Call for Teaching Tips & Event Updates

HAVE YOU TAUGHT MY BOOK, BAD INDIANS: A TRIBAL MEMOIR?  My publisher Heyday Books and I are putting together a list of teaching tips for the book – actual writing assignments, discussion points, activities, critical materials – anything you’ve used successfully in to engage your students.  Field-specific ideas are welcome (for example, Women and Gender Studies, Native Studies or Literature courses, Sociology, U.S. History, Creative Writing) but we are also looking for creative “ways in” that you may have discovered or designed.  I know that many universities have assigned the book (I’ve visited and Skyped with quite a few!), but many educators have asked me for teaching materials and I thought I’d ask for contributions.  We’ll credit you on the final document, of course, and may be able to do web links as well if you have online materials.  Please email your ideas and links to Deborah.a.miranda@gmail.com (and feel free to pass this call for teaching tips around to others who might be interested) Many thanks!

Recent news for Bad Indians:

·      In Fall 2014, at UC Santa Cruz, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir was chosen as one of three texts for the Merrill Core Course (the other two were Cristina Garcia's novel Dreaming in Cuban and Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down)

·      Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir has been chosen (out of 30 nominations) as the Core Text for a new 200 person lecture seminar launched by English Department at UC Santa Barbara.  I will visit the seminar on February 24, 2015.

·      Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir was awarded a Gold Medal (Autobiography/Memoir) by the Independent Publishers Association in May 2014.

·      Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir was a semi-finalist for the William Saroyan Award in 2014.

·      Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir has been nominated for possible selection as the 2015-2016 One Campus One Book reader on the University of Central Missouri campus. An important aspect of One Campus One Book program is an author’s lecture on campus in November 2015.

·      Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir was mentioned recently in the New York Times in an article about protests of Pope Francis’ decision to canonize Junipero Serra

Upcoming Events:

I’ll be participating in “Saying Our Share: Surviving the Missions,” a two-day invitation-only symposium hosted by HeydayBooks at the Heyday Building in Berkeley on February 20-22^nd. 

On February 24^th, I’ll visit the 200-person seminar course at UC Santa Barbara to speak and read from Bad Indians.

On February 26^th I’ll take part in a poetry reading at UC Davis, and the following day I’ll be at The UC Davis’ Mellon Research Initiative “Social Justice, Culture, and (In)Security” project.  Other guests include Natalie Diaz and Alice TePunga Sommerville.

On March 2^nd, I will give the first John Lucian Smith Jr. Memorial Term Chair Lecture at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia (8:00 p.m., Northern Auditorium).

I will also be at the Associated Writer’s Program Conference in Minneapolis on April 9-11^th, signing my new poetry collection, Raised By Humans, at the Tia Chucha table in the Book Fair.  I’d love to see you, friends!