Help to Amplify the Ohio River's Voice

My name is Will Falk . I am an attorney, author, and deeply in love with rivers. I am currently traveling with the Ohio River and writing a book tentatively-titled The Ohio River Speaks. I have been on the road for 8 weeks and my personal funds are running out. I need your help to continue traveling and writing.

In August, 2019, Homebound Publications published my potent, novella-length book How Dams Fall, which describes my relationship with the Colorado River. Derrick Jensen wrote about How Dams Fall: “If the Colorado River were to take on human manifestation, it would have written this book.” Now, I am returning home to river I was born along – the Ohio River.

Named Ohi:yo’ – “beautiful river” – by the Seneca, the Ohio River is now the United States’ most polluted river. One reason for this is the dominant culture teaches us to treat the magnificent beings we share this planet with, beings like the Ohio River, as mere objects for us to use, consume, and destroy. My book begins with a simple premise – the Ohio River truly does speak. To build a personal relationship with her, I am asking the Ohio River two questions in as many places along her banks as possible. Those two questions are: “Who are you?” and “What do you need?” I am documenting the answers the Ohio River gives me through lyrical creative nonfiction that will appeal to fans of writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Terry Tempest Williams, Annie Dillard, Derrick Jensen, and Edward Abbey.

If you’re unsure if this is a project you’d like to support, I post original content from my journey weekly on a website TheOhioRiverSpeaks .org. Check it out and see if the Ohio River speaks to you through my writing.

Water is life and for years I’ve written about, and participated in, frontline struggles to protect water. In 2014 and 2015, I travelled to the Unist’ot’en Camp , on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory, to help and write about the Unist’ot’en’s pipeline blockade which protects the pristine Wedzin Kwah (Morice River). Also, in 2015, I lived with Kanaka Maoli (native Hawaiians) on Mauna Kea at a construction blockade while writing about the need to stop the Thirty Meter Telescope project  from threatening the Big Island’s freshwater. In 2017, I helped to file the first-ever American federal lawsuit seeking rights for a major ecosystem , the Colorado River. And, beginning in early 2019, I worked on the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s (CELDF) legal team to protect the Lake Erie Bill of Rights from corporate attack.  

Any amount is deeply appreciated. If you donate $15, I will send you a digital copy of The Ohio River Speaks when it is published. If you donate $30 or more, I will send you a signed copy of The Ohio River Speaks when it is published. If you donate $100 or more, I’ll list your name in the book’s acknowledgments. Thank you very much. Your support will help me to bolster the hearts of water protectors everywhere and to amplify the Ohio River’s voice.