About Me
I’m Diane Pleschner-Steele (pen name DB Pleschner). Born with an insatiable interest in the natural world and its interaction with society, I grew into a science nerd with an adventurous streak. Intrigued with environmental issues and biopolitics, I learned to dive to research and write about the sea otter vs. shellfish fisheries conflict, my first foray into the creative writing world. Sympathetic to the fishermen’s plight, I’ve traveled the West Coast to research environmental conflicts and profile the workaday lives of fishermen, to tell the rest of the story.
I’ve been involved in West Coast fishery affairs for more than 40 years, researching and writing about fisheries and environmental conflicts from Southern California to Kodiak, Alaska. From 1991 to 2003, I managed the California Seafood Council, advisory to the California Department of Food and Agriculture and a quasi-governmental group with a mission to promote and educate the public about California seafood and fisheries. Beginning in 2004 and for the nearly two decades since, I served as Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a non-profit group representing California’s largest, historic fishery complex, a group dedicated to field research.
My kaleidoscopic career envelops storytelling, communications, organization, management, marketing, grant writing and more. I’m a published feature writer/photographer and contributing editor for magazines, mainly focused on the marine environment and fisheries. I also wrote human interest stories (published to pay travel expenses for my ocean adventures.)
From fishermen to frisbee players, scientists to pro golfers, associations to businesses and more, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of breathing life into the stories of a broad spectrum of our humanity. Now, “retired” and again writing under the pen name DB Pleschner, I turn the page on a new chapter, going back to my roots in the world of creative writing – but with renewed purpose: to help you tell your story.
My goal is to help you assemble all the pieces into a compelling, cohesive and truthful, narrative.
For example, I’ve captured highlights of my life experiences in My Life:
Inspiration for this blog came from a few disparate sources: for one, a scientist friend, after hearing about some of my adventures, suggested that I should write a book. I admit my life so far has been a bit strange – far from the intentions of a preppy University of Oregon English major whose original aim was to be a copywriter, until life intervened. At a high school reunion that I attended many years ago, my long-lost classmates asked the usual question: “What do you do?” When I recounted my life – going to sea, often in small boats, to chronicle fishermen’s lives, diving with white sharks as part of my abalone research, managing a quasi-governmental seafood council and directing a non-profit industry group for a couple of decades, then moving to the country to raise and market rare Mangalitsa pigs (in my spare time—my husband does the grunt work!) – their eyes rolled. “Did you ever think you’d do all those things?” they asked. Absolutely not!
But life did intervene. I was given an opportunity to put interest into action when my then sister-in-law invited me to take an internship at KCRA TV in Sacramento, California. My job was story researcher for KCRA’s weekly magazine segment. I met the scientists involved with the Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife Field Station, went on round-ups for tule elk and big horn sheep, and learned all about the burgeoning sea otter vs. shellfish conflict. That introduction set me on the path to chronicle California fisheries.
In fact, I met my 2nd husband, a 40 year-plus sea urchin diver, first as a subject in one of my stories, then as a partner in sea otter politics. It was Bruce Steele who urged me to start posting photos of all the boats that I’ve photographed and fishermen whose stories I told over the years, as a memorial to a life and lifestyle that is fast eroding, as the old fishermen disappear. So, I’m starting this blog in response to both my biologist friend and my husband. My entries will be haphazard, stream of conscious musings, in no particular order, as I go through my voluminous archive of Kodachrome slides and recount the memories. I may also include snippets of our current life, as we strive to live sustainably within a sharply reduced carbon footprint. (Among his many assets, Bruce is a very creative chef and makes magical creations with the foodstuffs that he’s growing in our garden – including the weeds!.)
When I’m not storytelling, I enjoy helping my husband on our farm in Buellton, CA. His mission is proving that one man can produce enough food to sustain a family, and maybe a community, without using fossil fuels. Our farm operates nearly 100 percent on solar energy, and he runs an electric tractor and wheel hoe. We’re now collaborating on a how-to book: PROVING UP ~ ZERO Carbon — One farm at a time.