As many of you already know, I’ve been out of the loop. Also many of you know about my debut novel. I had been promoting it on my social media constantly for months after it released in late July 2022. Then tragedy hit my family. I became distracted and consumed by my little sister’s well being. I deleted all my social media. In the last few days, I’ve had a little more time to come back to this layer of the multiverse. Guess what I stumbled upon? Lit Hub released an article in the middle of December titled “88 Writers on the Books They Loved in 2022,” and I was shocked to find Tommy Orange’s praise for my debut.
Read More »Tag: Family
Tips, Tricks, and Doodads: Watch Out for Exposition! It’s a Plot Killer!
I can’t tell you how much I hate exposition. I know hate is a strong word. But it kills my plot. There I am plotting along. Happy as can be. I love plot. Plotting along is my favorite thing to do. Then here comes “necessary info.” And in order to do my favorite thing I must engage with the thing I dislike the most.
Read More »What it Means to Write Decolonization Literature & Why Native Writers Must Not Be Silenced
The process of decolonization. We hear this a lot, and if you’ve taken a Native studies class then you’ve likely thought about this in different aspects of society. So what does this look like in literature? I’d like to take a close look at decolonization and talk about the importance of allowing people of color to bear witness on the page, to show readers what it’s like to live through sometimes brutal circumstances, and to highlight the dangers of silencing people of color in a Neo-colonial program to whitewash our experiences.
Read More »Vernacular, Agency, & Intersectionality of Language Transformation
Growing up in households where words and phrases in both Kiowa and Cherokee were spoken and mixed with English, it gave me a unique understanding of language. As my family spoke, someone could be both skaw-stee and mon’sape. Skaw-stee is a Cherokee word that means “stuck up,” and mon’sape is a Kiowa word that means “trouble maker.” Mix these words with other phrases and Indigenized English words like gaa which is the Native version of “golly,” and all of a sudden language becomes a playground of agency. Where this Kiowa/Cherokee/Mexican boy had a canvas of words to create a beautiful new symmetry.
Read More »Intro to Literary Fiction: A Native American Writer’s Reasoning Toward Episodic Novel Writing & Unfamiliar Terms in Familiar Terrain
“What do you write?” Have you heard that question before? For literary writers this question is like a grain of dirt on the ass cheek of a wild hog running through the brush in the Ozark Hills. Every time I go to answer the question I know what’s going to follow. It’s going to be another question, with a quizzical expression on the questioner’s face, asking me, “What’s literary fiction?”
Read More »Native Voices for Native Audiobook: Recording Chapters in CALLING FOR A BLANKET DANCE
I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be able to read for my debut novel. Many writers don’t get the opportunity to record for their own audiobooks. Because my novel is polyvocal and comes from the heart of tribally specific communities, Kiowa and Cherokee, I was more than happy when Algonquin Books asked me to read for the male characters in my debut. Moreover, they hired a Native actress to read for the women characters: Rainy Fields.
Read More »The Aftermath of the Final Draft: Novels
So I’m about to use this post as catharsis. I’ve done something tremendous. So momentous that it’s a little unsettling. Or maybe I’ve made it unsettling by overthinking. But I can’t help but wonder if this is a normal part of the process once a writer has submitted the final draft of her novel to an editor.
Read More »Self-Imposed Crippling Frustration Under a Wave of Social Justice Advocacy
It was Saturday night when I knew I’d smudge myself and my house with sage the next day. There had been a build up. With the media exposure of police shootings and the new energy for social justice as a response, I was caught up in the energy. But not without personal justification. Under Trump’s toxic atmosphere, my beloved Cherokee community quickly became as divisive as the rest of America.
Read More »Mexican Indian: The Shifting Indigenous Identity of Turtle Island
Call it evolution or enlightenment. Our perspective is broadening. Where we once only had the capacity to see ourselves in strict hyper local terms, now we can access the universal. In fact, both the universal and the hyper local are needed as checks and balances. In the narrow reaches of our identity, people are quick to lock themselves into violent identities–those in need of contention to exist, to be relevant, to matter. It takes a little dialectical thinking to incorporate a universal identity, where we have the intellectual capacity to, simultaneously, know how we are all connected.
Read More »The 12 Year Journey of Unsettled Between
I spend a lot of time thinking about love, and what I’m about to discuss here is in the vein of love. But a love for cohesiveness, a love that desires modalities in cooperation rather than competition. Certainly, it took the very pessimistic concepts around Baudrillard’s philosophy to engender my thoughts on this subject. But without Baudrillard I would’ve never reached this conclusive ending: competition is a mere copy of a copy. I hear you asking “So then what’s the original source?” My answer: inspiration.
Oscar Hokeah 