we were falling in love with camping and the outdoors when this idea for the project emerged, so we decided to explore this, and channel our creative energy and desire for something new towards creating a book.

Dave’s immediate suggestion was “Let’s quit our jobs, sell our house, buy a van, and live nowhere and everywhere!” As the resident dreamer in this relationship, not only was I surprised this was coming from Dave but by my own reaction… which was “That is not a good idea.” The risk felt too high—walking away from the momentum of our professional careers, selling our only major investment, quitting our only source of income—and the possibility we would be able to see this project through. Together we decided instead of moving across the country or living out of a van, the project could take us to the wild and wonderful places we wanted to share stories from. Dave did end up quitting his job (he didn’t have an option), and I took a leave of absence—traveling the country for 6 months, packing everything we needed in our car—camping along the way.

And, the calculated risks paid off! Publishing is not a lucrative or sustainable source of income on its own (unless you’re already a celebrity or best-selling author), so we maintained our careers while working on Campfire Stories: Vol I and Campfire Stories: Vol II—as well as two storytelling card decks. They became best-selling titles for our publisher and are sold in stores across the country, including REI and LL Bean. This initial investment of time, energy and risk paid off—allowing us to travel across the country, now with our daughters, for book talks, and continuing to grow our brand. This year, we will publish 6 new books focused on beloved places, which I was able to devote a year developing, thanks to our first two volumes.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Dave and I are co-editors of ‘Campfire Stories: Tales from America’s National Parks & Trails,’ as well as our new series focused on beloved regions, ‘Campfire Stories — Tales & Travel Companion.’ They are anthologies of place-based stories from a diverse set of writers who share a deep appreciation of the natural world in each region. To create these anthologies, we talk to dozens of locals and people from local organizations to gain a deep understanding of place—and develop a set of themes and aspects we want the stories in the book to capture about the natural world in each region. Using what we learn about each place, we set out to local libraries, archives, and book stores to find stories that capture these themes—or reach out to local writers to create a new piece for the books.

What sets our books apart from other collections is our attention to authenticity and dedication to telling a complete story. Not only are the stories compelling and speak to different aspects of each place—so there’s a little something in there for everyone—the themes and writing come directly from the people in these places. in a wide range of mediums…. from prose, to poetry, to songs and ballads. We specifically seek to provide diverse perspectives, and when we can’t find different voices represented—we create that opportunity. We specifically invite and commission stories from BIPOC and LGBTQ+ writers, and have offered travel scholarships to make national parks more accessible for writers we’ve asked to write a piece.

Dave and I do not come from a literary background, and have zero experience in publishing previously—but I think that’s what helps our collections feel accessible and relatable to a lot of folks. In many ways, we are our own target audience for our series. Dave Kyu is a socially engaged artist and writer born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the United States. He explores the creative tensions of identity, community, and public space in his work—which has found him commissioning skywriting planes to write messages 10,000 feet above Philadelphia and doing everything Facebook told him to do for a month. He has managed public arts projects for the City of Philadelphia, Mural Arts, and Asian Arts Initiative—where he currently serves as the interim Executive Director. Professionally, I (Ilyssa) am design researcher and have a degree in industrial design. I’ve worked at boutique and global design studios, and my work helps inform the design of various products, services and experiences for a range of clients from social impact nonprofits to global corporations. I also am the founder of Amble, a sabbatical program for creative professionals to take time away with purpose in support of nature conservancies—which has been on an indefinite hiatus since the pandemic.

What we’ve found to be true through this whole project, is that if you have enough heart and passion about something, and you’re able or willing to put in the work to share your ideas—you will eventually find good people out in the world who believe in your ideas too, and want to see you succeed. Our project quite literally wouldn’t exist without the goodness of other people, including introducing us to our current publisher. And, our publishers taking a huge risk in signing on with us (previously unpublished non-writers) but believing in our idea and supporting us in making it a reality.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The arts can be transformative, offering us important insight and perspective in what it means to be alive.
To choose a life of making art is an act of believing in yourself, by making huge investments in time, taking a great financial risk, and and emotional risk as you try to present your vision to an audience.

One way society can support artists to lessen these risks is to create a standard pay scale to support the work of emerging artists. Artists in the US are compensated at wildly different rates, and anytime there is a ambiguity, it is often the institution that takes advantage. Artists who set their own high rate may find themselves unable to secure work, but if you don’t set a rate, you might find yourself working for “exposure” or more work in the future.

Here, I look to the work of the artist collective Working Artists and the Greater Economy (WAGE) to set a compensation scale for institutions working with artists, or I look to the scale set by the Canadian government that provides clear expectations for Canadian artists on the value they should be receiving for their work.

I believe a wage scale for artists would help artists navigate the economics of their practice, and would raise the implicit value of creative work for the society at large, which would both contribute to a thriving creative ecosystem.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Campfire Stories is an anthology that tells the story of place. We felt in order to write the first book, we needed to experience each of the places we were collecting stories about. We also just wanted the excuse to go on an epic road trip. We charted a path through the six national parks in the first collection, that would take us from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to Utah to California to Wyoming and back.

But one month into that road trip, in Nashville, we found out that we were pregnant. We were scared, and unsure of how this would affect our travels. On our trip, we would be in the deserts of Utah, and the mountain peaks of Colorado… was it safe to be pregnant on the road?

We decided to continue our trip for the time being, and scheduled our first doctor’s appointment in Denver. We explained to the doctor what we would be doing through the first trimester, and wondered if we needed to cancel our trip and our book in order to prioritize the baby’s health. This doctor, while not dismissive, gave us some real talk. People have babies all over the world, in deserts, in mountains, in all types of conditions. We were going to be uncomfortable, but we weren’t putting the baby in any danger.

So the trip was on. We ended up staying a few more nights in hotels rather than campsites then we had planned. We bought smoothies whenever we saw them, because it meant a few more fresh fruits over the typical sandwich or chili menu that show up on a road trip menu. We figured out where we would be for all the major milestone visits of the first trimester, and registered as new patients in each of the closest hospitals. But we pulled off the trip, stowaway in tow, and were able to write the first anthology that launched the entire Campfire Stories brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://campfirestoriesbook.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/campfirestoriesbook/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilyssa-kyu/

Image Credits

Max Grudzinski