OUR AUTHORS

Extraordinary writers we represent and published:

Dana Lone Hill is Lakota. She passed in 2019.

Jim Chavers is Ojibwe

Trace Lara Hentz, a mix of Euro-Indigenous (she has republished SLEEPS WITH KNIVES and BECOMING) (Pen name was Laramie Harlow) See the book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects

John Christian Hopkins is Narragansett

 

(No photo: Deborah Spears-Moorehead, author of Finding Balance is Wampanoag.)

Charles Grolla is Ojibwe

Barbara Robidoux is a mix: Cherokee-Euro. 

 

Her

 BIO

 

Sweetgrass Burning: Stories from The Rez. It’s available on Amazon.com HERE 

 

Barbara Robidoux (born Barbara Mautone, September 25, 1944, Beverly, Massachusetts, U.S.A.), American writer of Cherokee (Tsalagi), Italian, and Scottish heritage. Now working as a teacher, she earned a BA from the University of New Hampshire, an MA from Vermont College, and an MFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has published three books of haiku, tanka, and haibun: Migrant Moon (2012), The Storm Left No Flowers (2018), and Stirring Sorrow into Soup (2021). She also writes fiction and has published two collections of linked stories: Sweetgrass Burning: Stories from the Rez (2016) and The Legacy of Lucy LittleBear (2017), both set on a reservation in Maine.  Robidoux has lived in Santa Fe since 1995.

GOOD READS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7737228.Barbara_Robidoux

 

  Legacy of Lucy Little Bear review: I'd never have found this book if it weren't for a book club I'm a part of, as I think it's only available on Amazon? But I'm so glad I had the opportunity to read it. It's a story of life on the reservation, of the reality of missing and murdered women, of a beautiful yet unforgiving setting and deeply human characters. When I picked it up before bed one night I thought I'd read the first chapter; instead I read the entire thing. Parts reminded me of Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine.

Sweetgrass Stories from the Rez is a collection of linked short stories that transports readers into the lives of Indians who live at Northpoint, a fictional reservation in Northeastern Maine. The reader is invited to participate in everyday events which confront this community, as well as struggles against corporate interests to take over tribal land for profit (LNG), the opening and rapid closing of a tribal Bingo hall, and the revenge of three elder ladies (The Snoop Sisters) who cast their humor and rage against prejudiced neighbors in a non-Indian town which borders the rez. Characters open their hearts to tell us sometimes angry and often humorous stories of what it takes to stand by their culture and language in the face of state and federal government pressure to assimilate. In Northpoint, population 800, you'll meet Dous, the Snoop Sisters, Molly, Gregory, Ricky, all irresistibly-interesting members of this tribal community and get wrapped up in these characters, but even more wrapped up in the plot. 

"Barbara Robidoux is a master storyteller. With ease, she weaves together the connections of Native people who have long known one another and their ancestors. The North Point Reserve is a community with open doors, the people inviting us in to feed us their stories. Inside each person’s words is their life as it was in recent years. We travel this map of reservation lives, recognizing the people. Their dwelling places become located in our own hearts. This incredible writer takes us on her journey of humanity and mystery. Along the way, the stories come together with her brilliance, her seeming ease of style. Robidoux has the unique ability to reveal all our strong and broken ways of being in this world." -Linda Hogan author of Dark Sweet, Power, Dwellings, Solar Storms, People of the Whale, The Woman Who Watches Over the World.

In SWEETGRASS BURNING Barbara Robidoux introduces you to characters so lovable and human you’ll quickly come to call them family. Navigating the fictional setting of the Northpoint reservation in northeast Maine, Robidoux’s linked stories powerfully show a community surviving through humor, compassion, cooperation and tradition. - Chip Livingston, author of Crow-Blue, Crow Black and Naming Ceremony

Sweetgrass smoke and winter storms haunt Barbara Robidoux’s stories. Fierce, yet tender, her characters’ struggles with tragic legacies and invasive industries will touch your heart and bring you to the rez in all its complicated, generous glory. - Eden Robinson, author of Traplines, Monkey Beach and others.

BLOG: https://sweetgrassburning.wordpress.com/

**

 

Remedies by Patricia Cotter-Busbee/Brighid Rowan

1 rating 1 review

“Remedies” is a deeply original autobiographical fiction that chronicles the lives of five generations of women. Patricia has a lovely way of approaching her own work which is intimate and deeply empathic to the power of language. It is evident from page one that her writing erupts from a place of necessity. It is beautifully layered and brought to life through image-driven vignettes that have been paired down into razor-sharp scenes. The stories convey tragedy and comedy in equal portions. Wombs and halos, mothers and daughters; the story is circular—the beginning has a before, and the ending is not the end. At the bottom of most pages Patricia has created a parallel existence that consists of incantations, proverbs, and recipes that provide another layer of running commentary. Patricia is emerging as a writer confident and skillful in the subtle art of hybrid writing.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/authors/3364c267-0d12-4d40-a082-41f555b7a3e7

 

 

LINK TO OUR BOOKS:

https://bookshop.org/shop/BADBANANA

 

Amazon is so ruthless -- we are always looking at new ways to publish our titles. GO TO BOOKSHOP!

Trace Lara Hentz (formerly DeMeyer), is the founder.



"It’s about finding the nerve your book strikes and going after it."

Blue Hand Books BAD BANANA BOOKS and Other Coool Stuff

We may be a small collective, but our writers are some of the best (and they happen to be Indigenous!)