Our First Cayuga Language Comic

Hi everyone! 

I am really, really excited to share a sneak peek of a project I’ve been working on for the last few weeks with the help of my wonderful husband, Kehte Deer. (He wrote the story and did such an awesome job!). 

This is our first real attempt at working on something that has always held a special interest for both of us—a comic/graphic novel style representation of a Haudenosaunee story told in the language. I know our comics will only get better as my art and language skills improve, and even though it's our first effort, I still wanted to share it with you!

My book, The Vampire Skeleton, is very loosely inspired by this story and when researching that book, I had come across a number of different versions of the story. The comic adaptation is inspired by a story J.N.B. Hewitt collected in November of 1896, a version of which my husband discovered this past summer and shared with me. This also makes November 2016, the 120th anniversary of this particular telling. Very cool! 

I am still learning about the process of making comics (and will probably redraw this one in the future), but I was fortunate to get a lot of help from my sister and frequent collaborator Alyssa, who added some really great elements to the work. Making comics is one of her dreams as well, so this whole project has been an awesome learning experience for all of us. 

In honour of this special 120th anniversary, we will be releasing more cool things that we’ve created through the month of November as well as some behind-the-scenes pictures and blogs on our production company website (www.spiritandintent.com), Twitter & Facebook page.

Please visit us to make sure you don’t miss these super awesome posts :). And here's a PDF of the story as well!

Nya:węh and we hope you like it! 

S.

THE VAMPIRE SKELETON

Home Sweet Home

I sometimes lose track of how many activities I like to do. Reading. Writing. Painting. Running. Playing video games. Taking long walks in the forest. But over the last few weeks I’ve remembered just how important they all are to me. They make me feel truly alive and happy and healthy—which helps me to feel more creative and imaginative.

We’ve just finished moving into our new house (yay!) and are in the process of getting settled. After so many months of being in transition—packing up one house, living with my very kind sister and her family for two months until finally coming here—I can honestly say that I feel like the luckiest person in the world. 

The process of building a house is complicated. There are these milestones, things that have to be done so the house can be built, and while they look straightforward on paper—none of them speak to the emotional and spiritual toll that building a new house can have. We've been working through this process for the last year. In many ways it’s just like writing a book—so much harder and involved than it looks like from the outside. It’s such a relief to be through the majority of it. Now I feel like it's time to replenish my spirit, fuel my imagination and create ALL THE THINGS.

I started my attempt to create ALL THE THINGS by playing my piano (probably because it had been put away in storage for two and half months), and I was blown away by how happy it made me. Like real and true joy happy. It was like a piece of me had been missing and was slowly being restored with every note I played. I also missed running. The track I like to run at is just down the road and as I write this, I’ve just returned from my first proper run in months. Years actually, since I wasn’t running a whole lot over the times that I was pregnant. I also went for a walk and played a video game with my niece. All of it was amazing. Awesome. Fantastic.

I suppose my point is, I am just very happy and grateful to be back to having time and making things again (including blog posts!). Last week felt like my first substantial opportunity to get back into the swing of things with my writing and it felt good to settle into a rhythm, working on a new book first thing in the morning, editing another book just after that and spending my afternoons getting back on track with all the projects I had to put aside. Plus it's just nice to be here at long last, creating our new space, here in the forest, surrounded by trees.

Right before I moved, I wrote this blog about how happy I could be with so little. And that’s still true. Moving taught me that more than ever, that home is where my family is, my husband and my children. But having space to actually create all the things I most dreamed of—movies, poems, paintings, comics—I am so very excited about that. Especially because I hope for many of them to be in the language, as another way of helping me to learn.

I’ll be sharing a lot more of those creations here and other places in the coming months. It’s going to be awesome. It already feels that way!

Happy creating,

S. 

The Simple Life

Happy August everyone! I hope all is well. I am smack dab in the middle of packing up the house we’ve been living in for the last four years and getting ready to move to our new house in a few weeks. It's exhausting to pack. Exhausting to see how many things you can accumulate over four years. Exhausting to sort through and figure out what it is you need to let go of. 

I've made a lot of promises to myself over the last seven days and pretty much all of them have to do with the fact that I’m just as happy when my house is empty as when it's full because I'm fortunate enough to share my life with people I love. I don't need things to be happy. It's one of those things you know, but can also forget. At least it is for me. 

At this very moment, all we have is a bed, a crib, a bassinet, a super small tv, our phones, computers, a piano and some food (a few Nintendo 3DSs and a PlayStation 3) and we are literally having the most wonderful days ever. Life would be perfect except for the cold my daughter and I have had the last three days. 

Still. This last week has taught me a lesson about minimalism. A lesson I seem to need to learn every little while. To spend my time making memories, having experiences and creating things—stories and art—-and not worrying about anything else. 

If you've ever moved, you know as well as I do that it can be super stressful. At first, I had planned to stop writing altogether during the month of August. I needed a break. I needed to read and research and otherwise replenish my creative stores. But I had to break down and write a little bit and when I did, I was reminded again of how truly happy it makes me. I'm so grateful for writing. For learning about writing. For the new projects I'm going to be working on over the next few months. It all fills me up in their very own, very special way. Even writing this blog is helping me to relax!

Anyways. This is just a small note of hello from an empty house in the quiet aftermath of what was a packing frenzy. I have to say, I'm enjoying myself immensely. July was a fabulous month and August is shaping out to be just as fun.

Wherever you are I hope you're having all an awesome time writing and creating. And if you aren't writing and creating--what are you waiting for??? Get started :). 

Happy writing everyone! Til next time! 

S.

Magic on Turtle Island - Some Thoughts

Over the weekend, between two holidays celebrating two countries that have developed their identities on Turtle Island, my husband and I had a conversation about how we'll approach certain discussions with our daughters, who we hope will grow up enjoying reading and books as much as we do (including Harry Potter). In particular, we were referring to literature that erases the presence of Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island, the way J.K. Rowling's most recent Pottermore stories that take place in North America have done. Some of our discussion was also prompted by reading this article and thinking about the responsibilities we have as parents to speak up when things like this happen or to help educate others so that ours and other children experience less incidents of discrimination and racism in the world. 

The answers we came to were not really simple. For the most part, they involved a lot of compassion, a lot of empathizing, a lot of patience, a lot of resilience and a willingness to flag when something doesn't feel right and to be able to talk about it with our girls in a good way. (Also a lot of learning of our language, sharing of our oral histories and writing of new stories). 

I come into this particular discussion in a lot of different ways. I love to read and I'm a writer. I'm also an Indigenous woman and a mother. For many years, I worked for an advocacy body for First Nation communities in Ontario. And I am so grateful for that opportunity. It showed me how rich our communities are and how greatly misunderstood we are by mainstream culture and governments—and kind of on purpose too, thanks to the ongoing legacy of colonialism. I also learned that our communities are not all the same. We carry unique knowledges and experiences. We have a lot to learn from one another, a lot to share and ways of sharing it.  

Over the course of my life I've come to care very deeply about the inherent and treaty rights of Indigenous People on Turtle Island. I care that Indigenous children—including my own—have an opportunity to connect with our responsibilities—that they have a chance to engage with the knowledges, languages, ceremonies and oral histories that belong to the over 600 First Nation communities across the country. Especially because there have been points in our history where those opportunities were made scarce and a lot of stories that should have been told—weren't.  

In this work of writing and telling stories—so much matters. Nations matter. Clans matter. Families matter. And communities matter, including those that have formed in urban settings. Our identities are complicated. They have deep roots. It's hard for anyone to wade into our experience and write about it in a way that doesn't risk doing more harm to the process of reconnecting and healing. Mistakes have been and will probably continue to be made. 

I’ve experienced this as a reader. There've been a few times when I've read something someone wrote about my people that hurt or unsettled me. And this isn't to say that only non-Indigenous writers will write things that are upsetting. I'm not sure exactly which community they come from, but when a well-known writer wrote about my people in one of their books people became upset. Some spoke up, challenging the portrayals in the book. Some were attacked for speaking out. People who cared about that author and liked their book didn't understand why others couldn't just let it go. Wasn't it all ancient history anyways? And as a writer I found myself asking all these different questions about who should be writing what. Because I believe in my people and I believe in the power of writing to heal as well as entertain, and encourage, and inspire, and educate. But I also believe that writers have to be true to the stories and characters that are inside them, asking to be written. And I believe that writers need to be free to write their truth. So where does that leave us? What do you do when these things happen? Serious things like misrepresentation and appropriation. 

I don't have all the answers. As a writer, I've chosen my own way of trying to balance these issues—and make no mistake they are difficult to balance. For example, it's a challenge for me when people say enough with the magic and spirituality when it comes to Indigenous peoples in literature because so much of my work includes magical, fantastical elements. But I also understand why people say that and why they want characters with more depth—spiritual and otherwise. 

I want characters with depth, as well. I also want to represent spirit well, in my life and in my writing because acknowledging spirit was such a huge part of my own growth. It made my life a lot more awesome than it was and it started me on a journey that brought me to where I am now —happy and grateful for my life, my relationships and for the chance to honour Creation through ceremonies and through my actions. In a way, I have only spirit to thank for that.

Still, feeling this way doesn't automatically mean I will write great characters. I still have to work hard at writing and I can say with no shame that it will take much more practice to do it as well as I'd like to. What will help me are the things that have always helped me: asking questions, listening, communicating, reading in a discerning way, writing with care, reflecting on what I've learned or experienced. Activities which in many ways can be captured by the word research. And even in doing these things there may come a point where people will dislike what I've written or feel I've reinforced a stereotype or I've gotten it wrong. It’s part of the process of entering the ring and sharing my work.  Indeed—every bit of non-fiction I've read about publishing has led me to accept the eventuality that criticism will come and when it does, I’ll have to remind myself I'm not a failure of a human being if someone doesn't like my writing. Instead I'll have to face that criticism and I'll have to grow from it. 

All that being said, if someone had said that in their world, a certain ceremony or knowledge or practice that was important to my people "didn't exist", it would have hurt. It did hurt—even though the world was fictional and even though the practice being talked about did not belong to my nation. It was a similar hurt to other times Indigenous voices were devalued. When the Papal Bulls stated that explorers could kill Indigenous Peoples if they couldn't be assimilated. When the settler state determined that the best way to assimilate Indigenous Peoples was to take children from their homes and place them in schools far from their families. When the resulting lateral violence of these atrocities made it difficult for us to have much needed conversations in our own communities.

But we are having them. Slowly. Surely. In many different forums. In many different spaces, some of which overlap. 

It will take time. There is a lot of hurt to heal. Colonialism is a wicked thing, a systemic and deeply ingrained attitude. I've seen the evidence of that in my own community—and myself—time and time again. Moving forward and trying to heal and decolonize is hard work. It's wonderful work—the kind that can have a tremendous and rippling effect on individuals, families and communities—but it’s hard. Most of the people I know who are engaged in the process or care about the process are therefore very careful with their words and how they choose to say things. They feel a responsibility to represent things well, to do no further harm and to treat others as best as they can. 

What is my way? I think it's still evolving. I've written about it in this book and in a way I'll continue to write about it in all my books, some of which will continue to include magic and a fantasy filter that I happen to love in stories I read. But I suppose when you remove those fantasy filters from my writing, there are issues beneath them that I'm thinking very deeply about on a daily basis. Issues that require certain kinds of discussions and ones that can't just happen in books or on paper. They are issues of land. Issues of treaty. Issues of peace. Issues of spirit. 

Those are the kinds of things I want my daughters to know about as well.  I want to create things—books and art—so that my own children don't grow up believing that we aren't "real".  That these issues I mentioned aren't "real". That our stories aren't "real". That a dream or a vision isn't "real". That's how I grew up. And though my spirit knew it wasn't true, it took a long time to convince the rest of me. And I'm sure wherever you are you know or have learned or have heard that not believing in yourself can hurt. That's true. It can. 

I want to make sure that my children know the truth about Turtle Island and that if they read things that erase us  (whether intentionally or not), they will know an important part of the story is missing and they will not have to search and struggle to fill in what those missing parts are. And honestly, I'm excited and grateful to be able to share those stories with them. I'm excited to find out about other peoples' stories with them. I can see this great future where they are empowered with knowledge and compassionate and confident enough to share it with others; a future where they're good listeners, able to hear and appreciate the stories of their friends and neighbours, as well. My big hope is that we'll get to do all this work and learning together, and make really cool stories and art along the way. 

So this weekend, prompted by the appearance of new merchandise and articles and advertisements and instalments about magic in North America, my husband and I spent a lot of time talking about how we will make this future a reality. As parents. As a family. As people who are Harry Potter fans. And what we resolved (at least as much as we could resolve anything given that so many issues came up that the whole conversation feels far from over) was that the most immediate actions we will take will be to maintain our focus on the language and becoming good speakers and speaking the language in our home. And then to keep to keep writing and learning, in English and Cayuga. To support other writers in sharing their work, including writers from my own community. People with passion and vision and stories to tell.  It's why I started a publishing company, after all. To have a place to put my energy—my love, my care, and my respect—so that someone in the future would be able to find our stories and realize that it didn't matter what anyone said about us.

Magic is real. We have a relationship with land. Spirit matters. Treaties matter. Our voices matter. Our histories are alive. And there really are Turtles All the Way Down. 

I truly believe sharing stories can help bridge the gap in understanding between cultures. I believe that the process of sharing can be respectful, invigorating and exciting. It's what I hope to achieve with some of my own work, like Spirit & Intent and Treaty Baby and The Tiny Queen. And for this reason, I want to share my books with everyone—people who love to read and people who want to have a conversation and people who are looking to uphold the peace for present and future generations.  I may make mistakes along the way. I'm still learning, after all. But if you want to you can support and follow my efforts to grow by signing up for my newsletter here or by following my company's journey here. And if you're interested in watching as we learn the Cayuga language, you can do so here: www.learncayuga.com. 

Nya:weh. Thank you. Sge:no Swagwe:goh, and as always, happy writing,

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.