Bad Banana

Above: The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters (Mi’kmaq Descent).  The novel begins in July 1962 when a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer.  Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes.  She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field.  Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.  In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective.  As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her.  Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.    

BIG NDN PRESS An Indigenous Present A monumental gathering  showcasing diverse approaches to Indigenous concepts, forms and mediums. This landmark volume is a gathering of over 60 Native North American contemporary artists, musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, architects, writers, photographers, designers and more.  Conceived by Jeffrey Gibson, a renowned artist of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee descent, An Indigenous Present presents an increasingly visible and expanding field of Indigenous creative practice. It centers individual practices, while acknowledging shared histories, to create a visual experience that foregrounds diverse approaches to concept, form and medium as well as connection, influence, conversation and collaboration. An Indigenous Present foregrounds transculturalism over affiliation and contemporaneity over outmoded categories. Reviews This is a gorgeous coffee table book that offe...

https://a.co/d/8tdb7xK GREENFIELD, Mass., Dec. 27, 2023 — Adoptee activist, award-winning journalist and author Trace Hentz, who created the American Indian Adoptees  website  in 2009, has announced a new project, “THE COUNT 2024.” It will coincide with the release of a new history book, “Almost Dead Indians: Atrocity” Book 5 in the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects series. When Hentz moved to Massachusetts in 2004 she began to tirelessly investigate numerous adoption programs, such as the Indian Adoption Projects and ARENA (The Adoption Resource Exchange of America). Both involved moving (trafficking) Native American babies and children across North America into adoptions with non-Native families.  After her 2009 memoir, “One Small Sacrifice” and a second edition, which followed in 2012,  Hentz met more adoptees and asked them to write their personal narratives, which resulted in five anthologies: “Two Worlds: Lost Children” (2012), “Called Hom...

Wayne Arthurson is writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta until May 31, 2024. “Just find your own path for writing and do it your own way and if that works for you, then that works for you.” —author Wayne Arthurson   By Shari Narine Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Windspeaker.com | October 19th, 2023  The writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta believes the publishing industry is changing for Indigenous writers. “I think it's growing,” said Wayne Arthurson, who is of Cree and French-Canadian descent. “It used to be, maybe even 10 years ago, they have the one or two big name Indigenous writers … and a lot of publishers didn't look outside that… But now I think it's much more open because there's a lot of Indigenous writers who are having books out there that are successful.” Arthurson has been writing for more than 30 years. Final Season , his first of eigh...

   Courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society Press A new memoir called SURVIVAL FOOD shares tales from growing up on the Menominee Indian Reservation. The author, Thomas Weso, was born in 1953.  He passed away in July before the book was published. Thomas Weso grew up in a time of economic transformation – when commodity goods were eaten alongside game from Wisconsin’s Northwoods.  And then there was the rise of processed foods. He often wrote about food. Here he is speaking in a 2021 interview with Wisconsin Historical Society Press. “We should think about where food comes from. Because if we think where food comes from, we’ll take better care of the land around us.” Weso’s wife, the writer Denise Low, says he was interested in writing about Indigenous people in the present. “He had a very zen sense of like, “What’s here now?” and not “what were Indians like, or Indigenous people like, 100 years ago? Here we are now.” Thomas Pecore Weso (1953-2023) was an aut...

Invitation to: Virtual Reading and Conversation with Oscar Hokeah (Cherokee/Kiowa), author of the award winning novel --Calling for a Blanket Dance— Cherokee/Kiowa author Oscar Hokeah reads from his award winning debut novel and is in conversation with KU students. Nov 22, 2023, 6:00 pm CET Zoom link: kuei.zoom.us/j/68415569345 Winner of the PEN America/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel “A profound reflection on the intergenerational nature of cultural trauma… Hokeah’s characters exist at the intersection of Kiowa, Cherokee and Mexican identity, which provides a vital exploration of indigeneity in contemporary American letters.” —The New York Times Book Review About the novel: Oscar Hokeah’s electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family—part Mexican, part Native American—is determined to hold onto their community despite obstacles everywhere they turn. Ever’s father is injured at the hands of corrupt police on the border when he goes to visi...

We started in 2011 - John Christian Hopkins and me. We did his book Twilight of the Gods. We published it and Blue Hand Books was born on 11-11-11! To me, to decolonize is to do things "Our Way." We could have published with one of the 4 big publishers and never been paid a dime... Publishing is not for everyone and there is definitely censorship in WHAT can be published and by whom... - TLH Wanna know more - read the HISTORY of BHB👇  (I just noticed the pages (links) are not working on this website - on my computer. Will fix that - 😠 to blogger. TLH) FAVORITE QUOTE: Nicola I. Campbell I heard an elder speak of the importance of our languages and our culture. He said, “Our words are powerful; our stories are elastic; our languages are music: they dance, they move and they are medicine for our people. He said they are a spirit within themselves and we are only the channel that brings them to life.” I write because I know what he said is true. Q&A with foun...

New book describes pipeline activism grounded in First Nations spiritual belief and ceremony October 26th, 2023 Rueben George with the cover of his new book "It Stops Here".   By Shari Narine | Local Journalism Initiative Reporter  | Windspeaker.com It Stops Here: Standing Up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People is a powerful work by Rueben George that chronicles his journey in leading Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in British Columbia. And while the expansion is set to start operating in the first quarter of 2024, boosting the pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels per day from 300,000 and carrying oil from Alberta to Burnaby, BC, George still believes the fight has been a victory. “We said ‘No.’ We said, ‘No’ like our ancestors have. We were stewards of o...

PAPERBACK and KINDLE:  The Last Heir of Merlin by John Christian Hopkins Elvin Priestly stumbles upon an ancient family secret. He finds himself in a strange world where life or death hinges on his ability to claim the power that comes with being The Last Heir of Merlin!   Narragansett Author John Christian Hopkins YES! THE PAPERBACK is on AMAZON too! (($15)) This new book will take you deep into a mystery. It's FANTASY FICTION, a classic Hopkins marvel and absolutely a fantastic READ! CHAPTERS Love’s Labours Tossed The King and Tye Birth of a Notion The Merchant of Menace “The Wizard of Ours!” From Here to Fraternity To Have and Have Naught Gone With the Whim Beast of Eden The Seven Year Witch A Hard, Dazed Knight The May Tricks The Lyin’ King Sects & the City Cranky Poodle Dandy Charge of the Flight Brigade A Sweet Cart Named Desire The Lady and the Champ The Three Musky Tears Treasure of Sara Madge Rey Red ...