(Above: Cai Emmons’ new book, Weather Woman, contemplates the capabilities and ethics of altering weather; photos by Randi Bjornstad

By Randi Bjornstad

Think of all the terrible weather events that have been going on lately — massive floods in the Midwest that wash out farmers’ crops and inundate houses and towns with mud-laden water, mile-wide tornadoes  in the Southeast that obliterate everything in their paths, wildfires that destroy whole communities and take away lives that can’t outrun them — and then wonder what it would be like if you or some other superhero in our midst had the power to stop all that weather in its tracks before it caused all that deviltry.

That’s the basic premise of Eugene author Cai Emmons’ latest book, Weather Woman, about a young woman named Bronwyn Artair, who works as a TV weather reporter and gradually comes to realize that she has exactly that power.

First, almost just by thinking it, she rescues the wedding of a young colleague from being ruined by rain. Later, she finds she can stop a meteorological phalanx of tornadoes from hitting ground and destroying a community.

That, of course, sets up a lot of questions. Not only is it a heavy responsibility, but where do the ethics of it fit in? What is the justification for one person to exercise that kind of power? And where does the responsibility to interfere begin and end?

“When I set out to write Weather Woman, I didn’t start out with the idea of writing about climate change, just about this power to affect weather and the empowerment of this woman to do it,” Emmons said. “By the time I finished the book, I knew that it had more to do with examining the responsibility that she has to act when the whole world is experiencing such trouble.”

Her book doesn’t proclaim on the looming calamity of climate change and exhort people everywhere to do everything they can to forestall it, but the concept, however subliminal, nonetheless hovers in the background.

“A good novel poses questions, but it doesn’t preach,” Emmons said. “I like to write something that people can read and think about — and even argue about — afterward.”

Writing Weather Woman meant studying up on several branches of science, including physics, neurobiology, and meteorology, all subjects that Emmons wasn’t necessarily well-versed in before, either by way of academics or vast personal experience.

Always a writer

Cai Emmons grew up in the Boston area, then lived in Connecticut, where she graduated from Yale University, followed by New York, where she did a master’s degree in film writing and editing at New York University. She married and moved with her then-husband, also a film writer, to southern California, where his mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and needed care. Eventually, the couple divorced.

By then Emmons had begun to write fiction. She enrolled at the University of Oregon, where she completed a master’s of fine arts in writing and became an adjunct instructor in the program, a position she recently resigned after nearly 20 years.

Her first novel was His Mother’s Son, which won an Oregon Book Award, followed by The Stylist, which featured a transgender main character, and now Weather Woman. She also has written a collection of short stories, Vanishing, which won a writing competition and will be published in March 2020.

Now Emmons is working on a sequel to Weather Woman called Sinking Islands, and has yet another book, Hair on Fire, in progress.

“When I finished Weather Woman, I had the feeling that I wasn’t done yet,” she said. “There were characters in the book who seemed to have more to say, and there were things in the plot that still seemed to have need for more examination.”

She doesn’t remember feeling born to write, although when she was about 8 years old, she remembers making a poetry book for her parents.

“And at age 9, I had a wonderful teacher who had us do daily compositions,” Emmons said. “His name was Mr. Stefan Vogel.”

Decades later, while attending an Oregon Book Award event, she met another author, Helen Vogel Frederick, who had a young adult book in the competition.

“I asked her about her name, and it turned out that she was my teacher Mr. Vogel’s daughter,” Emmons said. “That was such a wonderful coincidence — I think we exchanged a few email messages after that.”

In fact, she’s thinking now about dedicating Hair on Fire to Mr. Vogel and at least two playwrights who helped guide her to a career as a writer, “because I I think people don’t express often enough how grateful they are to others who have influenced them in such a positive way.”

Unusual writing habit

Author Cai Emmons still prefers to write her drafts on lined notebook paper with a ballpoint pen, sitting on her bed instead of at a computer desk

When it comes to the mechanics of writing, Emmons is a throwback to an era preceding the computer age.

Asked where she does her writing, she leads the way to her bedroom, its walls lined with bookcases and pretty much every surface covered with written materials. She plumps up the bed pillows, curls up on a bedspread covered with a riot of richly colored flowers and whimsical goat-like creatures.

Then Emmons picks up a sheaf of lined notebook paper and a ballpoint pen and begins to write.

“I always write longhand,” she said. “My brain works differently that way than if I just type it. But I realize that there are some inefficiencies in the way I do things.”

When she does transfer her written words to the computer page, “I try to type it in at first without changing things too much, but then I go back and change all the things that I noticed as I was typing. I try to do that process a chapter or two at a time.”

Her life partner, Paul Calendrino, also is a writer, of technical materials and plays.

Both being writers “works well for us,” Emmons said. “We read each other’s work, but what we do is different enough that there is no competition aspect. He’s always my first reader, and we always brainstorm ideas for each other’s projects.

“On weekend mornings, we wake up and talk about writing — and politics, of course,” she laughed. “It’s great.”

Weather Woman is available locally at Black Sun Books, J Michaels Books, and Tsunami Books

Author talk by Cai Emmons on Weather Woman

When: 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 22

Where: Eugene Public Library, downtown location, 100 W. 10th Ave.

Details: Author Cai Emmons talks about her latest novel, Weather Woman, in which a TV meteorologist discovers she has the power to change the weather. As a woman experiencing power for the first time in her life, she struggles to figure out what she can do for the world without hurting it further. This compelling story poses questions about science and intuition, women and power, and what the earth needs from humans.

Admission: Free.

Information: email cai8@comcast.net

Unlike many modern writers, Cai Emmons still prefers to use lined notebook paper and a ballpoint pen