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mrockwellWriting
Happy 2020! Lots of folks are doing a "Writing Year in Review" for 2019, but I'm afraid mine would be pretty boring, as the car accident, surgery, and other IRL issues kept my writing activities to a minimum. I did want to mention that my Ojibwe story, "Dreamcatcher," from the Straight Outta Deadwood anthology made Tangent Online's 2019 Recommended Reading List - with 3 stars, their highest rating!
It also got a nice mention in Publisher's Weekly," to whit:
"Native American mythology is not always successfully incorporated into the stories, but Marsheila Rockwell’s “Dreamcatcher” manages it in a fresh fashion."
So, that's cool, especially since this story is a favorite of mine, because I am part Ojibwe, but was not raised with any real knowledge of my heritage, and I am trying to correct that. More on that below.
Only upcoming appearance of note for the moment is Tucson Festival of Books (March 14-15), where Jeff and I will reprise our Collaboration Workshop and will have a table at the Must Read Fiction booth. More details as I have them.
Everything Else
So, I'm part Ojibwe. I've always known that, and discovered years ago that my family descended from the Red River Metis in Canada (my great-great grandfather fought in the 1885 Northwest Resistance, and his grandfather fought at the Battle of Seven Oaks), but I never really knew much about my heritage, and assumed that whatever Indian blood I had was enough to get me called some unsavory names growing up in Montana, but not enough for me to really claim that I belonged anywhere or had any real right to (Cher's song "Half-Breed" has always been a favorite of mine). Aside from attending the occasional pow-wow and my love for frybread, being Indian wasn't really encouraged, anyway. It wasn't safe. Still isn't, really.
Also, I heard conflicting stories from my family (my mother, mostly, and she was an Unreliable Narrator). We had ties to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. We had ties to the (now federally recognized!!!) Little Shell Chippewa Tribe. We had relatives who lived on the Rocky Boy Reservation. We were Pembina (this, at least, is verifiably true, since the Pembina Band was the progenitor tribe of each of the groups listed above, and the one that settled around the Red River in Canada).
Well, one of the few things I've been able to do while on disability is look into my family roots a little deeper, and I recently learned that my grandfather was, indeed, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, at least as of 1937. Disenrollment is a thing (especially at Turtle Mountain, she says, giving the Ten Cent Treaty some serious side-eye), so did he stay a member? I don't know. I know he was living on the reservation in 1937, but had moved back to Montana by the time my mother was born.
I imagine I could call whoever's in charge of the tribe's enrollment and ask, and I probably will at some point. But even if he remained a member, and my mother was also enrolled, it doesn't mean my blood quantum is enough for me to be. Blood quantum is a stupid number created by colonizers, anyway, but that's a subject for a different post.
But I've realized it doesn't matter. What exact percentage of my blood is Ojibwe (Chippewa) doesn't change my family's history - my history. My genealogy on my mom's side is filled with "Sally, Indian woman." I'm more Indian than I am anything else. So, yeah. Just needed to get that all written down somewhere.
This is my grandfather and my g-g-g-grandmother (also Metis from the Red River Settlement). As you can see, I come by my RBF honestly, heh.
Also, tangentially related, my mother (AKA, the Unreliable Narrator) always told me my name was an "Americanized version" of an Indian name. I always thought she was full of crap (though I have noticed there are some Navajo ladies who share the name). I recently discovered what may be the name's origin. Turns out it was the name of an Apache girl (spelled "Marsheela") on a 1957 episode of Broken Arrow (the name doesn't appear before that year). So that's kind of cool.
Anyway, this post is a novella and my hands/arms/shoulders/neck are now officially killing me, so...
That's it. That's the post. Heh.
Happy 2020! Lots of folks are doing a "Writing Year in Review" for 2019, but I'm afraid mine would be pretty boring, as the car accident, surgery, and other IRL issues kept my writing activities to a minimum. I did want to mention that my Ojibwe story, "Dreamcatcher," from the Straight Outta Deadwood anthology made Tangent Online's 2019 Recommended Reading List - with 3 stars, their highest rating!
It also got a nice mention in Publisher's Weekly," to whit:
"Native American mythology is not always successfully incorporated into the stories, but Marsheila Rockwell’s “Dreamcatcher” manages it in a fresh fashion."
So, that's cool, especially since this story is a favorite of mine, because I am part Ojibwe, but was not raised with any real knowledge of my heritage, and I am trying to correct that. More on that below.
Only upcoming appearance of note for the moment is Tucson Festival of Books (March 14-15), where Jeff and I will reprise our Collaboration Workshop and will have a table at the Must Read Fiction booth. More details as I have them.
Everything Else
So, I'm part Ojibwe. I've always known that, and discovered years ago that my family descended from the Red River Metis in Canada (my great-great grandfather fought in the 1885 Northwest Resistance, and his grandfather fought at the Battle of Seven Oaks), but I never really knew much about my heritage, and assumed that whatever Indian blood I had was enough to get me called some unsavory names growing up in Montana, but not enough for me to really claim that I belonged anywhere or had any real right to (Cher's song "Half-Breed" has always been a favorite of mine). Aside from attending the occasional pow-wow and my love for frybread, being Indian wasn't really encouraged, anyway. It wasn't safe. Still isn't, really.
Also, I heard conflicting stories from my family (my mother, mostly, and she was an Unreliable Narrator). We had ties to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. We had ties to the (now federally recognized!!!) Little Shell Chippewa Tribe. We had relatives who lived on the Rocky Boy Reservation. We were Pembina (this, at least, is verifiably true, since the Pembina Band was the progenitor tribe of each of the groups listed above, and the one that settled around the Red River in Canada).
Well, one of the few things I've been able to do while on disability is look into my family roots a little deeper, and I recently learned that my grandfather was, indeed, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, at least as of 1937. Disenrollment is a thing (especially at Turtle Mountain, she says, giving the Ten Cent Treaty some serious side-eye), so did he stay a member? I don't know. I know he was living on the reservation in 1937, but had moved back to Montana by the time my mother was born.
I imagine I could call whoever's in charge of the tribe's enrollment and ask, and I probably will at some point. But even if he remained a member, and my mother was also enrolled, it doesn't mean my blood quantum is enough for me to be. Blood quantum is a stupid number created by colonizers, anyway, but that's a subject for a different post.
But I've realized it doesn't matter. What exact percentage of my blood is Ojibwe (Chippewa) doesn't change my family's history - my history. My genealogy on my mom's side is filled with "Sally, Indian woman." I'm more Indian than I am anything else. So, yeah. Just needed to get that all written down somewhere.
This is my grandfather and my g-g-g-grandmother (also Metis from the Red River Settlement). As you can see, I come by my RBF honestly, heh.
Also, tangentially related, my mother (AKA, the Unreliable Narrator) always told me my name was an "Americanized version" of an Indian name. I always thought she was full of crap (though I have noticed there are some Navajo ladies who share the name). I recently discovered what may be the name's origin. Turns out it was the name of an Apache girl (spelled "Marsheela") on a 1957 episode of Broken Arrow (the name doesn't appear before that year). So that's kind of cool.
Anyway, this post is a novella and my hands/arms/shoulders/neck are now officially killing me, so...
That's it. That's the post. Heh.
