Words on a Page

Sherman Alexie had already published four collections of poetry by the time he gained national attention in 1993 by winning the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction for the short story collection The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven .  In 1996, he was named as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in recognition for his first novel Reservation Blues . Two years later, he won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival for the screenplay of Smoke Signals .  In all, Alexie has published eighteen books and screenplays in sixteen years, making him one of the most prolific writers working in the United States today. But his multi-genre talents don’t stop there.  He’s also collaborated on an album with musician Jim Boyd and turned his hand at film directing, too.  And in his free time?  He does a spot of stand-up comedy as well.  * While much of Alexie’s earlier work explores small-town life on the Spokane ...

photo by Karen Murray Belonging  to the Land The people we become – both in the sense of how we see ourselves and how others see us as individuals – depends on a multitude of influences: the families we are born into and our positions within those families; the friends we choose; our education; our employment; our political and religious beliefs; and the experiences we have in life are just some of the factors that shape our identity.  A few of these factors are constant and unchangeable: most of us will remain the same gender throughout our lives, for example, and regard ourselves as being a particular nationality or race.  Other factors, such as family position, education and occupation, and even political and religious beliefs, can change periodically through a natural process of maturation and individual development.  Others, still, may change numerous times during the course of our lives as our interests change and our attachments and allegiances shi...

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 ...

The Shaping of a Western Identity photo by Karen Murray In June 2010, The Crab Creek Review sparked debate on a number of academic blogs about the validity of regional classifications of contemporary writers when it published an interview with the novelist David Guterson.  Responding to a question about ‘Northwest writers’, Guterson, who was born and has spent most of his life in Seattle, and whose novels are mostly set in the city and its Northwest environs, was vociferous in refuting regionalism as a valid contemporary concept: There might have been a time when geography and culture converged in such a way as to make the regional identification of artists a worthwhile practice…. Today, with the exception of the handful of essentially isolated cultures remaining on the planet, human beings have a limited relationship to place, and this is, of course, reflected in the arts.  To be a ‘Northwest writer’ in the 21 st century simply means that, like billions of peo...