Meet Southern Writer and Environmentalist Mallory McDuff
Positive Change and Pretty Sunsets
Daylight savings started in Australia this weekend. Summer is officially on the way. Last night I walked for an hour in Newcastle’s setting sun. (Sydney recorded it as the hottest October 1st ever on record.) I was walking home after concluding a five day local theatre show I’d been working on with several incredible people in the community. I thought about them and all the people I met and reconnected with in the American South, earlier this year in the sweltering summer heat.
When I travelled through the South in July, I interviewed more than 50 people! So many different stories have the potential to be set free. My trip was the beginning of something big within, and I hope I can find the creative time to truly pitch and write the stories I have. I feel there are more chapters.
In light of that, the setting sun, the approaching southern hemisphere summer, the heat and climate change, today’s Substack is dedicated to a person I respect and admire who has written several books and been published in places like The Washington Post, The Guardian, Outside Magazine, Wired and so many more. You can read more about her on her website.
Mallory McDuff teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College, my alma matter. Please look up this university if you get a chance, it’s not like most learning institutions, for several reasons including the fact that all students who attend are required to work on campus to help pay for their tuition. Students clean the dorms, they paint the walls of the building, they work in the cafeteria, and they grow vegetables in the garden. I’ve previously written about how much Warren Wilson also helped me understand the value of nature in a way I never did before. I ended up minoring in environmental studies when I attended. Sadly, I never took any of Mallory’s courses, but despite that, because campus was so small, I always knew who she was and thought she was cool. She drove me and van of other impassioned youth to one of many climate-change fighting conferences/protests I attended when I went there. When I wrote for the student newspaper The Echo, I interviewed her daughter for a brief and adorable series we did called “Kids on Campus.”
Now, nearly 15 years after graduating, I caught up with Mallory in the beautiful little house she rents on campus. I sucked writing advice off her like an eager college freshman. I was so grateful for her time. It rained all morning in Asheville, but by the time I got to the campus, the sun had come out, for us, clearly.
When I started my southern journey though the United States I had a list of the same questions to ask everyone I met, so of course I had to ask Mallory as well.
Mallory is an Alabamian, and even though she’s lived in North Carolina for 23 years, Alabama is sill home.
”Home is on the coast of Alabama in a small town called Fairhope. It’s on the Eastern shore of Mobile Bay.”
She now lives on campus with her two daughters, Maya and Annie Sky. Her house is a 900 square foot rental overlooking Night Pasture in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Mallory describes herself as “compassionate, energetic and delightfully middle aged” She’s developed strong roots here.
”The best thing about where I live is that I’ve been able to raise my two girls in a community where they are known and where they live feels like home. The worst thing about where I live is that I rent on campus, so this will probably not be the place where I’ll be able to live forever.”
Asheville is known for being a foodie’s paradise, and I asked her about her favorite place to eat.
”There are so many restaurants in Asheville that are so freaking expensive. The best place that I like to go that’s affordable is called Taco Billy in Black Mountain,” she said.
She also mentioned White Duck Taco Shop as a great affordable Mexican option with several locations in the region.
I asked her about a local controversy.
”I teach environmental education, so when I think about controversies, I tend to think about that realm. I think the controversy of our need to shift to renewable energy and the fossil fuel industry and government’s complicity in not getting on board with what most people want. Most people in the US are concerned and worried about the climate crises. This summer has been one of those examples, of cascading disasters from heat waves to draughts to floods. The controversy is, for me, not a specific one, but how do we as community members galvanize to put enough pressure for things change?”
Being in the mountains, Asheville is cooler than many places in the Southern United States. Mallory mentioned that Asheville has been identified as a refuge for wealthy people from California leaving because of the wildfires.
”It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out,” she said
Mallory reads a lot of news online, including the New York Times, but she finds they can be binary in their coverage of climate.
Mallory is surrounded by beauty where she lives. She needs only to step on her back porch to find spectacular views.
”The sunsets from here are very beautiful; I always post the sunsets on Instagram right over the valley,” she said.
I asked her what she wished the rest of the world knew about where she lives.
”I’m super invested in Warren Wilson’s future. I wish the world knew going to college at a place where you have to work is one of the best preparations for a life of work, and here at Warren Wilson, (this sounds like an ad, because it is) getting to see what my graduates and my students do when they take the hands-on experience of working from here with the close knit relationships they have with other students, professors and staff and put that to use in meaningful work and community, that’s what I live for.”
I type up Mallory’s interview hours before heading into the Australian wilderness with my partner, for a two day camping trip. He’s determined to get me away from reception and my phone, forcing me to live in the present, amongst the trees and wallabies.
I think about what Mallory said in regard to meaningful work and the community. I graduated long ago, and I live so far away from the Blue Ridge Mountains now, but my time working, living and playing with a small group of passionate individuals in the Swannanoa Valley influenced the way I see the land where I now reside and my current involvement with my local community.
I hope I can create a similar positive influence in the way Mallory has, while enjoying the sunsets along the way.
What a complete and total honor to sit down with a journalist and alum of WWC on my deck at the college. This is the benefit of a small school -- we connected during that climate protest and then stayed in touch via Facebook and emails. Such a delight to learn from you and talk with you! We are on this journey together! (And my older daughter in PC did connect with your brother too!)
Love the name Annie Sky! What an interesting person. It must have been wonderful to finally sit down with her 🙂