A Gift of Language

Sge:no Swagwe:goh! Hi everyone! 

I've been holding onto this very exciting news for the last few weeks and now that it is September, I am super excited to share that starting tomorrow, I will be taking a year off to do more intensive language learning! 

Those of you who have been following the blog may know that for the past year or so, my husband and I have been making a concentrated effort to speak more of the Cayuga language in our home. The results of this effort have been really inspiring. The majority of our baby’s new words are all in Cayuga and our three-year old daughter also is able to speak and understand a lot of the language as well. This made us realize that things would moving along faster and even more language would be spoken in our home if I were to become a more proficient speaker. And so that is what we are going to do: take a year and focus on increasing my speaking proficiency.  

The core of the approach that we are using to learn is called the Master/Apprentice method. This approach was designed for people who have access to a speaker of an Indigenous language but not necessarily a classroom. One of the ideas that we have really taken to heart with this method is the notion that you have to “create your own language situation” (Hinton, 2002). 

A few months back, we went to an Indigenous language symposium in Thunder Bay which I made a video blog about here. The experience was really cathartic because I met many of my old friends and acquaintances from when I worked with the Chiefs of Ontario. It was also a reminder that while there are so many issues we need to be advancing as Indigenous Peoples (and we certainly need everyone, everywhere doing all of the work), the work that I’ve personally gravitated to is language, education, art and storytelling. I want to make a concerted effort now to acquire more language and to do this successfully—I have to give more time to it. 

By and large, the research shows that the most successful language learning happens in an immersion environment. And while we can create an immersion environment in our home, the depth of our conversations has been limited by the amount of things that I can say. We realized we needed to be able to get through the rules of the language more quickly. That I needed to memorize the prefixes, suffixes, negations and other elements of the language that elude me in the time we currently devote to Master/Apprentice.

Once problem I’ve encountered in trying to make a greater commitment to language is that this September, I’m starting the final year of my doctorate degree. I’m therefore not in a position to attend an all-day adult immersion program as I still need to spend a portion of my day doing work on my dissertation. And in both cases, I need to do what Cal Newport refers to as “deep work”. “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produces better results in less time. You work as hard as your brain is capable for an extended amount of time without any distractions.” (Newport, 2012)

Up to now, we have done the majority of our language learning at home with our girls. This is something we plan to continue, but we’re now going to be switch gears because it’s incredibly difficult to do distraction-free work at home. And I am very ready to do deep work where it concerns language—especially since I came back from Thunder Bay. When I was there, it became super clear to me that I need to make a stronger commitment and blend a few approaches together to make a class that was unique to our needs. And so, I decided to take a big leap. 

I saved up the money to rent our class and signed a one-year lease for a room that has three big whiteboards and is just down the hall from one of the most successful language learning programs in our community. Over the next year, I'll spend my afternoons (I’ve blocked out 12-4, Monday to Friday) to do deep work to become more familiar with the rules of Cayuga in an immersion/distraction free environment. Some of this time I will spend with my husband and some of it I will spend working on my own. Most importantly, there will be dedicated time in my day for my learning.

The first day we got our classroom. 

Kehte hanging up paradigm charts. 

Adding some colour & posters. 

Our bookcases. We got a lovely paradigm game from the local immersion school. 

After scrubbing our white boards clean, this was the first thing we wrote on them!

Kehte and I are both very excited about the year ahead, and I’m very grateful for the support I’ve gotten from my work and my school. I’m also somewhat nervous. But all in all, it’s a good nervous and because we’ve already landed on a combination of ways to use audio resources, transcribing, drills, immersion conversation, and other strategies to shape our effort, I feel really positive about our movement forward. 

I’m also happy and grateful because as part of his work, my husband created a program framework and adapted the first year of the successful language program that I mentioned for Cayuga, so we have a strong year of proven curriculum to draw from. It’s super exciting. Anyways. we will share more about our process as our year progresses, but I just wanted to show a few snapshots of our new classroom! Isn’t it gorgeous? Hooray for language learning and wish us luck :).

Also, today is my birthday! So it seems like an extra special day to celebrate & to give myself a gift of time to try and be a better speaker :). 

S. 

Reconnecting with Writing & Art. Plus, a Surprise!

Being a writer while being in a full-time doctoral program, maintaining a full-time job, and trying to learn a language is really challenging. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reminded time and time again just how important it is to keep my creative work a priority, because stories and art are my passion. So much of the energy I have for all my other roles stems from being creative and doing creative work. 

This past weekend, I spent most of my time working on book projects and as a result, I feel happier and healthier than I have in months. And while I love all the other things I do, this made me realize I can’t let myself go this long without working on my creative projects—especially when I’ve invested so much time and energy into finding amazing resources and tools to help me do them. It’s a balancing act I think we all face to some degree, and it seems like it’s one I’ll probably continue to struggle with for the next year as I finish up my school work. 

On the bright side though—I'm super grateful I have a place to go to re-energize. Working around the house this weekend, I got so excited about all the reading, writing, creating, painting and learning I want and need to do to make the art I want to make. I have books about illustration, design, copyright, research, language learning and screenwriting all waiting to be read. I have my Wacom tablet, new paints and canvasses, and new notebooks ready to be filled. And bit by bit, I am going to do just that! 

This weekend I also got to try out a new program that I invested in a few months ago. It’s called Vellum, and it’s an amazing book creation app that formats both ebook and print layouts (Note: only available for Mac users at this time, my apologies!). I used it to format a special project I’ve been working on over the last few months and also to update the ebook versions of The Vampire Skeleton Series book, which—surprise!—now have new covers. Check them out below! 

I love these covers so much. They were designed by James T. Egan of Bookfly Designs, who just does really excellent work. I’ve worked with James a few times now and I am always really inspired by his creativity, experience and professionalism. I’m so happy with how they turned out! There are currently two books in this series and the third book will be coming out this September. The new book is called A Spectacle of Stones and I will be putting it up for pre-order in a few weeks (the first time I’ve ever tried doing this, so I'm looking forward to learning the process). I’m really excited to share the cover for this book as well, and will be doing that in a few weeks! 

Ahhhh. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks and I actually have more exciting news to share, but I think I will save it until my next post! Until then, happy creating everyone!

S. 

Cover Reveal for The Fortune Teller's Daughter!

Happy December everyone! All month I've been wrapping up various projects and thinking about ways to celebrate the #SeasonofStories. I have been writing, painting, and editing work and now I am so, so, so excited to finally be able to share a sneak peak of the cover for my new book with you! 

This story has been brewing in my mind for the last five years and almost every year since these characters first made themselves known to me, I’ve written their story in a different way, each time growing closer and closer to the way it was unfolding in my imagination. There have been twists and surprises all along the way.

This is a story with many characters, a story spanning many worlds and an adventure that connects to a teaching I learned from a story I was once told about the nature of Treaties and the treaty relationship.

It will be told over a series of four books. Each one building on the events of the last and weaving together the perspectives of key characters along the way. 

This book is the first one. It’s called, The Fortune Teller’s Daughter.

It'll be available on January 21, 2017! Here’s the synopsis:

Cora Solomon is a skeptic. She doesn’t believe in magic. She doesn’t believe in fate. And she most certainly doesn’t believe that her mother can divine the future from a cup of tea leaves. In fact—Cora has spent her entire life wishing her mother had a normal job. 

But when her mother goes missing and the police are unable to uncover anything about her disappearance, Cora turns to the methods she once shunned to learn the truth about what happened to her mother and why. And there is certainly much to discover.

Before long, Cora is drawn deeper into the world of seers, myth and magic where she encounters strange lights, dangerous serpents and powerful beings she thought only existed in stories. Most importantly, she discovers that her mother has been keeping secrets from her—secrets that will change her life forever. 

And here is the cover!!! It was designed by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design.

Once again, this book will be available on January 21, 2017. You can pre-order it here!

Nya:weh!

S. 

The Four Year Anniversary Book Giveaway!

My blog is four years old today, which is amazing. So many wonderful things have happened over the last four years and while I don’t often post the events of my life in any kind of detail, I’m happy to have a small glimpse of them on record here—a sense of how I’ve grown as an artist, as a writer, as a mother, a wife, and a spirit capable of love and peace and compassion. There is a lot going on today in addition to the blog's anniversary. I am releasing a new book. It's National Indigenous Peoples Day. And finally, today marks the start of my effort to learn the Cayuga language using the master-apprentice method with my husband. All very exciting things and to celebrate, I am gifting away some of my books! 

Celebrating Turtle Island

I started this blog because I wanted a space where I could share the positive things I saw happening in my community. Four years ago I had just left a job where I was fortunate enough to travel and visit many First Nation communities. The travel wore me out, but the communities never did. I love the people of Turtle Island. I love the stories they have to share. The resilience. The hope. The creativity. The ideas. The passion. In every community I visited I met people who were committed to making thing better for their children and for the future. That inspired me. I am very fortunate to work in my own community and try to be helpful. And though our community has our struggles, there's also a lot of strength, creativity and shared commitment to areas I've personally come to love, like language and education and art. I hope I'm always able to see and support everyone's efforts. 

Writing is the other reason I started this blog. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to tell stories. Over the last four years I’ve continued to work away at that dream with a bit more focus—learning about storytelling and publishing through reading and writing and practice. All along, my goal has been to not only write stories but to share them and over the past four years, I've done just that. I’ve written a ton of stories—some of which I’ve shared (some of which will likely stay in the trunk) and I’ve even branched out and begun sharing some of my artwork. I won't lie, sharing your art and your writing can be a scary experience but on a whole, I’m very happy to be doing it.

So today is a special day. It’s a day to celebrate this blog and the journey I’ve been on. And this blog really does mean a great deal to me. I have no idea how many people read or visit my blog, but I thank each and every one of you that do. Having this space has never been about numbers or traffic—even though I know those things are very important for authors. It’s mostly been about creating a small space to think about things, to practice writing and to share. Most of all, it’s been about having a place to talk about the things I love, things like writing a book or learning the language or formatting and publishing books or my own wonderful little family. I am so grateful for all of it—for every second—and I know there is still so much to learn and experience.

But for now, I'm happy to celebrate the accomplishments of the last several years and in honour of that, I will be gifting away copies of my books! One book will go to one of my newsletter subscribers (you can subscribe here). Another book will go to a random retweeter of this blog on Twitter. Another to a liker of this post on Facebook. And finally, another book will go to a liker of this post on Instagram. The giveaway goes until midnight tonight and I'll announce winners tomorrow. 

Happy Writing Everyone! And Happy Blogging! And Happy Reading! And Happy Dreaming!

S.