Words on a Page

Literature of the American West encompasses many things. Fiction, poetry, memoir, biography, travelogue and historical texts can all be found beneath its broad banner. Coming up with just ten titles, then, is a ridiculous exercise. There are so many other books I could have included. Books such as... Travels With Charley   was probably the first book to put 'the West' on my radar when I was just 11 or 12 years old was .  We'd probably been reading  Of  Mice and Men  or  The Red Pony  at school, and rather than turning me off of Steinbeck - as so often happens when books are studied at that age - it sparked a love which continues to this day. The book recounts the journey Steinbeck made around the perimeter of the United States in 1960, in the company of his standard poodle, Charley. It was probably the dog that first attracted me to the book, but it's the movement of the narrative which really sticks with me.  Travels  is not about the West a...

A number of months ago I read an article which was critical of the advice we often give to Creative Writing students in which we encourage them to begin their stories in the thick of action, or in medias res.  The argument goes that writers must capture the reader’s interest right at the beginning by ‘hooking them in’ so they feel compelled to continue reading.  Often this ‘hook’ is achieved through the creation of intrigue, something or someone which is obviously out of place or which otherwise encourages the reader to ask questions.  At other times it involves a piece of high drama and the reader is dropped straight into a piece of unfolding action.  At the same time that we encourage students to work on their hooks, we tend to shoo them away from using too much description at the beginning of a story.  Readers’ attention spans have shortened, we say, and if a writer doesn’t grab reader’s interest in the first couple of paragraphs – or in the case o...

The Quest for Native Identity Before any discussion of Indian identity can take place, one needs to ask what , exactly, is ‘an Indian’?  Hilary Weaver sets out the complexity of the Indian identity discussion: There is little agreement on precisely what constitutes an indigenous identity, how to measure it, and who truly has it.  Indeed, there is not even a consensus on appropriate terms.  Are we talking about Indians, American Indians, Natives, Native Americans, indigenous people, or First Nations people?  Are we talking about Sioux or Lakota?  Navajo or Dine?  Chippewa, Ojibway, or Anishnabe?  Once we get that sorted out, are we talking about race, ethnicity cultural identity, tribal identity, acculturation, enculturation, bicultural identity, multicultural identity, or some other form of identity? (Weaver 2001:240) The mixedblood Indian writer Hertha Dawn Wong identifies two key features which distinguish the Native American concept ...