Best-selling Author Linda Greenlaw Discusses Her New Book 'Seaworthy: A Swordboat Captain Returns to the Sea'

Sat, 10/21/2006 - 2:48pm

When: June 18, 2010 at the Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Linda Greenlaw, America's only female swordfish boat captain, whose life was featured in the book and film 'The Perfect Storm,' will discuss her new book, 'SEAWORTHY: A Swordboat Captain Returns to the Sea.' She has written three New York Times bestselling nonfiction books about her life as a commercial fisherman, and has also written a cookbook and two mysteries. This new book marks her return to non-fiction and aptly chronicles her return to one of the world's most dangerous professions: swordfishing. This event will also include a booksigning and books will be on sale, courtesy of Border's.

Transcript

• [00:00:25.45] TIM GRIMES: Good evening everybody and welcome to the Ann Arbor District Library. My name is Tim Grimes I'm the manager of the community relations and marketing department here at the library, and I'm in charge of library events. And on behalf of all of us, thank you for coming out here tonight. I know construction is kind of in front of the building, so we appreciate the adventures that you had in coming through the front door. So thank you very much.
• [00:00:49.17] Today's an interesting day. Not only is this a nice event this evening, but it's also the beginning of our summer reading program which we have every year. This year's read is going to be just wonderful. It has kind of do-it-yourself theme. It's called Make it Happen. And you can register at any of the desks. There's actually a game for teens, youth, and adults. And you can win fabulous prizes for just reading five books over the summer.
• [00:01:15.54] We have events all throughout the summer. I mentioned it's a do-it-yourself theme. There are lectures, crafts, concerts. There's a concert with recycled instruments. We even have a stop-motion animation program, teaching you how to do that. So lots of different things happening on the summer. Please sign up and also check out all of our events at aadl.org. So we hope that you do that.
• [00:01:38.42] And I mentioned tonight's event is really a special event. I think it's very special. I grew up in New Hampshire, and I haven't been back in 30 years, and tonight's author is from Maine. So I always get excited when there's a fellow New Englander. I've gotten rid of my accent a bit, but I always get excited when a fellow New Englander comes and I get to talk to them.
• [00:02:02.83] Not only is Linda from New England but she is America's only female swordfishing captain, which I think is really cool. She's the author of three New York Times best-selling books. She won the US Maritime Literature Award, she's the winner of the New England Book Award for Nonfiction. She's also written mysteries and she was a character in the famous book The Perfect Storm which became a wonderful, wonderful film. She's been on television, Good Morning America, Today, she's on the Discovery Channel. She's done so much, and it's my great pleasure to introduce Linda Greenlaw.
• [00:02:52.63] LINDA GREENLAW: Wow. It wasn't all that long ago when I was spending a lot of time praying that no one would show up at any of my book events. But I've come a long way, thank you very much, and I mean it. You can't imagine two more dissimilar worlds than those of a commercial fisherman and a book touring author. This is definitely the world in which I am a lot less comfortable.
• [00:03:19.99] I have notes, and I apologize, you wouldn't think I'd need notes to talk about myself. But I've done some of these events and just kind of decided to wing it with no notes, and when it's time for Q&A, the first question is usually can you tell us something about your book? So it's probably a good thing if I glance at them once in awhile.
• [00:03:38.25] As long as I'm apologizing for notes, I'll offer one other apology, and that is in advance for any inadvertent slip into what I refer to as salty language. Had a pretty strange upbringing. I was raised in a household where I wasn't allowed to use the word hate or tell someone to shut up, but shit, damn, and hell were okay, even from toddlers. So on we go, and I will try to keep it clean.
• [00:04:08.06] I won't assume that anyone here knows much of my background, and that's probably the best place to start and lead up to where I am right now. I was raised on and off the coast of Maine where boats and fishing are the way of life. I spent my early childhood trying to catch anything that swam or crawled around the shores surrounding my home. When I was at an age where kids were learning how to ride bikes, I was learning how to row. When 10-speed bikes were all the rage, I had my first 10-horse outboard.
• [00:04:34.91] And so it seemed a very natural step at the age of 19 when I desperately needed money for school to step onto a commercial fishing vessel and head offshore for 30 days, much to my parents' dismay at the time. I was the age of 19, absolutely fell in love with my life. Knew that I was going to do it the rest of my life. I did finish school, I fished my way through school, literally. Fished every summer, every vacation, any time I had two or three days off. I was hitchhiking to Portland, Maine and trying to get aboard a boat, even if it was just to work at the dock aboard the boat. So really loved it.
• [00:05:11.52] Graduated and took my degree in English offshore, knowing that that was the only thing I was ever going to do. Worked my way up to the captain's chair in a very traditional way, and that was, I stayed on the same boat long enough to become first mate, and the owner of the boat bought a second boat, and that was my first opportunity to be skipper. Skippered many boats over the course of many years, many different fisheries, but always returned to my first love and that was swordfishing.
• [00:05:40.92] The last six years of the first 20 that I spent swordfishing, I captained the Hannah Boden, that's the boat everyone's familiar with from The Perfect Storm. And I reached a really high degree of success with that boat. Had the best boat, the biggest boat, the fastest boat, the best gear. That enabled me to get the best crew and all they had to do was know how to work, and it all worked really well. And really reached the top of my game.
• [00:06:07.34] Got to the age of 38 and thought, you know what, there's nowhere for me to improve my life here. Maybe I should go home. All my girlfriends were married with children, and I thought maybe I've been missing out on this. While I've been offshore, everyone's been settling down and having families. And it's something I always desired.
• [00:06:27.23] So I quit swordfishing. I was pretty happy to go back to my little island off the coast of Maine. It was nice because I could still make my living on the water. I bought a small [? Intra ?] lobster boat, a bunch of lobster traps. Everything worked really nicely. I never did get married or have kids. I have come to believe that I am not flawed, but my plan was flawed. I moved, settled down on an island where there are three single men. Two are gay, one's my cousin. [LAUGHTER] So it was a flawed plan. OK.
• [00:07:03.45] Very early on in my flawed plan, the book was published, The Perfect Storm. And people always ask, how did The Perfect Storm change your life? And I know that they're asking about the weather event. The storm itself didn't change my life at all. It was back in 1991, I continued to fish. But the book about the storm I hold responsible for how my life has changed over the course of the last 10 years. And not even the whole book, just this one passage. And I have memorized it and I never miss the opportunity to quote Sebastian Junger when there's an audience listening. So pay attention.
• [00:07:39.29] Sebastian Junger said, "The Hannah Boden is skippered by a Colby College graduate named Linda Greenlaw. Not only is Greenlaw one of the only women in the business, she's one of the best captains period on the entire east coast. Year after year, trip after trip, she makes more money than anyone. When the Hannah Boden unloads her catch in Gloucester, swordfish prices plummet halfway around the world."
• [00:08:00.18] I love that part. You can imagine it's been a pretty tough image for me live up to. People who are really familiar with The Perfect Storm and meet me for the first time and know me as the woman who survived the perfect storm, after hello, the next thing I usually hear is we thought you'd be a lot bigger. And there's some degree of disappointment. And people are genuinely disenchanted when they meet meet me for the first time. And I end up apologizing for not being bigger, which people say that's really strange.
• [00:08:35.79] Probably the most interesting change that that very generous portrayal brought my way was this. I got in from lobster fishing one night and I had a message on my answering machine. Hi Linda, this is Emily Bestler calling from Simon & Schuster. We've read The Perfect Storm and we're really intrigued with this female fisherman thing you have going on. Do you want to write a book? And at the time I thought, that sounds like a lot of work. No, I don't want to write a book. I really like this female fisherman thing I have going on. I've been doing a long time. No, I didn't want to write a book. I never even returned the woman's phone call, which is probably rude.
• [00:09:07.45] But anyway, The Perfect Storm was on the top of every best seller list everywhere. And within a week's time, I had two more identical calls from major publishers in New York saying, we've read The Perfect Storm, we want you to write a book. And the third call was, we read The Perfect Storm, we'll pay you to take a year off from fishing to write your book. So I had to realize what an opportunity I was being handed.
• [00:09:33.81] I have friends who would kill for the opportunity to have a book published. I have friends who write beautifully, yet they get rejection letters knowing that whoever sent the letter probably hasn't even looked at their material. So lucky was I that I'm being invited to write a book that's going to be published, and paid to write it. That was really cool. Well it took me a year to write my first book, The Hungry Ocean, and it was the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life. Bar none, the most difficult work. I'm used to working hard, I'm a fisherman. Does not compare at all to writing.
• [00:10:09.48] Well nobody was more surprised than I was when The Hungry Ocean became a best seller. And with that success came offer number two, write another book. I wrote another book, and then another book. OK, so fast forward. Six books, 10 years, 10 lobster fishing seasons. That 10 year period when I'd left swordfishing, I always believed I'd go back to it. I always though next year, I'm going to go swordfishing. Next year I'm going swordfishing. And I got calls with people saying, hey, there's a boat in Newfoundland or there is a boat in Puerto Rico. All we need is a captain.
• [00:10:42.82] But the timing was never right. I could never just drop what I had going on. I either had 800 lobster traps in the water, you can't just abandon them. Or I had in the middle of a 60 city book tour, as much as I'd love to call the publicist and say, I'm bailing out, I'm going offshore. Just not my thing. I did take it seriously. So I could never do it. And the more that time marched on, the more I knew it was becoming less and less likely that I'd ever return to it.
• [00:11:09.88] So two years ago, got one of these calls. There's a boat in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Come take it. I realized it probably would be the last chance I had to say yes. So I said yes, very irresponsibly, and dropped everything and went offshore. Now, when I said yes and got to a point of it's too late to back out of this, I started getting really nervous, because I realized that I was risking a lot.
• [00:11:37.31] And people-- you think of commercial fishing, it tops the list of dangerous jobs all the time. But that wasn't what I was concerned about. I've been fishing since I was 19 years old. What I felt I had at risk was my entire identity. The 10 years since I had left swordfishing, if anybody asked me what I did for a living, I said I was a swordfishing captain. Any time I was introduced as a best selling author, I was actually embarrassed. Was like, now that's weird. But really my heart says I'm a fisherman, my checkbook might say I'm a writer. So I felt what if I go back and don't like it, or I'm going to have total identity crisis here. What if I am not what I have believed I am for the first 48 years of my life?
• [00:12:24.56] When I was 19 years old, I was told all I needed was a strong back and a weak mind to go fishing. And that combination suited the job to a T for many years. But at 48, going back to it, my back's not as strong. I'd like to think my mind is stronger. And so the question that I wanted to answer for myself was, does that combination work as well, or does what you gain in maturity compensate for what fades in youth? My answer to that is yes.
• [00:12:55.10] All my life, the most complimentary adjective that I could try to have myself or to attribute to someone else has been seaworthy. And I guess maybe I was wondering, could I still navigate the problems and difficulties inherent in being at sea for 30 days? Could I still weather a storm? Could I put blood on the deck? Could I still lead a crew of men? Was I still seaworthy? Most importantly to me was did it still matter?
• [00:13:29.41] My answer is yes, it did matter. Maybe not as much as it did when I was 19, but still very important. But I realize now that there are other adjectives that I like also. I would like to do-- I obviously have not even looked at my notes, so forget about the notes for now. I think I'd like to do a reading, and with an audience of this size, usually the Q&A can go on for a while and I really do encourage questions because that's really fun for me at this point, to answer people's questions. But I would like to do a short reading first.
• [00:14:01.56] I started this book tour in New York City, and the very first book event was Seaworthy. And I was at a store and I finally sat down to sign some books, and it was really clear that this one guy was sort of hanging back like he wanted to be last in line, so I figured he wants to talk or something, because that happens sometimes. And really handsome guy, well-dressed, suit and tie kind of guy. And he introduced himself as an attorney, New York City attorney. And then he said he wants to go fishing with me this fall. And I thought this guy either needs to watch Discovery Channel or read this book. He doesn't really want to go fishing with me.
• [00:14:37.14] So I thought it'd be fun to read-- I got this phone call. I'll set it up a little bit. I'm borrowing a book to read from because I don't have one. That's awful. I get this phone call two years ago from this guy, Jim Budi. He's the manager of four boats and he needs a captain. I've said yes, and now it's time for me to find crew. I have this Rolodex that I've held onto for 10 years with all my crew information in it because I knew I was going back eventually.
• [00:15:12.02] "My mind raced ahead of my Rolodex as I frantically searched the dog-eared cards for Ringo's number. Did I have it under Tom? Did I had a crammed in the C's for crew? I couldn't imagine going offshore without Tom Ring. I had had the good fortune of great crew members while capping the Hannah Boden, and knew that Ringo would be my first round draft pick for the upcoming trip. Like me, he hadn't been swordfishing in the last decade. But also like me, he'd been working on the water and dreaming about a comeback and waiting for the right opportunity. And now, opportunity was knocking.
• [00:15:44.58] Ringo answered the phone, but he wasn't about to answer the knock. He had been gillnetting with the same captain for some years now, and wouldn't feel right about leaving him in the lurch, he said. I wondered when Ringo had become scrupulous. Besides, he explained, my life has changed. I'm a grandfather. That was a tough one to argue with. Ringo had played the grandfather card. There was no sense trying to sway him, Ringo was out.
• [00:16:08.35] So Ringo's life and changed? No shit, whose hadn't? If your life doesn't change in the course of a decade, there must surely be some moss growing. I had settled down significantly in the past 10 years and the changes had been good. Although I'd never married, I did have the best guy friend, Simon. Sure, I had pushed for a permanent relationship including a ring, but Simon just couldn't get there. We did, however, go Dutch treat on a cement mixer, and that's about as committed as I'd ever been.
• [00:16:35.52] I had long given up on the wedding bells, and furthermore, Ringo's grandchild, just for the record, is his wife's daughter's baby. Not even blood related. His life had changed? What about mine? If Ringo could claim he was a grandfather, I could say I was a mother. In fact, talk about change and responsibility. I had become the legal guardian of a teenage girl just one year before. I'd gone from 0 to 15 with the stroke of a pen. Granted, I was still in the process of getting to know Sarai, and hoping I'd do a better job than her former guardian.
• [00:17:05.50] But Sarai would be well-cared for in my absence, I justified. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more comfortable I was about shirking this particular responsibility. As I flipped through the cards, it soon became clear that most of the guys I'd like to have fishing with me could not pass muster in any background check." And this is a problem without looking at your notes, because I forgot to mention something. Right after I said yes, I'll take this boat, I found out that Discovery Channel was going to be coming along with me and documenting the whole trip. So I was required to send in a list of crew members with Social Security numbers.
• [00:17:44.10] And I sent my list in and I get a call. Nope, these guys aren't going. We can't put them on TV. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, honestly. So I sent in my B list. Nope, no one's going. OK, on we go, search for crew.
• [00:18:01.65] "My second choice after Ringo would be Kenny Puddister, redheaded Newfy I'd worked with for years. Kenny would probably be fishing with Scotty aboard the Eagle Eye II. It wouldn't be very ethical of me to try to steal him. Besides, if I were Kenny and had to choose between the two captains, me or Scotty, I'd go with Scotty too. There was no point putting myself through that humiliation.
• [00:18:20.87] I had absolutely no way of getting in touch with choice number three, Carl. He owed me some money, so there was little chance he'd surface if I put feelers out. James was in Ireland. I hadn't heard from Ivan in years. I hesitated on a card on which I'd written moron. The moron would be available, but I just couldn't do it. I'd signed on to spend 60 days, a minimum of 1,000 miles from home bobbing around the North Atlantic Ocean during the height of hurricane season in pursuit of swordfish.
• [00:18:51.19] I would be living and working in less than optimum conditions very closely with four men. In the past, I had not minded working with men who behaved like animals, or morons for that matter. They got the job done. I had always hired from the neck down. But at the age of 47, I realized that I had changed and that perhaps my criteria for crew needed to change. I took a break from the Rolodex to check email and was happy to find a note from Jim Budi. Jim must have some innate sense about things, I marveled, as I read his email.
• [00:19:20.04] He had sent a list of potential crew members with short bios and contact information. He listed five guys, all of whom had experience fishing on the boats he managed, and all of whom he'd recently contacted regarding work. The names, except for one, were unfamiliar to me. The first bio read like a personal ad, with details about eye color and zodiac sign. No thanks, I'm all set, I thought. The second sounded like a backwoods Rambo type of guy. Nope, I have fish with the likes of them. Not this time.
• [00:19:49.23] The third one Jim referred to as the Silver Fox, and noted that he'd been sober for two weeks. Great, an old drunk. I'm not that desperate. I have a friend who trumps the Fox. Out of rehab and straight for three months, but I'm not taking him offshore. Possibility number four was Mr. Weeks. Would I have to call him Mister? Too weird for me. The additional comment that Mr. Weeks had actually captained the Seahawk for a short while and might need an occasional reminder that he was no longer in charge sealed his fate. One boat plus two captains equals nightmare. This was beginning to resemble audition week for American Idol. It's one thing to accept opportunity and quite another to capitalize on it. The right crew would be essential in maximizing this opportunity."
• [00:20:35.36] So as it turned out I ended up with this totally made-for-TV crew, where none of my usual guys could pass muster. I started calling friends of mine that I knew were nice men and didn't have any criminal records. I ended up with four really great guys who ended up being perfect for this particular trip, because I knew at the end of it all, that if I'd had anyone with any real experience, they would have realized right off the bat that things were not right on this trip, and they would have mutinied and that would have been the end of the whole deal.
• [00:21:12.29] So I was arrested and I discuss it in Seaworthy. And anyone of my four guys would have gone to jail for me if they could have. So anyway, just really great guys. Does anybody have questions? That might be good. Any questions?
• [00:21:31.11] SPEAKER 1: As a person who makes a living on the ocean, would you comment on the BP oil spill, please?
• [00:21:35.87] LINDA GREENLAW: Yes. I don't think my opinion is any different than anyone else that you've seen or heard or probably everybody in this room. I'm saddened. My heart goes out to the fishermen and their families in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm disgusted, because it seems that BP had no plan in place for worst case scenario. Who lives their life that way? You get on an airplane and the flight attendant is telling you, find the closest exit. You've got a bigger chance of being struck by lightning than you do in an airplane crash.
• [00:22:07.82] So it seems that they were just so negligent and so irresponsible. And they're saying, well, we're going to clean up every last drop of oil and we're going to make it right for everyone. But boy, it's hard to believe. The oil's still gushing. And I think over the course of the last 30 years, every fish that I have harvested has gone to feed an overweight and heart-diseased country. Look at the number of fish now being killed by oil that are just absolutely wasted. So thanks for that.
• [00:22:40.29] SPEAKER 2: Keeping the questions along with the serious tone from the first gentleman, what ever happened to Stern-Fabio?
• [00:22:50.46] LINDA GREENLAW: OK, so you've read The Lobster Chronicles. The last I knew, he was working in a restaurant in Portland, Maine, and pretty much had the same reputation he had when I stumbled upon him. Yeah, he's still around.
• [00:23:08.18] SPEAKER 2: [INAUDIBLE]
• [00:23:10.57] LINDA GREENLAW: Yeah, OK. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:23:18.59] SPEAKER 3: What's the status of swordfish out there off the coast-- and lobsters? I've heard about the red tide this summer. What's going on out there?
• [00:23:28.77] LINDA GREENLAW: First of all, red tide does not affect lobster. It does affect clams and mussels. And sadly, I can collect those in front of my house. But last summer, all season, red tide. And they're talking about it already this year. So we have to get our fill of clams and mussels really early in the spring before the red tide. And we've had a pretty good amount of rain, so it's pretty likely we're going to have red tide again.
• [00:23:52.55] I am very happy to be able to tell you that lobsters and swordfish, the stocks are very healthy. North Atlantic Swordfish Dock is at 100% maximum sustainable yield. The stock is totally rebuilt. Even the scientists and the government are now agreeing that that's true. The best evidence that I can offer you about that is the first 20 years that I went swordfishing, if we had an average fish of about 100 pounds, so the fish averaged 100 pounds each, that was pretty good. Last year, I had a 171 pound average fish. I mean the fish are big.
• [00:24:29.59] And it wasn't just me. It's a very small fleet that goes from the United States to the Grand Banks, fish are big for a lot of reasons. There are some good regulations that have been in place for a long time. There are country-based quotas. The US swordfish fleet goes the extra mile in that we are required to use circle hooks as opposed to a traditional J hook.
• [00:24:52.97] The beautiful thing about a circle look is that 95% of the fish are hooked in the corner of the mouth. They're all alive, as opposed to, years ago when I swordfished with a J hook, a lot of fish ingest the hook. If you catch a juvenile fish with a circle look, you pop the hook out and it swims off. You say, yep, grow up and come back. So it's been very good for the industry.
• [00:25:14.29] Lobster fishing in Maine is a very strong fishery. Sadly, lobsters and swordfish, we don't get enough money for them. I like to tell people-- and they're worried about what they should eat and this and that. To make sure that you're asking, if you like fish, make sure it's caught in the United States. Eat the local stuff or eat the stuff that's harvested by American fisherman. US fishermen are the most highly-regulated, managed, monitored, and patrolled bunch of fishermen on the planet. If there's something available to you and you know it was caught by US fishermen, we have a more environmentally-friendly fishery. There's all the good things, so eat it and feel good about it. Thank you.
• [00:26:00.49] SPEAKER 4: I hate to ask this, but what about mercury in big fish, like is there something special about your fish up there that we could eat it?
• [00:26:10.65] LINDA GREENLAW: There is something special about my fish. Yeah, the mercury thing-- in my lifetime, we've been through two mercury scares. And there are two different times in my fishing career that swordfishing has actually been shut down and people have been told don't eat it, don't eat it. There's a list, and I've seen these cards that one of the environmental groups puts out about-- it's a list of fish, and if it's red, don't eat it, if it's green, eat it, if it's yellow, eat it with caution. That list as bullshit, OK?
• [00:26:44.03] I ask audiences all over the country. I do extensive book touring and speaking to very large audiences everywhere. And I always ask, when the mercury question comes up-- because people, you wan't want to eat something that's going to make you sick-- is there anyone in this room who is aware of anybody in their lifetime who has been sick or died from mercury poisoning from eating fish? One. That's the first one ever, OK?
• [00:27:10.85] I eat fish all the time. As I said, I think these groups of people saying don't eat fish because of mercury, there are toxins in everything you eat, everything you drink, and in the air you breathe. For it to reach a level of poison, it has to reach a level. I think you'd have to eat your, maybe, weight in swordfish a day for I don't know how long for it to become a problem. I don't know anyone who eats more swordfish than I do.
• [00:27:35.87] I haven't been to the doctor's to see if I have high mercury levels, but I feel pretty good. And again, it goes back to we're in the middle of an obesity crisis. Number one killer of women in this country is heart disease. You need to eat fish. Swordfish is in the top 10 in the omega three fatty acid. It's very good for you. And I wouldn't challenge someone and say, see if you can die from mercury poisoning, see if you can eat enough. But you are, the man back there, the only one I've ever seen raise their hand that you're aware of someone who ate too much fish and had a problem with mercury.
• [00:28:22.62] SPEAKER 5: I wonder if you could describe your process of catching swordfish in more detail. How long the lines are, how many hooks, what you use as bait, how many usable fish do you have on a line when you pull it in, and how did you get arrested?
• [00:28:37.58] LINDA GREENLAW: The method of swordfishing is called longlining. And a typical set, which would be a 24 hour period, a typical set would be a laying out or a setting out of one line that would be at a length of 30 or 40 miles. And as that goes out the stern, baited hooks are attached. So let's say a 40 mile set, you'd have 1,000 baited hooks on it. That's cut free from the boat and it drifts-- oh, and there are floats put on it also. So it's relatively close to the surface because we're fishing in like 3,000 fathoms of water.
• [00:29:12.70] Swordfish are nocturnal, they come up, they chase the bait to the surface at night. So the line is relatively close to the surface. That is cut free from the boat, it drifts with current. The places we fish are where two bodies of water come together. For instance, east of the Grand Banks is where the hot water of the Gulf Stream pushes up into the cold water of the Labrador Current. Where these two pieces of water come together, there's a big tide change. And where there's a big current change, stuff collects. It's where the plankton is and then the food chain. So the bait is there and that's where we hope the swordfish are going to be. That's where we find the most productive swordfishing.
• [00:29:52.09] The next morning, at daylight-- we're so far to the east, it's like 3:30 in the morning-- we grab the end of the gear and start hauling it back on the boat. It's hauled back on to this big-- it's like a gigantic spool of thread, OK? And the hooks are taken off at the rail as this line's going back on to the giant spool, hydraulically driven. Get weight on the line, it means you have a fish coming, you stop the boat. And it's one man, or in my case, a woman, hand over hand until you see what it is. So it's catching fish one at a time with hooks.
• [00:30:25.20] SPEAKER 5: About how many fish would you get on a long line?
• [00:30:27.50] LINDA GREENLAW: Well, you know what, it's fishing. [LAUGHTER] we really need to average about 3,000 pounds a night to get a trip. It's important to tell you this. We keep our trips in sync with the lunar cycle. So that's why the trip is about 28 to 30 days. Because these bodies of water and the tide is affected by the moon, the fishing is better from the first quarter through the third quarter. It's really good just three or four days, either side of the full moon.
• [00:30:54.68] So we do are steaming back and forth in our turnaround time, where the time at the dock when we're re-supplying and unloading during the new moon or when you don't see a moon. So 3,000 pounds a night, you might fish for anywhere from 10 nights if the fishing is good to, I suppose some guys would make up to 20 sets. I've never had to do that myself, but I would be prepared to if the fishing was really slow. A lot of things affect the fishing. If the weather's really severe, you don't catch as much. You pull more fish off because of the circle hooks, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] really soft mouth.
• [00:31:30.23] If for some reason, mother nature is just not cooperating and these two pieces of water aren't really jamming together the way we really need them to, the fishing will be slow. So a lot of factors. Best day of fishing I've ever had was about 10,000 pounds. It was back awhile ago, so it was like 107 fish for about 10,000 pounds. I've never been skunked, which is like a goose egg at the end of the day. But other people have. And I've had as few as five or six fish on 1,000 hooks. So really it varies a great deal.
• [00:32:07.83] SPEAKER 6: You mentioned that you were 19 when you fell in love with your life and decided to do this. I'm nineteen, and it's really inspiring to hear your story. And I'm just wondering what gave you the courage? I don't know if you even know now what struck you to do something so different.
• [00:32:26.73] LINDA GREENLAW: Well at the time, it was really different for a young girl to go fishing. But I don't know, I loved fishing as a kid. Back in 1979 when I was 19, there was a lot of money in commercial fishing. I needed a lot of money for school, OK? And I didn't want to be on the 10 year plan at school, I wanted to get through in four years, so I needed to make some money, and I was really fortunate that I was able to pay my way through college in that way.
• [00:32:56.74] I get a lot of questions. In fact, was it this morning? I'm getting really confused. Either this morning or yesterday morning, I did a talk, but it was really scary, to 100 professional women. It was their breakfast meeting. And I was scared to death. They have all these questions about the woman and they always say it, they always say, what's it like to be the woman in the male-dominated field of commercial fishing? And I would say, you know what, I've been outnumbered, I've not been dominated.
• [00:33:30.11] But I get that question a lot. And my answer to that is gender has never been an issue. I don't know if I am particularly thick-skinned or thick-skulled, but it just hasn't been an issue. I found something that I love to do, I worked really hard at it. And the obstacles that challenge fishermen are things like bad weather, poor fishing, crew problems, mechanical breakdowns. Those things aren't any tougher on a woman than they are on a man. So that's my answer to that. Thanks.
• [00:34:07.55] SPEAKER 7: I was wondering what brought you back to it the second time around here. And I'm curious about two things. The obvious motivations of making a living, things like that. But is there something about being out on a boat, managing a group of men, whatever it happens to be? What is it that you really love about it that made you want to come back after 10 years?
• [00:34:33.64] LINDA GREENLAW: It's such a tough thing to articulate, and the best way that I can answer that is to go back to the title of my very first book, The Hungry Ocean. The Hungry Ocean is from a Shakespearean sonnet, and I've learned in the course of my travels that it means different things to different places in different places that I go. But to me The Hungry Ocean refers to the ocean's ability to totally consume. I've been fishing for 30 years, I have been consumed by it.
• [00:34:58.78] I know it sounds cliche to say you're drawn to or taken with something, but I like the way I feel when I'm at sea, and I'm passionate about catching fish. As proud as I am to be like a best selling author, nothing makes me prouder than saying I'm a fisherman. And don't ask me now, well, you like the way you feel at sea, how do you feel? Because then it gets even more difficult to answer that one. It's just a good feeling. And as corny as this sounds, you've seen The Perfect Storm, and you know George Clooney's soliloquy as he's steaming out about being a sword boat captain. It's corny, but it gets me right here.
• [00:35:36.26] SPEAKER 8: Hi. You mentioned your fish is typically from 100 up to 170 pounds, I just can't visualize, how do you handle it? Do have some kind of special machine or whatever? I can't even carry 30 pounds of weight.
• [00:35:53.94] LINDA GREENLAW: Well, OK, first of all, you're hauling the line hydraulically. But then I'm hauling the gear, I'm on deck. Let's get the visual here. I'm on deck, I'm the captain. I'm driving the boat with this hand, I'm running the drum or the big spool, the hydraulic valve here. And this hand, the main line, this 1,000 pound test line is going through my hand, sliding through it, right? I'm driving the boat along the gear, I've got the line going through my hand. And the line is like this, next to the boat, off the bow.
• [00:36:25.13] Now suddenly the line is like this. Something's coming, right? And someone's going to yell fish on, and I'm backing the boat down, trying to stop the forward motion because I don't want to rip the hook out of the fish's mouth. So you get the boat pretty much dead in the water, and then it's one man or one woman, just hand over hand. And you think about it. I'm on a 100 foot steel vessel, my feet are planted. I've got 100 feet of steel under me. The fish is just in the water.
• [00:36:54.11] There's not a fish I can't get to the surface. Some are a little tougher than others, but I also have four 350 pound men right here. So when I get tired of doing this, one of them is pushing me out of the way and grabbing it. Basically, when the fish breaks the surface, if it's a good size fish, it takes everyone on the boat to get it aboard. And if it's really too big-- there's something called the door, cut in the side of the hull. It's just a cut out. Instead of pulling a fish all the way up and over the rail and onto the deck, you just slide it on.
• [00:37:25.19] So with four or five people pulling, you can get a pretty big fish aboard. And if it's just too big to do that, then we have a strap that we can put around the fish's tail and lift it hydraulically leak onto the boat. That's probably a much longer answer than you needed.
• [00:37:47.83] SPEAKER 9: I've never eaten swordfish, I'm allergic to fish. But I have a question. What's the so-called sword on the swordfish? What function does that appendage have?
• [00:38:01.26] LINDA GREENLAW: Well you've probably seen a picture. It is a sword, or we call it a bill or a sword. And it's flat this way and it's very sharp on the edges. OK, so it's like this on the fish. And they use it for two different things. Primarily they use it to feed themselves. So a swordfish will swim through school of bait and slash the sword back and forth, and then circle back and eat the fish that it injured with its bill.
• [00:38:27.56] And they're bottom-feeders also. During the day, they're on the bottom and they scuff around the bottom and injure the fish. They also use it as a weapon, if they're being attacked by a shark or another fish. We've caught some fish with some pretty nasty looking scars on them, so we do think they're warriors, definitely.
• [00:38:55.17] SPEAKER 10: When you looked at this boat for this trip, I felt my heart sink. It's like wow, is this boat going to be all right? How did you know?
• [00:39:03.66] LINDA GREENLAW: Well, we're talking about the Seahawk and the boat that I fished in Seaworthy. my? Guys had been in New Bedford working on the boat for a week before I showed up. And I flew into Boston, they picked me up, and all the way back to the boat, they're nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, oh, it's so bad. Well, wait until you see it. Nah, nah nah, nah, nah. And they were right. It was late at night, and I wanted to just go to the hotel and go to bed. They were like, oh no. We don't want you to sleep tonight either.
• [00:39:31.54] So I went and looked and the boat hadn't been fishing in a couple years. The last captain had died aboard the boat. The owner had put it up for sale, been out of the water. Now it's one of four in a fleet. So the other three captains and crews are saying, well that boat's not going fishing again. Let's go take everything that's useful. So it's basically been scavenged and we didn't have any tools, we didn't have any this, no spare parts.
• [00:39:55.25] So we did the best job we could in a short time to get the boat together. While the boat was in a sad state of disrepair and all the systems-- because boats are like everything else. You don't use them, things start falling apart. The boat was not unsafe. I wasn't afraid we were going to sink. Although we almost did. Yes?
• [00:40:21.27] SPEAKER 11: I wanted to ask you about The Perfect Storm. Is that movie accurate about the fishing? I remember the winch, and actually carrying one of the guys overboard. I don't know how likely that is, but I suppose that's possible. But as far as the catching of the fish--
• [00:40:38.94] LINDA GREENLAW: They portrayed the way of life very nicely, Warner Brothers, and pretty good with the fishing. And the fish themselves, they didn't kill a fish to make that movie. Those fish were all rubber and motorized and things. And really, the fish looked real to me, and I see a lot of swordfish. I think they did a good job. To me, the best part of the movie was the fact that it brought a way of life that I've enjoyed for so many years to the public side.
• [00:41:07.81] And people want to know where their fish come. You want to know where your food comes from, so The Perfect Storm was a first of sort of all this interest in commercial fishing. So that was great. And no, people aren't generally hooked and pulled overboard. And if they are, somebody else doesn't jump in after them off of a boat that's steaming away from them. It seemed like they took every possible bad thing that could happen and put it all in that movie, which made it a great movie.
• [00:41:35.77] But the fact of the matter is, nothing was ever found of the Andrea Gail. I mean nothing. They never got a mayday call off, there was none of that screaming back and forth between Billy Tyne and I, there was no romantic interest between the other captain and myself, although, because George Clooney was the lead, I was OK with that. [LAUGHJTER] But it wasn't truthful in that regard. It was Hollywood, but I liked it.
• [00:42:04.97] SPEAKER 12: What did you think of the person playing your part?
• [00:42:07.72] LINDA GREENLAW: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. I mean, because it was George Clooney, I would have preferred to play myself. But yeah, I was actually quite pleased with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio because before they did the casting, I thought, OK, female fisherman, this could be ugly. She's lovely, so I was actually very happy with the choice.
• [00:42:32.69] SPEAKER 13: If you could press rewind for your life, what would you have done differently?
• [00:42:40.20] LINDA GREENLAW: If I could press rewind. I know where I'd stop, but I don't know what I would change. People always say, you don't regret the things you do, you regret the things you haven't done. And honestly, there's not a lot that I haven't said yes to when people ask me to do it. So I don't have a lot of regrets.
• [00:43:03.05] Even like my arrest, that's probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I can't really think of a way that I could have avoided it. You can read the book and read the details. But I'll have to think about that. Maybe I'll think of something before we're done. But right, now I don't know what I'd change. I'll think of some smart-ass answer in a minute. Give me a minute.
• [00:43:27.17] SPEAKER 14: I was going to ask you about why you were arrested.
• [00:43:32.15] LINDA GREENLAW: I was arrested for illegal entry and illegal fishing in Canadian waters. Canada has a 200 mile limit, as does the United States, as does a country with any coastline that does any fishing. It's an imaginary line 200 miles off the coast of Canada. Well I made my 30 mile set, and I was very legal. I was south of that line, so I was in international water. And we're hauling the gear back the next day.
• [00:43:57.68] As I said, I work on deck all day, hauling the gear back. We don't have electronics on deck because it's a salt water environment and they just wouldn't last down there. So we're in the process of hauling this gear back. It's about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and we got buzzed by a Canadian fisheries patrol plane, which is not unusual. They patrol that line as they should. They're very protective of their territory.
• [00:44:20.58] So we're all waving at the plane, which we normally would. And then we got buzzed again, and the third time we got buzzed, I said, you know, I better go up in the wheelhouse because I didn't have a radio on deck or anything. I said maybe someone is in trouble and maybe they need my assistance. Well, I got up in the wheelhouse and I took one step in and I see the chart plotter, which is the thing that shows me where I am. And I could have thrown up. I was four miles on the wrong side of the line.
• [00:44:46.58] Well, long story short, I was arrested. The boat was seized, I was taken into Newfoundland, handcuffed, jailed. I wasn't in jail long because the money was in place for me to be bailed out, and I needed to go to court several months later to stand trial. So I went back out. I was released and I went back out fishing. And I still couldn't imagine what had happened. I've been doing this since I was 19 years old. I know which way the Gulf Stream goes, I know which way the Labrador Current pushes. Your gear doesn't go north.
• [00:45:16.25] Anyway, I got back out fishing in a couple of days, and a friend of mine was steaming out to come join the crowd and fish too. And, oh, when I was arrested, I had leave a mile of gear behind. We didn't finish hauling the gear. I said this is the least of my problems, forget it. So this boat steaming out calls on the radio and says, hey Linda, I found your piece of gear you left behind here. I'll pick it up and I'll deliver it when I get there. I said, great, thanks.
• [00:45:43.46] So a little while later, he called me on the radio. He had my gear aboard his boat and he said, it's been run over by a ship. It's like all covered with bottom paint, the anti [UNINTELLIGIBLE] paint, and instead of a mile stretched out, it was all like in a big ball. So that was my aha, oh moment of that's how my gear-- it was towed by a ship to the north.
• [00:46:04.11] But it didn't really matter. When I went to court even, I knew that. And it was clear that it wasn't intentional. The officer's that came aboard the Seahawk to do the investigation could see that I made a very legal set, but they also could see I was four miles on the wrong side of the line. So intention had nothing to do with it. The only defense I had was due diligence, and it's a very high standard. No one has ever been acquitted of those charges and I was not the first. So it was a very inadvertent, innocent, I like to think, stupid, and very expensive mistake.
• [00:46:40.72] TIM GRIMES: Right here, did you have one?
• [00:46:43.65] SPEAKER 15: I have a question about captain's responsibilities. In the movie, The Perfect Storm, it seems to me that the captain let the crew decide whether they wanted to give up their catch and seek safety on an island, instead of him taking the responsibility and saying, we are going to leave this storm. And so he gave the responsibility for that decision to his group, and that's what their fate was all about. And that saddens me. What's your comment?
• [00:47:19.94] LINDA GREENLAW: My comment to that is we talked about the movie, and I said what I liked about the movie. I didn't say what I didn't like about the movie. And the one thing that I disliked about the movie was Warner Brothers' portrayal of Billy Tyne and his crew making a conscious decision to steam into a storm that they thought might kill them. That's just not the way it happened. It was a very freak weather situation, three low-pressure systems all came together. One, weather in this hemisphere goes from west to east. In this case, one of these low-pressure systems backed up, went to the west. It was one hellish storm, and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• [00:47:59.13] We'll never really know what happened because nothing was found. But I guarantee you, Captain Billy Tyne didn't ask the crew what they wanted to do. And yeah, are we Gloucester men? So we're going to steam into a storm because we want money. So that was pretty much the Warner Brothers.
• [00:48:20.95] SPEAKER 16: So Linda, does that mean since your arrest, that Discovery would run your Social Security number now and not page you again?
• [00:48:29.46] LINDA GREENLAW: Are you kidding? Since my arrest, I'm like number one on the hit parade on Discovery Channel. Season one aired last summer, and that was the season in which I was arrested. And they didn't air my arrest, they didn't put any part of it in the show. And that was because nothing had been resolved when they were doing the editing and they didn't want to leave this major loose end. So whatever happened to Linda? Last we saw her, she was going to jail. Or cut me out of the show altogether or something. So no, have to be a little bit more criminal to not make the cut.
• [00:49:12.05] SPEAKER 17: In your mind, and as far as your feelings about, what's the difference for you between going swordfishing and lobster fishing?
• [00:49:20.06] LINDA GREENLAW: Oh boy, what a difference. Swordfishing is by far the most exciting, the biggest adventure. You're going so far from shore, we're 1,000 miles from the closest dock. Swordfish are elusive, there's a bigger challenge to catch them basically because of this water temperature thing, and it's so in flux, it changes by the hour. You're trying to keep track of 65 degree water was moving at 3.2 knots, but then I steamed up into the 60 degree water that was only moving at two knots. And always try to keep track of all these speeds and temperatures.
• [00:50:02.71] Lobster fishing, you get up in the morning, you look out the window. And if it's blowing, you pull the covers back over your head and you go back to bed. I don't have to haul my traps. If I have 40 miles of gear in the water, it could be blowing 60, I have to haul it. I cannot just leave it, I'll lose it and that's the end of the trip, that's the end of the season. So it's more exciting. It's a lot more fun to catch a 171 pound live swordfish than it is to catch a pound and a quarter of lobster.
• [00:50:34.12] Lobstering, any fixed gear, fixed gear fishing where you're fishing just a depth-- OK, 60 fathoms of water is right there. It's been there for 100 years and it's going to be there for another 100 years, so just not as much to it. It's not as big a challenge.
• [00:50:53.98] SPEAKER 18: Three short questions. Have you ever gone overboard?
• [00:50:58.89] LINDA GREENLAW: OK, wait. One at a time. No.
• [00:51:02.49] SPEAKER 18: Have you ever lost a crewman?
• [00:51:05.11] LINDA GREENLAW: No. I had one die, but not overboard.
• [00:51:07.95] SPEAKER 18: OK. And have you ever had any women on your crew?
• [00:51:12.92] LINDA GREENLAW: No, and the reason for that-- I'm asked that question a lot about the women. The first 20 years that I swordfished, I never had a single woman ask me for a job. Or it's called looking for a site. No one asked me for a site. And I think the reason for that, especially early on, was that commercial fishing just really wasn't in the realm of possibilities. It's not something young girls aspired to because they just probably weren't aware that it could be an opportunity.
• [00:51:38.02] And I know that's changed now, I know young women are getting into everything. And there are a lot of women in lobster fishing. Some own their own boats, some work in the stern with their husband, boyfriend, neighbor. So a lot of women in that industry. Swordfishing and other offshore fisheries are not careers that people are getting into. There's just not a lot of opportunity. There are fewer boats, there are more regulations.
• [00:52:05.47] I'm hoping that's going to change because there is so much good news in fishing industries now, the one's that have been regulated, and it will bounce back. Like to think there'll be opportunity for more boats and more people, because it is good employment for some people. But I told Discovery Channel that if they do five seasons, the fifth season is going to be my last one, and I'm going to have an all-female crew. That's going to be my swan song. That'll be really good TV.
• [00:52:31.24] SPEAKER 19: Well you may have just answered my question. My question was, are you going to go out there and do this again?
• [00:52:35.99] LINDA GREENLAW: I am. I'm going August 1 and I have the Hannah Boden back, so I'm really psyched about that. The owners of the Hannah Boden are rigging the boat for me now. That's a quite a conversion because the boat's been crabbing for the last 10 years. So they're doing a lot of cutting torches right now, ripping the boat apart and getting ready. So should be good.
• [00:52:54.21] SPEAKER 19: Look foward to reading about that.
• [00:52:55.95] LINDA GREENLAW: Thanks.
• [00:52:58.04] SPEAKER 20: So what's your best fish story to tell us. I mean you have to have one.
• [00:53:04.47] LINDA GREENLAW: That would have to be the one that got away, right? Everyone has one that got away. The one that got away, it's always like it doesn't matter if you're a recreational fisherman, a freshwater fisherman, a fly fisherman, an ice fishermen, or a commercial sword fishermen. The one that you really remember that got away is so much bigger than anything you've ever seen, and it was the most hardest, longest fight you ever put up. And yeah, I've got one of those. But you pretty much just heard it. Yeah, I've got one that got away. It was a swordfish.
• [00:53:45.46] SPEAKER 21: As an English major and a writer, I'm sure you read a lot probably, yeah? May I ask what your favorite book is or one of the top three favorite authors?
• [00:53:55.92] LINDA GREENLAW: Oh yeah, I can tell you my favorite author, by far, is Pat Conroy. And I was asked that question on my last book tour. And I didn't just say Pat Conroy, I went into such detail. I actually have this huge crush on Pat Conroy. It's like I have this secret fantasy life. I am in love with Pat Conroy. So I went on and on and on. I said way too much about Pat Conroy. And then I sat down to sign books and then some woman-- I'm personalizing books, and she said, can you write it to Pat Conroy and Sally so and so. And I said, oh, you like him too? And she said, he's my husband. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:54:36.61] They happened to be vacationing in the town I was doing my book signing, and she said, he's going to be so upset he wasn't here to learn about your huge crush on him. I was like, oh my god. I'm pretty sure she's not here tonight. I love Pat Conroy. That was embarrassing.
• [00:54:56.97] SPEAKER 22: I was just curious about also bycatch, fish that you don't intend to catch. Do you keep other fish as well? Sharks or whatever.
• [00:55:05.05] LINDA GREENLAW: Yeah, we do. And swordfish longlining is a fairly clean fishery because we are fishing with hooks. It's pretty selective. It's not like towing a net where you get everything in its path. So our gear is somewhat selective, but we do have bycatch. Other than swordfish, the things that we like to see are giant bluefin tuna, especially late in the fall because they have the right fat content, they're really worth a lot of money. Big eye tuna, yellow fin tuna.
• [00:55:30.33] We catch a very occasional albacore tuna if we're fishing really hot water. Mahi mahi, again if we're fishing really hot water. Mako sharks, we catch a fair number of mako sharks. We like to see those because there's a market for mako. What we don't like to see are blue sharks. And that's about the only thing we catch that we can't keep. There's no market for them.
• [00:56:00.13] SPEAKER 23: I was wondering if you had any experience with sailing vessels. There are quite a few schooners in New England, for example.
• [00:56:08.24] LINDA GREENLAW: Well, my first experience on a sailboat was back when I was promoting my very first book. And as part of my book tour, I was doing a talk with Sebastian Junger, the author of The Perfect Storm, at a New York City yacht club. And we were invited to go for a sail before the evening event. And somebody took us out on a sailboat and I'd never been on one honestly. And there was not a breath of wind, and all the sails were up and they were going blip, blamp, blamp, blip. And I was thinking, wow, I don't like this so much. This is really not fun.
• [00:56:46.03] So that was my first experience. And then not long after that, I was dating a guy who was like really into sailing, and I went a few times on his boat. And I really enjoyed it when there was a lot of wind. About the time that he wants to shorten sail, I'm like no, come on, this is great, I'm lovin' it. So I think when I get on a boat, I have a hard time relaxing and really enjoying sailing because I always think of being on a boat as work. So I might need to change that mindset a little bit.
• [00:57:20.92] SPEAKER 24: Linda, as an author, could you comment on, for a person that buys your book, does it matter if they buy a book to you? Does it matter if they buy a book or they buy it electronically like for a Kindle or an iPad? Is there a commercial difference from your standpoint?
• [00:57:36.50] LINDA GREENLAW: From my standpoint, I'd love it if you bought hardcover books, all of them, tonight. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:57:43.16] TIM GRIMES: And they're right there at the [INTERPOSING]
• [00:57:46.19] LINDA GREENLAW: Yeah, as a matter of fact they're right here. I'm a huge supporter of bookstores. Bookstores have been very good to me. So yeah, I get money for a download. I get paid if somebody downloads one of my books.
• [00:58:00.59] SPEAKER 24: Doesn't do anything for the bookstore.
• [00:58:02.36] LINDA GREENLAW: It doesn't do a thing for the bookstore and we have too many bookstores going under. Buy books. Thanks.
• [00:58:12.05] SPEAKER 25: This isn't exciting as a fishing story, but could you talk about becoming a writer? How did you learn to become a writer and a little bit about the process?
• [00:58:21.43] LINDA GREENLAW: Yeah, OK. Well, as I said before, I majored in English in college, but I wasn't a writer. I majored in English in college because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I knew I loved to read. And I figured if I could read and write essays, I could get through school, as opposed to math and science where you have to have a real answer. That's not going to be my thing.
• [00:58:43.54] So I did when I agreed to write my first book. I was offered a co-writer, I was offered a ghost writer. I was like no, I can do this myself. And people always ask where'd that confidence come from if you weren't really a writer? Well, confidence came from a couple different things. I've always been a letter writer, always. I still am today, I don't like email so much. I like to sit down and I like to write letters. And people like my letters. I'll see someone say, oh, I still have that letter you wrote me. I just read it again the other day. That doesn't make me a writer, that doesn't mean I can write a book.
• [00:59:17.10] When I was a junior at Colby College. You know the blue book exam that you write your exams in? I had one of those handed back to me one time. The professor had written on the outside with red ink, Ms. Greenlaw, you are very unfamiliar with the material in this course. Well-written. B plus. [LAUGHTER] So I said, yeah, I can write. Don't worry about it, I don't need a ghost writer.
• [00:59:45.15] And having said that, I already mentioned that writing's very difficult for me. It is work, and I treat it like a job. I treat it the same way I do my fishing, with the exception-- the big difference between writing and fishing, they're both really hard work. I love the process of fishing. The end result doesn't matter so much. Writing, I love my books, I do not like the process. I don't like sitting down every day after I sign a contract and forcing myself to sit there for four or five hours and write. It's a grind. I read interviews, other authors who, geez, they write a book in two days or something, or oh, the characters took over and the book wrote itself. Like that is such bullshit, that does not happen.
• [01:00:28.19] SPEAKER 25: Unless it was Pat Conroy.
• [01:00:30.62] LINDA GREENLAW: Yeah, Pat Conroy, maybe.
• [01:00:37.03] SPEAKER 26: I enjoy writing too, and I was just wondering how you feel about grammar and how language is changing these days through other mediums. And I am very particular about grammar, but sometimes I feel like it kind of holds me back of what I want to say because it's not how you speak.
• [01:00:51.88] LINDA GREENLAW: OK, well first of all, you misunderstood me, because you said I enjoy writing too. I do not enjoy writing. I'm glad that you do. And my mom was raised in this big, extended farm, a dairy farm in Maine. And there were sort of these old maid aunts that lived in the family farm and they were all English teachers. So there's no Maine accent and there's proper grammar, and that's pretty much the way I was raised with the exception of the bad words, which were OK.
• [01:01:30.79] But I don't like getting email that's all botched up. And people, I think, are a little strange too when they send me an email, I think maybe they're concentrating too hard on trying to, like, I don't really care if your grammar is not right, but I don't like the LOLs. I would rather see you laugh out loud than have you write LOL to me on a text message, you know? Or I'd rather hear your laugh on the phone. So I don't really like the little shortenings of things. But I'm much older than you obviously.
• [01:02:06.86] TIM GRIMES: OK, I think we'll take one more question, and then we do want to leave time for the signing. So we'll have this gentleman here.
• [01:02:16.76] SPEAKER 27: Well I was going to ask, but you might have answered the question. I was going to ask what happened to your accent?
• [01:02:21.68] LINDA GREENLAW: That was it. And I'll keep this brief because we do need to sign books. Wherever I am, I inadvertently start talking like the people, and to the point where they think I'm making fun of them. I read my books for the audio, I've read four of them. And the first time I went to Grand Haven, Michigan to sit in the studio for five days to read The Hungry Ocean, the second day in, the people on the other side of the Plexiglas are two women, an engineer and a producer.
• [01:02:54.79] They're like laughing and I'm like what's so funny? They say, you sound like you're from Fargo. I said, I do? I don't know, Iwas all screwed up with their accents or something. Anyway, thank you very much for coming. Appreciate it.