Writer Chef Brendan Basham (Diné)

Brendan Basham is a Diné author, teacher and artist who lives in New Mexico, near the Navajo and Zuni Reservations. His debut novel, “Swim Home to the Vanished,” tells the story of a small-town Diné line cook and uses magical realism to explore themes of grief and redemption.
 

What words of advice do you have for aspiring writers or aspiring cooks? What would you say to those folks?

BB: Number one for any young Native person: It doesn't matter what you want to do with your life, your story matters. Your story counts and it needs to be heard.

Number two: If you're a young artist writer, you need to read everything you can get your hands on. All genres, all time eras. And you’ve got to travel a lot, and you’ve got to learn new languages and challenge any kind of preconceived notions of the world that you've had.

Also: Don't forget where you come from.

I want to see craft, I want people to make beautiful things. I don't want to see young Native writers writing to white readers. I would like to see young Native writers write to their elders or to their lost siblings or cousins.

Brendan Basham recently planted fifty baby pinyon trees at his home, which are currently little sprouts. The author said, “ I feel like there's a sense of resistance in nourishing life that's going to outlive me by decades or a century.”

There are certain things that Native writers are tempted to write about. And they need to, to understand, and they need to, in order for the rest of us to hear those stories.

But on the other hand, there's a sense of joy and humor and laughter and comradery and family that is not captured enough in Native literature, I think today.

There are heavy themes and those are necessary, and those stories are necessary to be shared and told. But equally necessary, we don't want to be bogged down by those same stories.

We're an evolving, growing center. This is a new literary movement. Don't let us get bogged down in the way that other people have bogged us down, in the way that they have written about us. Let's write about ourselves in a way that reflects all sides of our humanity.

LISTEN TO INTERVIEW:

https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2025-11-21/dine-author-and-artist-dishes-about-inaugural-ucross-culinary-fellowship