On the Road Again

We're still April snow-showering here in Lexington, but it's time for BAD INDIANS to get back on the road.  Here's the April schedule. All but the UCLA reading are open to the public, so I'd be happy to see friends, family, and anyone with an interest in Bad Indians along the way.

Monday April 8^th: Syracuse University.  Jackie Cuevas’s afternoon classes, 2:15-3:35 and 3:45-5:05

Thursday April 11^th: reading at SUNY Oneonta. 7:30 p.m., Morris Conference Center, Craven Lounge.  Susan Bernardin.

Saturday April 13^th:  Reading at Tia Chucha’s 6:30 p.m., 13197 Gladstone Ave  Sylmar, CA 91342

Monday April 15^th: Cabrillo College, Aptos CA. 6-9 p.m.  Stan Rushforth.

Tuesday April 16^th:  Reading at UCLA (for UCLA faculty & students only), 12:30-1:45 p.m.  2209A Bunche Hall.  Rebecca Rosser.

Thursday April 18^th: Salinas Public Library, Salinas CA.  John Steinbeck Library, 6 p.m.  

Saturday April 20^th:  LATimes Festival of the Book.  For much of the LATFOB, I'll be hanging out at Heyday's table - come find me!

Sunday April 21^st: LATFOB.  I'm reading 10:30 - 11 a.m., in the Kaya Press: SMOKIN' HOT LIT LOUNGE, Booth 380.  

Hidden Histories, Lacunae, and more Bad Indians: My Next Big Thing

WENDY CALL (photo by Kathy Cowell)

Many moons ago (okay, back in January, when this weary year was still new), author Wendy Call tapped me to do a “The Next Big Thing” blog.  You can read about Wendy’s blog post on her blog, Many Words for Welcome.  

Being ‘tapped’ consists of answering a series of questions about one’s next writing project, and tapping four other writers to do the same.  It requires a blog, time, and at least half a brain’s worth of inspiration.  Until now, I have not had all three of those key ingredients at the same time, but here I am, waiting for my granddaughter’s birth, and working on my project at a local coffee shop!  What better time to tackle these questions, and tap some authors?  I’ll let you know who I ask to answer the questions next!

What is the working title of your book?

The Hidden Stories of Isabel Meadows and other California Indian Lacunae.  This was a title suggested by my esteemed editor at U of Nebraska Press, Matt Bokovoy.  I like the words “hidden” and “lacunae” for their implications of things that are obscured, possibly lost, but still haunting us with very real power. 

What is the origin of this book idea?

As I worked to put together all the pieces of Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, I realized that two big, long essays about a few of the Isabel Meadows stories found in J.P. Harrington’s ethnographic notes were just not ever, ever going to fit into the manuscript.  No matter how many ways I tried to squeeze them in, no matter what I did, those two essays – which are about the same people in the rest of Bad Indians – simply did not belong.  It took a long time to convince myself of this, because I loved those essays, I loved the Indians in those stories.  It’s pretty funny that it took me so long to finally admit that they didn’t belong in Bad Indians, but only about 2 seconds after that to think, “Hey, this is a whole ‘nother book!”  So I guess in a way you could sub-subtitle this book “Spawn of Bad Indians.”  There’s even a third book that has emerged out of this one – a biography of Isabel Meadows.  I’ve created a monster.

What genre does your book fall under?
Ha!  This one is comprised mostly of personal/historic/academic essay.  No poetry, not too many images.  Where it will be placed in bookstores is beyond me.  No doubt in the Native American Lit section, but also anthropology, ethnology, history, creative non-fiction, possibly memoir …

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

This isn’t fiction, and the narrative is narrowly focused on analysis of how Isabel’s stories reveal more about California Indian strategies of resistance to Missionization.  However … I think Isabel’s biography, my NEXT book, would make an excellent movie.  I have no idea who would play her, though.  Some really fierce, smart, tough broad.  Thanks for giving me the chance to think ahead on this one.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Little-known narratives of a pistol-packing mixed-blood maiden Indian Aunt reveals a deeply indigenous method of storytelling as incisive cultural analysis, teaching tool, historical revision and preservation of a Coyote intelligence.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’ll tell you when I get that far.  So far, if you count the two essays I wrote while finishing Bad Indians, about 5 years.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Without a doubt, Isabel Meadows.  The more I read her stories, the more I realize what a phenomenal woman she was: technically illiterate, but a craftswoman of storytelling, surviving, and preserving the heart and soul of her mother’s people.  When I began to really study her stories, I became infuriated that J.P. Harrington gets all the credit for them!  These stories are not his ethnographic notes; they are stories that she graced him with as part of her own strategy to reach future Indian generations.  I want to set that record straight.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

These are many of the same people who appear in small pieces, poems or photographs in Bad Indians, plus others; the book is a much more linear effort to stitch the small pieces together into cohesive threads and see the larger picture of individual lives.  Why did Teodosia throw a pan of hot coals into her husband Ventura’s face, blinding him?  Why did she take him back at the end of his life?  Why is it that I am descended from Padre Real?  Whatever happened to my cousin Victor, identified as a “joto” (faggot)?  What’s the real story behind Bradley Sargent stealing Rancho El Potrero from Estafana, and was her Chilean husband really just in Sargent’s back pocket?  Plus, Hidden Stories is an extension of the idea that bad Indians make good Ancestors, and without good Ancestors, I wouldn’t be here. 

Isabel as a young, well-to-do mixed-blood Indian woman.

One of Isabel's stories; this one is about a young girl named Vicenta who is raped by Padre Real.

Isabel as an elderly Indian woman living in Washington D.C., working for Harrington.  She sent home most of her pay to help raise nieces and nephews, and care for her brother Thomas Meadows.  The family had long since lost their land in a drawn-out, painful legal battle with Isabel's older brother, Frank.  That's a story worthy of a novel!

Melinda Palacio: A Conversation with Deborah Miranda

Luis Rodriguez (author of Always Running, It Calls You Back and more) with me and Melinda Palacio at the AWP Book Fair.  We took over the Tia Chucha/Scapegoat Press table!

Melinda and I met at AWP in Denver, but we didn't really talk until spending hours together at the recent AWP conference in Boston.  Both of us were hawking new books, but had plenty of time to visit.

As a result of our time together, Melinda emailed me a set of interview questions recently, and they have been posted at La Bloga.  It never fails to amaze me that each time I do an interview like this, the questions are so different, and elicit such different kinds of reflection on my part.


Melinda's new book, How Fire is a Story, Waiting is rich with imagery.  Lines from this book come back to me even weeks after I finished it ... truly, worth your time.  No less than Juan Felipe Herrera - California Poet Laureate - has written that "Palacio’s work is expansive, physical, funeral-wet, elevated, funny, existential, woman-story, jazzy and Pachukona. She is unafraid to dive head-on into questions of death, loss and self. Into the fiery entwined spikes of father-daughter estrangements, mother-daughter intimacies and most of all, she is “insomniac” bold in this volume as an ongoing sequence on self. Melinda’s collection has Bop and “swagger,” lingo, song, denuncia, compassion and wild, unexpected turns– all the key ingredients and hard-won practices of a poet (and shaman) in command of her powers. I don’t think there is anything like this book. ¡Brillantissima!"

Melinda's first book was Ocotillo Dreams, which has also earned great praise. Visit Melinda at www.melindapalacio.com to find out more about her work and her reading schedule.  She is one busy woman!  I very much appreciate that she took the time to interview me, and am currently scheming to get her on a campus visit to Washington and Lee next year.

DONNA MISCOLTA'S INTERVIEW WITH DEBORAH MIRANDA

Donna Miscolta, author of When the de la Cruz Family Danced, sent me some interview questions that really made me think about what was going on inside my head, and my world, while writing Bad Indians.  Check out the interview on her blog, and while you're at it, her own exquisite writing.

In the Beginning

I’m seven years old.

I sit down to write my first story:  How the John Rabbit Familys Lived in the Tall Grass.

The plural is important, as you will see.

Once upon a time in the wild wilderness in the tall grass a baby rabbit was born.  It was white with a little tail and a light pink nose.  Its mother was white and black and the father was gray.  Their eyes were red and they sparkled in the dark.

Colors are clearly important to me.  I add a baby brother rabbit, gray with a black nose.  The whole nuclear family thing makes me happy.  But …

Then in a year it was rabbit season and the mother and father had to leave the baby rabbits.

Next come words that I know never appeared in my school vocabulary list: scared, dangerous, rough, sad, hid, shot.  Phrases like there were few of them left. 

I don’t know the word “survivor” yet.

I do, however, have some idea how to survive.

…it was mateing time and they didn’t want to leave each other, so they chose mates and had their babies. 

And life is good again, especially if we overlook the incestuous nature necessitated by rabbit massacre.  They didn’t want to leave each other.  Who can blame them? 

I know one thing for sure: never let go of anyone.

The rabbit siblings become Father and Mother rabbit to a brood of four babies who learn early how to forage: when they were two months old they got their own food but their mother and father were still with them…they liked their home in the tall grass.

My seven-year-old self knows about seasons:  Then it started to hail and the rabbits started to look for food because when it hailed it would snow the next morning.

I know how to make grocery lists:  They had 8 carrots, 8 bushes of grapes, nine piles of grass and a tin can of water. 

I know about the importance of a home:  Father rabbit went to look for shelter…he found shelter in a nearby cave with hay on the bottom to sleep on.

I even seem to know that life is hard on parents.  My rabbit family waits out the heavy snow in their snug cave, and surprise!  the next day is Christmas Eve.  I was hoping you wouldn’t ask, Father rabbit tells the kids when they inquire about the holiday.  Clearly the guy is feeling the weight of responsibility. 

Still, the little rabbits receive decent, if sadly gendered, presents: “I got a sling shot.”  “I got a little dolly.”  “I got a toy gun.”  “Let’s play dolls.”  “Let’s play war.” 

Predictability ranks pretty high in my seven year old world.

I make certain that Mother rabbit is very resourceful.  She takes good care of Zelda when the little rabbit catches cold:  Mother gave her most of the food and some water.  Then she covered her up with hay to keep her warm.  Later, in the Christmas Eve scene, Mother made sure no one was hungry, thirsty or sick, then she went to get the tree. 

Mother rabbit also makes everyone go out to play when the snow melts, which makes the baby rabbits cry.  Father rabbit is very stern. Go outside or you can not have any food.  Since it is also little Dan’s birthday, Father rabbit wants to give Dan 1 swat and a pinch to grow an inch, but no presents because its too close to Christmas.  Now if youre going to cry get to bed, Father rabbit tells poor sniveling Dan.  Dan chooses to play outside. 

Good sport, says Father rabbit.  Evidently I have clear ideas about fathers and crying.

Then come more words a seven-year-old shouldn’t know so casually. 

Rabbit season again. 

They stayed together but five got wounded and soon died. 

And father rabbit was the only one left.

Like a good survivor, Father rabbit quickly remarries and raises up five more rabbit children.  Father rabbit told them he was the only one left in his family.  Alice, his new mate, asks, What did you name your other babys?  and Father rabbit reels off the names of the dead in a loving litany.  Then tells them, We better get to sleep, its going to be a rough day. 

Uh-oh.  Is it rabbit season again?

But no, I'm the writer of this story.  I may be only seven years old, but I’ve had it with this murderous universe these poor rabbits find themselves in.  I know how to fix things.   

When they awoke they were in a strange place.  “it's a house” said father rabbit. A little human girl arrives and gives them all the feed and water they wanted. 

They are saved!  No more living in the wild wilderness of the outside world.  No more rabbit season, guns, hunting.  No more dead, missing or wounded children and parents.

They were very happy to be with the little girl, I write on the last page, and they lived happily ever after.  THE END.

This story marks the first time I ever used written words to save myself.  This story marks the first time I wrote down what had happened to me, and how much I wanted to be rescued. 

Forty-four years later, I finger these yellowing pages, the faded pencil on blue lines, the bright green yarn stitching the pages into my first book.  I have to smile.  There is no manly prince galloping up on his horse.  Father rabbit does not slay the rabbit hunters or lead his family to safety.  Mother rabbit does not sacrifice herself for the sake of her children, or if she does, it doesn’t work. 

No. 

As the author of this story, I’m seven years old, but I already know about genocide, abandonment, disappeared parents, hunger, hiding, tough love and a deep craving for home.  I’m seven years old and already I know how to trade independence for domesticity, wildness for the assurance of food, water and a nice cage (a temporary solution that will give me some serious issues with men and marriage later in life).

I’m seven years old.  My father, descendent of indigenous peoples ruthlessly diminished from one million to a few thousand, lives in a distant place called San Quentin not far from the missions that incarcerated our ancestors.  My four sisters from his first marriage have dropped off the face of the earth, though I can recite all their names.  My mother-who-disappeared-for-a-year has eventually returned; I’m still watching her every move to make sure she doesn’t run off again.  My two older siblings from her first marriage have been left behind in a foster home in California.  Once a year, my mother sobs over photographs of the baby girl who died from neglect.  My step-father moves us from one ramshackle trailer to the next as he patches together part-time jobs.  We can’t always pay the electric bill or fill the propane tanks.  We eat a lot of rice, beans, and USDA commodity food from the food bank.  I bounce from school to school, always a little behind everyone else, never on the same page of the reader or arithmetic book.

Notice that my rabbits form and re-form nuclear families, name their babies, celebrate holidays and birthdays, yet the concept of formal education is never mentioned?  School is not a friendly force for good in my life.  Yet.

But I'm seven years old and I’ve just figured out something enormous:  the alphabet is my friend.  Spelling may be tricky, writing may cramp my hand and teachers insist that my pencil grip is all wrong, but the alphabet makes me powerful in ways nothing else can.  Pencil and paper are my tools.  Words are my weapons.

Looking back at this story, I see it:  that little girl is going to use this alphabet to write her own way out of civilization.

January 2013 Book Tour: California, Oregon, Ohio

It was a first for me:  an extended road trip/book tour, 15 different events in 16 days, taking me from Lexington Virginia to California, Oregon, Ohio, and back to Lexington.  Thanks to the many folks whose hard work, planning and good will made it a success!  Here is a brief and incomplete photographic scrapbook:

1.  January 16, 2013:  Reading at Washington and Lee, in Hillel House, with colleagues, friends, and Margo.  Photos courtesy of Patrick Hinely, W&L photographer!  Looking at these pictures of myself, I see a happy woman.  Is that what it looks like when the Ancestors are shining through me?

This is what a well-funded Native American academic looks like!  Thanks, Washington and Lee University!  And thank you to my colleagues, friends and students who came out to hear me, especially after listening to me talk about this book for oh, maybe 10 years.  That's real dedication, folks.  Give yourselves a hand.

2.  The next morning I hopped on an Oakland-bound plane in Roanoke, taking off around 5:30 a.m.  Westbound travel is a tough start, but it's sooooo nice to arrive on the West coast with an "extra" 3 hours!  Time enough to rent a car at the Oakland Airport, get lost (my GPS was willing to switch over to California, but not willing to give up the 'no freeway' command), find my hotel in San Francisco, check in, change clothes, and still make it to my 6 p.m. reading at the California Historical Society.  A terrific audience, lots of great conversations, and afterwards, dinner with Lindsie Bear and Malcolm Margolin of Heyday, and an unforgettable walk through the Tenderloin to my hotel with two very faithful escorts.

Some of the things I saw that night will never leave me.  A man making his bed on the sidewalk.  Not off to the side or in a doorway: but right in the middle of the sidewalk.  Communities living in cardboard boxes.  The line outside a homeless shelter going around the block.  Stepping carefully over a woman's legs as she sat against the wall with her pit bull asleep at her side.  The smell of cigarettes, spilled wine, urine, salt air and dampness.  The next morning, I woke to my yellow orchids from Malcolm and Lindsie dancing in the sun like little whirling Sufi dervishes.

 

 3.  A day of rest, much welcomed after 2 events 3000 miles apart.  I woke to a beautiful sunrise over the Tenderloin District.

Coffee and a shower were followed by the keeping of a promise: I had allowed myself to be 'auctioned off' as a Heyday fundraiser, and so was teaching a writing workshop for ten of Heyday's supporters at a house out in Mill Valley.  I was delighted to discover that getting to this site was a treat in itself:

walking down to Market St. and catching a trolley to the Ferry Building down on the Embarcadero

Discovering it was the Saturday Farmer's Market ...

buying a small, gluten-free quiche for my breakfast and eating it outside on a bench under the clock tower and crisp blue skies...

then a sweet ferry ride out to Sausalito ...

and a drive up into the redwoods to our host's home near Mt. Tamalpais.

...and a wonderful writing workshop with a group of women who came bearing notebooks, pens, laptops, and FOOD!  Delicious potluck lunch, followed by lots of hot tea and some deep, serious, free writes in the shadow of those towering redwoods and that mountain that looks like a sleeping lady.  I have several poem starts from that workshop, and was witness to some beautiful images.  

What a wonderful group of women writers!  Thank you Marina, Susana, Susan, Kyle, Joan, Laura, Leanne, Lauren and Nancy!

Collage of indispensable items so far:  printed itinerary, Luna bars (never travel without food), ferry schedule, SF street map, hotel room key, abalone necklace for good luck and oh yeah - THE BOOK!

4.  From San Francisco, I drove to my sister's house in San Jose.  Louise always has a bedroom ready for me.  It was so good to talk over family and tribal business, eat the good food she cooks, and sleep, sleep sleep!

Louise accompanied me to UC Santa Cruz for a reading and a class visit, taking photos, selling books, and filling in the gaps during Q and A - a 2fer of Miranda sisters!  My hosts - Carolyn Dunn and Amy Lonetree, along with their colleague Renya Ramirez (on sabbatical), have midwifed Bad Indians through the long years of its incubation, and it was a real homecoming to deliver the whole book in their presence.  What a treat to have Scott Morgenson in the audience, too, on a visit to his old stomping grounds, and to meet Lisbeth Haas (Pablo Tac: Indigenous Scholar) for the first time - her book has meant so much to me.  Beth took Louise and me out to dinner that evening, and talking California missions with her was pretty dang cool.

Signing a book for Renya Ramirez and Yvonne S.

Carolyn Dunn

The Sun!  The Sun!

Swilling that pink lemonade that felt so good on my dry throat...

Presentation of Bad Indians to students & faculty

My Grand-niece, Alex, drove from Sacramento to be there!

Louise J. Miranda Ramirez mans the book table armed with my iPad and a "Square" swiper - a blessing for authors on a book tour.

5.  The next day, Louise and I went back to UC Santa Cruz campus (we'd spent the night at the SC Best Western, where - amidst the Surfer Decor - we'd had to sign a "NO PARTYING" contract!), where I gave a PowerPoint lecture/reading about the history of the California missions to Jon Daehnke's class.  Afterwards, we had lunch with students and faculty at the Ethnic Cultural Center.  Good food, hard questions from students, heart-felt conversations about writing, teaching, grad school, the politics of being a passionate person of color, the challenges of claiming a Two-Spirit identity, and always, always, mutual expressions of admiration and respect.  I hope that these students keep in touch with me.

Awesome UCSC students and faculty!!!  Thank you for your generous hearts.

And, as an added treat - seen at the UCSC Bookstore:

How Fire is a Story, Waiting by Melinda Palacio!  It almost like seeing Melinda herself!

6.  After another night at Hotel Louise & Ernie in San Jose, I drove to Berkeley for the Pegasus Bookstore reading that Lindsie Bear was so helpful in setting up!  Pegasus is the kind of bookstore I would have hung around as an undergrad - full of cool poetry, literature, ethnic studies and art books that make you just want to live in the stacks.  It was a 7:30 p.m. reading, a beautiful rainy evening in Berkeley.

Bad Indians in some good company.

The audience was lovely!  I was thrilled to find authors and Macondistas Leslie Larson (Slipstream and Breaking Out of Bedlam) and partner Carla Trujillo (What Night Brings, Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About) in attendance, along with dear friends Keiko Lane (from long-ago Flight of the Mind Writing Workshops for Women at McKenzie Bridge, Oregon) and partner Lisa Denenham, as well as Beverly Slapin.  Not to be outdone, my sister Louise's heart-sister Char came too, and brought her two sons, young Indian men, with her.  It was an incredible evening of camaraderie.  Afterwards, as I packed up to leave and most everyone had already gone home, I paused to chat with the folks at the counter, and left them a pile of Bad Indian postcards.  A woman who had just entered the bookstore asked me about them, then about the book, then proceeded to buy one, tell me she teaches at Mills College, and planned to use Bad Indians in her classroom!  I continue to be amazed at the power of author sales.  I've sold copies of Bad Indians on planes, to taxi drivers, practically to random strangers.  Those are the sales I really remember.  I've also left copies for hotel maids and waitresses.  It's that kind of book.

(not my photo; too rainy that day to get a good picture)

I stayed that night at the French Hotel in Berkeley - a very European-style hotel over their own coffee shop, with a tiny balconey, basic bed and bath, and just a few blocks from Pegasus.  I wish I hadn't been so tired; I could have sat in the cafe and sipped coffee for hours the next morning!  One of the owners greeted me with such helpful advice, and the other owner checked me out with a gracious invitation to come stay again.  This is not a boutique hotel - it's plenty lived in, got lots of charisma and more than a few miles on it - but it is right downtown Berkeley and rich with characters.  I loved it.

7.  And then in the morning, back into the car, back onto the freeway, and back to San Jose to tape a session of Native TV with host Rose Amador (click here to watch this episode).  By this time, I have to admit, the cold that had been chasing me since about day 3 was coming in for the kill, and I was dragging the whole way in pouring rain.  Thank goodness for GPS, which took me only a little off track before finding the studio, and for the kind crew on the set who found me a cup of tea, put makeup on me, arranged my microphone, and made me feel more than welcome.  Since my mom worked at KOMO-TV in Seattle for over 20 years, being back in a TV station and behind the scenes felt very familiar.  Being in front of the camera, not so much!  The following photos are courtesy of Native TV.

Rose Amador preps me for the show.

Donna Wallach gets the mike to stick!

Lori Ramos Ehrlich was very concerned about my innate shiny-ness. 

Ah, the control room!  This was where I liked to hang out with my mom at KOMO-TV.

8.  

Back over to Louise's house for lunch and a nice rest, then into the car again for a not-too-rainy drive down to Cal State University at Monterey Bay for a reading in the evening.  Here, my voice really started to get ragged.  But a nice mango-orange smoothie from the Starbucks in the Student Center got me through!  Thanks to Tim Bill, who invited me, and to the students and other visitors who attended and with whom I had great conversations with afterwards.  How amazing and strange it was to read about events involving my ancestors while standing on the very ground where much of those events happened...

photos by Louise J. Miranda Ramirez

 9.   
Spent that night in San Jose with Louise and Ernie, and drove up to San Francisco around noon to check into my hotel and get ready for the evening's "Journeys of the Spirit" reading at The Women's Building with Kim Shuck, Indira Allegra, Jewell Gomez, and devorah major.  I have long wanted to see this building in person, and it was simply stunning.  I didn't take these photos, because it was just a little too dark; instead, I've gathered them from websites about the mural project.  This must be one of the most gorgeous, most beloved buildings in the world.  It's a Goddess of a building.  And we got to read in it!

This has to be the most responsive, enthusiastic, loving audience I've ever read for.  What an appreciative audience, all kinds of great gasps and ahs and oohs and mmmms for all of us!  It was like having sound effects to the poetry.  This was especially nice for me: I'm still learning how to read with  my reading glasses on, which means when I glance up to make contact with the audience, I really can't see anyone's face.  The little coo's and aw's really helped! (photo thanks to Lillian Fleer of Heyday)

Indira and Jewelle (from a previous gathering - photo by Kima Jones.  Due to a transportation mix-up, I was late to the reading, and missed all the pre-event schmoozing.  Afterwards, we had only ten minutes for visiting before the building got locked up!  So, I've borrowed photos of my sister readers just  so readers can see their beautiful faces here.

Kim Shuck

devorah major

 

10.  Next day it was a short drive to Oakland, where I crashed for the afternoon at the home of Keiko and Lisa, dear friends who were off to a birthday party and left me to their sunny, peaceful home.  I napped, drank more of Beverly's cough syrup, and by 4:00, I was ready for the reading at Oakland Genealogical Society - a place I'm pretty sure my mother must have gone on her research travels, and where my old friend Ellen Sacco-Fernandez, whom I met at least ten years ago at the NEA seminar at Evergreen State College, is now on the Board.  Now these were people after my own heart - folks deeply immersed in the lives of their ancestors.  And way more people showed up than Ellen anticipated.  Two women said they saw the  notice on the Heyday website, my cousin Arleen and her wife Pam came, one young professor I'd met at MLA a few years ago who had my chapbook & wanted to see the whole book - and she brought 2 students, at least, with her.  Three or four members of CGS.  Beverly.  Ellen's husband Tom.  A few others.  A great audience, more like a class.  I read for an hour.  Then Q and A for another hour. These are my peeps!  Genealogy Geeks Unite!  By the time it was all over, my poor voice was truly shot.  I crept out to the parking lot, got into my rented Jeep monster, and drove back to Keiko and Lisa's.  Those dear friends fed me hot, precious Pho, made me more Throat Coat Tea, and tucked me into bed with an electric blanket.  But you know what?  Being sick didn't matter to me.  I had felt, once again during that reading at CGS, the Ancestors with me, lifting me.  They had been with me the whole trip, even when I was at my lowest.  And that's the whole point: love, pride, gratitude for the Ancestors.

Me and my Chumash cousin, Arleen.  She brought her genealogy so we could see where we're related!

I snuck this picture before everyone had arrived.  By the time I got going, we'd had to borrow chairs from another room.  Way to go, Ellen!  (that's her on the far right)

Collage for the end of this part of the trip: business cards from audience members at The Women's Building reading; a book by devorah major that I swapped a Bad Indians for; hankerchief of dried sage from the Native Voice TV crew; post cards, sweet note and card from Ellen with an honorarium I'm almost completely sure came out of her own pocket; and of course, Black Elderberry tincture for my cold (thanks Beverly!).  Don't leave home without it.

11, 12 & 13.  After a deep sleep, I woke to a lovely breakfast of hot oatmeal and coffee (thank you Lisa!!) and hugs all around before leaving for the Oakland Airport.  Saying goodbye to my rental, I caught my flight to Portland Oregon.  Rented another car, not nearly as much fun as the Jeep, to drive down to OSU in Corvallis.  I read three times there:  once at the Long House, followed immediately by a 2 hour visit to Qwo-Li's Queer Theory Lit class; and once for Margaret

--> Mathewson’s Contemporary Native American Issues class the next day.  

My son, Danny Miller, took the train down to Salem from Seattle, visited with a buddy of his, then caught a ride over to meet me at my hotel.  It all went smoothly!  How good to see him again!  He still looks 12 years old to me, but he's really 23, and quite the grown up.  He's working this year before starting grad school, but business is slow at the Space Needle in January, so we were able to squeeze in this visit.  This really cheered me up!  Danny also took these photos of the reading at the Long House on OSU campus for me.

Me with  my friend and OSU host, Qwo-Li Driskill.

The Long House is brand new - this was one of the first events - and this totem pole was an incredible presence.

A collage of my OSU visit: throat lozenges, Osha Root cough meds, a beautiful basket woven by Qwo-Li, plane ticket, the necklace Margo made for Qwo, and book marks made by my sister Louise.  It really does take a village to care for a poet.

Danny and I drove up to Portland together, and I dropped him off at the Amtrak Station.  He was heading back home to Seattle, and I was catching a plane to Ohio for a visit with Janet McAdams at Kenyon College.  It was hard to say goodbye to my boy.  He's such a kind, strong, smart person - we had some great conversations in our room and in the car (before he fell asleep, as he always does).

Yes, I'm cheating.  This is Danny two years ago on a visit to Virginia.  I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of us together.  This will publicly embarrass me enough to not forget next time, I hope.

 14 & 15.  By the time I hit Columbus, Ohio, I was actually feeling better.  Maybe it was seeing my Danny, or hanging out with the awesome students at OSU; maybe it was just time for the cold to exit, stage left.  And from here on out, the trip seemed much easier.  Probably that was because I left my rental car in Portland and from there on out, I was cared for every step of the way.  Someone else flew the plane, a driver met me at the airport and drove me the hour to Kenyon (I slept, like Danny, most of the way); and my host, Janet McAdams, made sure I had rides the whole time I was there.  The best part was staying at Janet's house in her luxurious Poet's Apartment downstairs; even when the power went out for the entire second night, we were snug and cozy!  Of course, part of that may have been the furry presence of Durga, Janet's dog, who snuck down to my bed ...

I read here ...

I took few photos at Kenyon - you could tell it was the end of the trip.  Stole this one of Janet from the KC website.

One of Janet's gifted students made this poster - accidentally choosing one of the "Kids on Pony" photos from the blog instead of the book cover, but we decided we all liked it (and the kid is now a former colleague of Janet's, so it all worked out)

My second day at Kenyon, Janet and I met up with GLBTQ students for a discussion of Sovereign Erotics, as well as my article on the gendercide of the joyas in California.  Several faculty members came too, and a former W&L professor who is now retired!  

Ohio was cold, it snowed a bit; the little village of Gambier lost power one night, but Janet's house stayed nice and warm.  We walked Durga, drank a lot of scrumptious tea that Janet provided, talked, went out for great meals with good people, and had a terrific time.  In fact, I can't wait to go back and visit Janet again - I miss her warm and wise presence!  

So that was my amazing journey - and one from which I am still recovering.  Getting a cold while on a book tour must be part of the dues writers must pay; it helps a LOT to have good friends along the way who ply you with herbal remedies, pho, hot tea, warm beds and snuggly dogs (thanks, Ollie and Durga!).  It was an adventure, especially for someone like me, who never really travelled until well into my 30s; hotels, rental cars, plane rides and restaurants are still big thrills for a kid from the trailer park.  I felt so lucky to have this book out, and the way people have helped me welcome Bad Indians into the world has been one big gift.  Thank you, everyone - and now ... on to March and April!

I'll be traveling to:

Boston for the AWP (signing books and manning the booth for Scapegoat Press), Charlottesville VA for the Virginia Festival of the Book (with Karenne Woods and Allison Hedge Coke), to Minnesota for the Native American Literature Symposium at Mystic Lake Casino, SUNY Syracuse to visit Jax Cuevas's classes, SUNY Oneonta with Susan Bernardin, then out to L.A. to read at Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural and Bookstore, Cabrillo College in Aptos, UCLA, the Salinas Public Library, and the Los Angeles Book Festival (where, if I don't get invited to read, you can find me haunting the Heyday booth!) at USC.  See the "Readings & Reviews" tab for details!

Hope to see you there.