What I’m about to say is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way, especially an older generation who built their identity on the backs of a sovereignty based in contention between governments. But ultimately a shift occurred while many were sleeping, and this wasn’t something the younger generation brought about. We were […]
Read MoreSuppose 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 […]
Read MoreWe’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.
Read MoreOften 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 […]
Read MoreI’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.
Read MoreOften 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 […]
Read MoreDegrees 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?
Read MoreI’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 MoreThere 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 […]
Read MoreWhen I watch movies, I tend to watch independents. Sometimes I’ll watch the Hollywood independents, if it looks like they’re only going to modestly apply structuralism. I like to think I’m savvy. I don’t want to feel like I’m a monkey watching for bananas, which Hollywood has turned into a science. If you don’t know how […]
Read MoreThe fangs of a snake might seem to overpower the fangs of a spider, and on the surface it can appear as though the match is uneven. But we can’t forget the impulsiveness of the snake and the patience of the spider. And we must remember a black widow sits nicely on the tongue of […]
Read More“There’s not much culture in this writing,” I’ve heard students say when critiquing student work or reading the novel of a Native author. Or they’ll say, “It looks like the main character is having an identity crisis,” and it can sound dismissive, but there’s something we have to understand about most Natives: We move deep […]
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