Trying Your Hand with Advocacy Writing, Part Three
Showcase Interviews Kim Steinhardt
We spoke to law professor and former Administrative Law Judge turned environmental author and marine wildlife photographer Kim Steinhardt on the last socalwriterssowcase.com. He delivers popular talks on and writes about ocean conservation and the often troubled relationship between nature and humans, most recently with his full-color photographically documented children’s book Sabby the Sea Otter: A Pup’s True Adventure and Triumph. Now we conclude the interview.
Showcase: We’ve spoken about being involved in advocacy work and how focusing on specific issues can be helpful to develop expertise, advancing your writing skills, and opening up unexpected opportunities.
Steinhardt: But at an even more fundamental level, I believe that writing “for change” touches a core of how we express our world through written words.
Showcase: How?
Steinhardt: Being a good observer and actually seeing the world is so basic to powerful writing. Yet sometimes it’s hard to get out of the way and actually see what is around us. To quiet all the chatter and preconceived notions. In his 1943 classic The Little Prince, author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” I think he had it right, and for me seeing some of the challenges we face as humans is the lens through which I observe that world.
In part, the impulse that drives me to write is to try to share what I see in a way that hopefully inspires passion that, in turn, will translate into action that makes the world a better place for all. It keeps me inspired at the same time.
Showcase: Isn’t action the point of advocacy writing?
Steinhardt: That is my underlying motivation, yet I recognize that it is through the creative arts this messaging is forged. Someone once described my work as “part art, part science, part law,” and I think it is an apt way of describing my particular blend. No single dimension does it all. Law (or public policy) and science, and non-fiction, happen to be my personal inclinations, but other writers might just as well find different ingredients as their lens.
Regardless of which lens, we have to remember that the advocacy-oriented writer shouldn’t lose the “part art” component. After all, as I mentioned in Part One, we write with passion and purpose – to intrigue, to enlighten, to entertain. And through it all, to persuade.
Showcase: So, appealing on multiple levels?
Steinhardt: Absolutely. In my own experience, observing the world and approaching it by trying to be true to its story has opened up the opportunity to speak with more than one voice. By this I mean I’m not wedded to one approach. I have written for adults of varying age groups, for children, for (self-selecting) environmental activists, businesspeople, and students of all ages. I have made it a point to give frequent talks and have adapted my voice and message for all types of live audiences. I also recognize that during my active legal career I was writing legal briefs and opinions for another audience with yet another voice – all still advocacy-oriented writing. So, I have been constantly stretching those muscles.
It was quite a thrill to switch to writing a book for children, and it was so much fun that I am working on a second that grew out of the first. A book for children is not just reaching to another audience with my ocean stewardship-oriented messaging. It is using another voice and making the translation, exercising a completely different set of analytical and writing muscles driven by the same impulse. I find it no coincidence that the quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry comes from a children’s book!