The Public Environmentalist: A Conversation with John Lane Best of the Kudzu Telegraph, released in September by the Hub City Writers Project, gathers 48 of John Lane’s weekly columns for the Spartanburg Journal. His readers will recognize their favorite stories and themes and will surely be surprised by some of the “oddballs,” such as “Old Maps Tell Stories,” “The Battle for Sugar Tit,” and “Venison Tacos.” In the columns gathered in the book, Lane talks about land use, sustainability, and urban planning. He also covers pawpaws, dead deer, and parting with his beloved old pick-up truck. Folks familiar with his books, such as the recent Circling Home, will recognize Lane’s bold honesty regarding all things local, as well as his deep and abiding love of Lawson’s Fork.

The book contains four dozen of the most enduring of Lane's columns, yet when Lane and I spoke last week about the Kudzu Telegraph, the conversation quickly went to its origins, nearly ten years ago, as an electronic newsletter.  A newsletter that was, as Lane said, "as much a conscious ‘activist' activity as it was a writing project." 

Jeremy Jones:  How has KT evolved since the first e-letter?

John Lane: The Kudzu Telegraph started in a deep desire to change the perceptions of my neighbors. In 1999 very few in the upcountry had ever heard the voice of a "public environmentalist" before, and I believed there was plenty of room for such a voice on this Southern conservation frontier. The local op-ed voices in the papers were, and still are, mostly hyperconservative, but I sensed there was a minority view in the region that was not being expressed by all the mainstream media outlets.

I set out to express my editorial view, an environmental view. That view believes there are other deciding factors in conservation and land-use issues besides worrying about whether the "upstate" is a "pro-business environment" or not.

As I saw it, by 1999 150 years of "pro-business environment" had some victories to point toward, but it also had also contributed to blocking land-use planning, air quality issues, erosion, water quality problems, blighted mill villages, "sprawl," low wages, and deep rural poverty.

I wanted to reflect about what scientists had to say about these issues centering around land-use and conservation. I wanted to report what social scientists, planners and sociologists and the like considered the best way forward might be for a community. These groups have a viewpoint that is even mainstream in other communities, but not here, not in 1999. Back then mine was considered a "radical" voice.

Jeremy Jones:  You've described the early Kudzu Telegraph as a "sort of early blog."

John Lane:  That early "blog" only lasted about a year, but in that year things got kinda hot. I made a bunch of "public" people mad, both with what I said about land-use and environment, and what I gave others space to say.

I see now that the original KT was ahead of its time. I'd somehow sensed the power of blogs through luck or intuition, a power we are really feeling in this presidential election. I'd created a successful early blog distributed by email rather than available on a website.

When an issue of the KT went out I'd get comments from people in California and Texas. The thing had a distribution list of 300 email addresses, but I'd guess it was being forwarded 10 times further. As they say though, I couldn't take the heat, so I got out of the kitchen and closed down the KT after particularly edgy "10 ten stories of the year" issue went out at the end of ‘99. I just didn't want so many people mad at me, so I stopped. In 2005 I revived the Kudzu Telegraph name, but I was much more interested in writing this time around. I think I've stayed true to that vision-- these columns are "writing" as much as they are "activism," or maybe they are a mix of the two that the upcountry's finally ready for. 

Jeremy Jones:  What responsibilities do you have as a columnist?

John Lane:  As a columnist I have a responsibility to listen to all the voices of the people who are reading me, even people with contrary opinions. Some email me, and some see me on the street. Some call, and one reader feels a need to take me on tours of places he disagrees with me about. I learn from them all. I try and listen to everyone, and then I try to stay true to my own convictions.

Jeremy Jones: Do you approach a column differently than, say, a chapter in a book like Circling Home?  Do you "pitch" your voice differently?  Is the "goal" or "objective" different?

John Lane: Writing a column is more like writing a poem. It's almost sonnet-like in its intensity. I have 700 words. I need to get in and get out in a hurry. I need to think about what's "up front" and how I want to end it. I need to be concrete.

A chapter of a book-length narrative is an entirely different creature. It's part of something that is created over a long time. For me a KT column is something written in a single 2 hour sitting on a Monday morning before most of my readers have had their first cup of coffee.

Jeremy Jones:  Which column (in the book) garnered the most positive feedback from readers when it ran?  Negative feedback?

John Lane:  People love reading about where my wife Betsy and I are traveling, and they loved it when I wrote about paw-paws and the cows loose in our subdivision. Those two are in the collection.

Anytime I mention Al Gore I get hate mail.