Nina Schuyler on Personifying a River in Craft and Creative Voice

Nina Schuyler, a climate fiction author, grew up near bodies of water in Washington State. Summers were spent at Gravelly Lake, a glacier-carved lake with deep, blue waters that felt like a second home. The lake was surrounded by Douglas fir trees and hidden homes. Schuyler also spent time at Puget Sound, playing house with small crabs, building rock homes for them, and finding oysters for their father to prepare.

During law school, Schuyler's favorite class was water law, and she was captivated by the idea of granting personhood to natural entities like rivers, mountains, forests, sea turtles, valleys, and even sea turtles. This concept led her to explore the Rights of Nature movement and the notion of confounding the words "river" and "person" to create a unique, thought-provoking narrative.

In Open the Floodgates, the story opens with a character, the River, arriving at a small-town courthouse for a trial to determine its rights. The novel's title stems from a song that Schuyler's husband played while she was writing. The haunting song, "Open the Floodgates" by Thom Yorke, inspired the title and set the tone for the entire story.

Schuyler envisioned the River as a character with a voice, consciousness, and physical presence, challenging traditional characterizations by moving rhythmically across the page, mirroring the river's natural flow.