For Jim O’Donnell, this Colorado creek’s story is, in many ways, his own

Jim O’Donnell was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado. A fifth-generation Coloradan, O’Donnell worked many years as an archaeologist before focusing on public lands protection and watershed restoration. He is the father of three children and lives in Taos, New Mexico, with his wife, Rasa. He is the author of numerous short works of fiction, countless journalistic articles and the nonfiction work “Notes for the Aurora Society: 1500 Miles on Foot Across Finland.” Learn more at: www.aroundtheworldineightyyears.com 

SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate? 

Jim O’Donnell: I grew up near the Fountain in Pueblo. As kids and later in high school we spend a lot of time along the Fountain, exploring, playing and causing trouble. So the creek has been imprinted on my mind as far back as I can remember. 

Around 1999, I had the idea to spend about a year retracing the 1806-1807 trek of Lt. Zebulon Pike from St. Louis across the plains, into Colorado, New Mexico and to Chihuahua, Mexico. Pike’s colonial expedition has fascinated me since I was a teenager and I had hoped to have a book ready for publication for the 200^th anniversary of the expedition. However, my daughter showed up. Then a son and, needless to say, all plans went right out the window. 

Later, as the COVID pandemic waned and my children grew up, the idea to retrace the route returned. I picked up Pike’s journals and began to reread them. When I returned to the part where Pike and his crew camped at the confluence of the Fountain and Arkansas River (then attempted to climb Pikes Peak) I recalled his one brief mention of the Fountain and a light bulb went on. The Fountain was the perfect combination of my fascination with history and watersheds. And even better, it was a story that was untold. I searched in vain to find any books about Fountain Creek. And there are none. It was a story waiting to be told that carries importance for how we manage Colorado and western waters into the future.

SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it? 

O’Donnell: This excerpt is the opening chapter of the book. I chose this one because I think it really helps to quickly set the scene. The location. Myself. What the place feels like and how does the author interact with the space, the water, the land. It presents the problem and, hopefully, leaves the reader wanting more. 

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SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write? 

O’Donnell: I cannot possibly express to you how much I enjoyed researching and writing this book. The first thing was to revisit my childhood haunts along the Fountain. I love being out on the land as well as in and on our priceless waterways. So before I wrote a single word, I sat down with a map and planned out a route to walk the entire length of the Fountain and as many of the Fountain’s tributaries as possible. I felt like…there was no way to tell the story of place and waters without fully immersing myself back into that landscape physically, intellectually and emotionally. And on a windy spring day, I set off from the confluence in Pueblo, walking north upstream. 

Another aspect of this was the historical research. Something I just love. For many years, I worked as an archaeologist around the American Southwest and remember the best part of that job involved the research. Looking in the past to find the pieces to the puzzle. So at the same time I was working my way up the Fountain in spurts, I was also spending a ton of time at the Pueblo library and the Pioneers Museum in Colorado Springs, digging through old files and scanning microfiche to pull together as much information about the Fountain as I could. 

The whole project was about two years of research and experience and a year writing. 

SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter? 

O’Donnell: I really struggled with how to structure the story of the Fountain. For such a little waterway, it is endlessly complex. Should the story be about my experiences along the Fountain or should it be purely a history focused take explaining how we got here? How can I let people who have never been to the Fountain feel and understand what the creek is like?

“Fountain Creek: Big Lessons from a Little River”

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These were the things I was thinking about as I walked the creek. I generally like the structure I came up with although, if I could do it over, there are some changes I’d make. So, yes, I learned a hell of a lot about the Fountain that I never knew but really, I think this book was in many ways an exploration of the craft and how we tell stories. 

SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?

O’Donnell: Always financial. And I’m sure most other writers can sympathize. There isn’t much money in this for most of us. It is a labor of love.  I’d saved up about $7,000 to help me along as I worked on the book but it easily cost me more than double that amount. I had to balance my work on the book with my jobs as a consultant and freelance writer. It really wasn’t easy, but with the support of my amazing wife, I pulled it off. 

SunLit: What’s the most important thing — a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers should take from this book? 

O’Donnell: There is no such thing as inevitability. There is no such thing as fate. Nothing is preordained. The way in which we live today results from a series of choices that were made. Choices. In turn, that renders the future wide open. We create the future through our present day choices and the future can be whatever we want it to be. Dream big and dream disruptive. 

SunLit: What is your vision for the future of Fountain Creek?

O’Donnell: This is a difficult one and my answer is going to make a number of good folks angry, I imagine. First, the whole way we relate to our waterways in the American West (and arguably around the world) really needs to change. We need to start seeing the creek as being not unlike us. We need to understand the creek as a sentient being with its own desires and personality. If we can get to that point, we can start showing the creek some respect. 

I think the Fountain and other waterways should receive legal protection and rights similar to those that people and wildlife have. Second, I feel very strongly that the Indigenous people of the Fountain watershed – the Ute, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and others – should have a powerful voice in how the Fountain is managed going forward. I don’t know how this would work exactly, but I have some ideas, perhaps a Native American advisory group within the Fountain Creek Watershed District. There are other options but either way, Indigenous voices must have a meaningful seat at the table when it comes to managing the creek.  

Finally, we are going to have to turn the Fountain loose from Colorado Springs to the confluence in Pueblo. This is going to cause a lot of short term pain so I know this idea will not sit well with water managers and landowners but the fact is that, in the long run, the best thing for the Fountain and our grandchildren will be letting the river run free and adjust to all the new water Colorado Springs has added to the system. This means ending all the restoration work south of the Springs, moving people, houses, homes and business out of the floodplain and allowing the creek to re-discover its own balance on the landscape. How we do this is open to debate. But in the long run it is the right thing to do both functionally and morally and, frankly, financially. And no, I don’t think it will actually happen. But, if we can’t dream the future, we can’t create it. 

SunLit: Tell us about your next project. 

O’Donnell: I’ve got several ideas kicking around in my head. One is a book about the Arkansas River. Another might be about America’s wet past. This continent used to be a sponge until Euro-Americans drained these vast wetlands and killed off all the beaver. I’ve got an infatuation with wetlands and so I’m cooking this idea. I also have a Colorado-based, near future climate change novel that is already written (I’ve been working on it since 2015)…but it’s just not quite right yet. I’d like to get that one nailed down and published. 

A few more quick questions

SunLit: Which do you enjoy more as you work on a book – writing or editing?

O’Donnell: Writing. The act of artistic creation is endlessly satisfying. 

SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of?

O’Donnell: In middle school sometime, I wrote a short story about an American soldier in the trenches of World War I who ended up being rescued from the war just in the nick of time by people from the future who needed this guy for some reason…I can’t even remember what the reason was at this point…but I’m sure it was something absolutely brilliant. I’ve always loved time travel stuff. 

SunLit: What three writers, from any era, would you invite over for a great discussion about literature and writing? 

O’Donnell: Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy and Bruce Chatwin. 

SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing?

O’Donnell: I don’t know who said it but it is something like this: When you write a book, you’re not writing about everything. And you’re not writing everything about something. And you’re not writing something about everything. A good book is something about something. And that’s it. 

SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?

O’Donnell: That I’m a voracious and wide-ranging reader. 

SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?

O’Donnell: This really depends where I’m at mentally and emotionally. Some days a nice soundtrack of ’90s grunge propels me forward. Other days I need brainy classical or brainless low-fi and at times, I really need pure silence. 

SunLit: What music do you listen to for sheer enjoyment?

O’Donnell: My musical tastes, like my literary tastes, are quite literally all over the map. 

SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?

O’Donnell: I don’t know. But it was early on. Elementary school. I’m sad though that it took me so many years of seeing writing as a side hobby and not a central passion before I was honest with myself and those around me what really matters to me most. 

SunLit: Greatest writing fear?

O’Donnell: Being seen as an imposter. A fake. 

SunLit: Greatest writing satisfaction?

O’Donnell: When you land on that one perfect sentence that ties it all together and makes the reader gasp.