Susan Fox Rogers, editor of Antarctica: Life on the Ice, Q and A on World Hum

Susan Fox Rogers: Antarctica for ‘Dreamers and Readers’

Days after the ice claimed a cruise ship, Jim Benning asks the editor of a new Travelers’ Tales story collection about the magnetic pull of the end of the earth.
From WorldHum.com

As a child, Susan Fox Rogers read stories about Antarctica explorers Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott that sparked her imagination. In 2004-05, she spent six weeks at McMurdo Station as part of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. She went there with plans to edit a story collection that included contributions from professional writers and others who work there. The result is the new Travelers’ Tales anthology, Antarctica: Life on the Ice. It’s the 11th story collection she has edited. I dialed her up this week at her office in the Hudson River Valley—she teaches creative writing at Bard College—to ask her about the book and the allure of Antarctica.

World Hum: First off, what’d you make of the cruise ship wreck over the weekend?

Susan Fox Rogers: There are a couple of things that are really fantastic about it. Here’s this ship built specifically to go into dangerous terrain, icy waters. None of the reports say the ship was structurally weak. I don’t know much about boats but I know the technology of tracking what’s below a ship is powerful and accurate. You know what’s around you. The fact that this happened shows that the variables involved in traveling in this terrain are enormous.

And the trip was called “Spirit of Shackleton.” They got what they were looking for. These passengers must have been terrified. They didn’t know they were going to be rescued when they climbed into these boats. Shackleton’s men kept their spirits up by singing. And apparently, these cruise passengers were telling jokes to keep their spirits up. Psychology is a huge part of one’s survival there.

For the rest of the Q and A, click here.