Underground Matriarchy: #WIP Debut Novel “Unsettled Between”

We’ve heard the reified stories of men brutalizing men. A rehearsal of patriarchy. In fact, hyper masculine bullshit permeates our lives. We see in the media, if not in our daily lives, the ramifications of patriarchy unchecked. So what’s the answer? Men are being called out now more than ever and violence continues. Wars haven’t stopped. We hear about a mass shooting in the U.S. almost everyday. In my debut novel, Unsettled Between, Ever Geimausaddle faces his own brutality with the help of an underground matriarchy.

Story Like Bonsai are Reborn through Deadlines & Transformations

Like clipping and pruning back branches on a bonsai tree. Then we wire and train those branches to spread in the appearance of organic design reflective of the natural environment, taking careful consideration and steady hands. We have to make the right decisions. I’ve been revising Unsettled Between over the last two months and it’s been a transformative process not only for the novel but for me as well.

Fourth Wall Subtleties as Tool for Liberation in Native American Context

Suppose you’re at a coffee shop and you’re telling your best friend about your workday. You’re saying so-and-so is building a case to take to human resources and will file a lawsuit soon. So-and-so has evidence of coercion and retaliation. Maybe it’s based on gender. Maybe it’s based on race. So-and-so will also file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a federal employee complaint due to implicit biases at work. Then you notice someone at the next table staring and listening with interest at all the juicy details.

Chaotic Resonance of the Echo Chamber

We’re tweeting and sharing and posting. We touch on a politically sensitive subject. And we don’t hesitate to engage in a friendly dialogue amongst community members. This is how folks learn. The back and forth sway. As we all know, a simple text exchange can quickly turn a meal of delicacies into a food fight.

Colloquial Traits in Tribal Regionalism

Often I sit here in front of this computer and think about how to capture the voice of a narrator. Voice is the darkness around the thief, his soft footsteps, and his choice of victim. There is nothing innocent about what we writers do. We’re persuasive colonizers seeking to intrude on your sensibilities. We’re convincing–softly so.

#NathanPhillips Vs. #MAGA: Are Liberals Too Weak to Defeat MAGA?

Natives watched as a liberal stronghold quickly collapsed with a simple bait and switch. How did the conservatives do it? They just repeated everything Nathan Phillips said by placing his words into their context. So why did liberals collapse so quickly? There has been an ongoing issue within the liberal community, and conservatives make the criticism often: liberals are snowflakes.

Real Life Turns Into Fiction

I’ve said this before: If you don’t want to be villain in fiction then don’t be one in real life. The beautiful thing about graduating from two different writing programs are the connections made between creative writers and journalists. We tend to be tasked with a similar challenge. How to captivate an audience.

Twitter Serves Minority Writers: Intro to New Agent & #DVpit Success

Metaphorically #DVpit becomes water. Likewise, I could say Twitter is some type of container–a canteen maybe–something tethered to your belt. Whether you’ve been slinging a sledge hammer to break rocks or ripping callouses off your hands for grip on a climb, you’re exhausted and you could use a drink. What you need is opportunity and energy to keep climbing, to keep breaking those rocks.

Twitter #DVpit & Announcements

Often we spend so much time looking down at our phones we forget to look up. I catch myself looking at the stars at night and the moving clouds in the day, realizing I’m watching them like I had when I was kid. Those were days before Reasor’s Grocery Store in Tahlequah moved from Choctaw Street to Muskogee Avenue, and back when there was a drive-in theater outside my aunt’s house on the southside of Lawton. Back then, we never looked down.

“Oh, Brawling Love. Oh, Loving Hate.”

Degrees of love in abundance, and the smallest amount of hate lingers. But it only takes a small amount of darkness to cast shadows throughout the light. But my question is this: Is it love that keeps hate in existence?

Hyperlocal Advocacy in Native American Literature

I’ve been promoting my writing on my Twitter account for a few months now. Slowly but surely I’m getting more and more engagement and I’m nearing the cusp of 9K followers, and hoping to hit the 10K plus realm within a week or so. One of my followers, and now a tried a true fan, read through each of my short stories and came up with an interesting descriptor of my writing: hyperlocal.

Tuning into the Nuances of the Void

There are two things most dangerous: apathy and stagnation. For me? The former leads to the latter. It’s a cycle of violence I’ve always struggled to overcome. It’s like when I’m gourd dancing with my family, and I’m trying to predict by cadence and rhythm the switching of the beat so I can anticipate the appropriate next move–a move which keeps me in sync with my community but ultimately with my choices.

Oscar Hokeah

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