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Episode: How We Made Indigenous Books

Author: Matika Wilbur, & Temryss Lane
Duration: 00:47:07

Episode Shownotes

Send us a textRelatives!! It is with great joy that we have arrived to pub day!Today Matika's book "Project 562: Changing The Way We See Native America" hits the shelves! To celebrate we want this very special celebratory episode of AMR to reflect on this massive milestone for both our

co-hosts!.Join Matika and Adrienne, two published Indigenous authors, as they reflect on the roads they've traversed to get their works out into the world and what it means to share our stories in a good way. These books are true labors of love and we hope you will cherish them as much as we do. You can order Matika's book "Project 562: Changing The Way We See Native America" here!And find Adrienne's book Notable Native People here!Please share widely!!+++Shout out to our All My Relations team that makes this possible. Executive Editor of this episode is Jonathan Stein, mastering and sound design by Max Levin, original live music recording by Black Belt Eagle Scout and Laura Ortman. Production by Teo Shantz, social media by Lindsey Hightower, Audio Assistant Darrien Camarillo. Support the showFollow us on Instagam @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon. Show notes are published on our website, amrpodcast.com. Matika's book is available for pre-order! T'igwicid and Wado for being on this journey with us.Support the showFollow us on Instagam @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon. Show notes are published on our website, Allmyrelationspodcast.com. Matika's book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is available now! T'igwicid and Hyshqe for being on this journey with us.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_01
Hello, relatives. I'm Matika Wilbur. I'm from the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes. And I'm here today with Dr. Adrienne Keene, your co-host.

00:00:09 Speaker_03
Hello.

00:00:12 Speaker_01
Today we are talking about making books. Books, books, books. Today is April 25th. It is the release of my book called Project 562, Changing the Way We See Native America. I'm super excited.

00:00:28 Speaker_03
Yeah, it's a huge, exciting day that's been a really long time in the making. So I'm glad that we get a chance to sort of talk about the behind the scenes of how this book came to be.

00:00:54 Speaker_02
Sorry.

00:01:09 Speaker_03
So you and I both have these books that have been brought into the world, and mine came out in 2021, and yours comes out today.

00:01:18 Speaker_03
And so maybe, I don't know, for the audience, do you want to talk about the origin stories of these books, how they came to be?

00:01:25 Speaker_03
Because I think that is a big question that a lot of people have about book writing, is how do you go from an idea to an actual published thing? So how did your book come to be?

00:01:36 Speaker_01
Well, it's hard to know where to start the story. Do I start the story with the origins of becoming a photographer?

00:01:43 Speaker_01
Or like as a young person wanting, you know, when I was a young person in like, when I was like eight, nine years old, I wanted to be a poet. And I had a lot of teachers tell me that I wasn't a good enough writer. And a lot of teachers tell me

00:01:58 Speaker_01
because I failed so many English classes that I would never be a writer. So I think at a very young age, I got this idea in my head that I wasn't capable or good enough or able to do something like this.

00:02:10 Speaker_01
And so I chose the route of photography because it was something that I was encouraged to do. And I think that's really my honest truth that I became a photographer because I believed that it was possible for me.

00:02:24 Speaker_01
This work, Project 562, is from my 10 years on the road.

00:02:29 Speaker_01
It started because I was a teacher at the tribal school in my res, and the elders in my community, the principal of my school, Shelly Lacy, came to me and said, Matika, you know, we really need to put together a curriculum that represents our people.

00:02:43 Speaker_01
and we need a visual literacy curriculum.

00:02:46 Speaker_01
And I started looking for the work, and what I found was like a very outdated narrative, of course, something that was of our people, represented as a people of the past, or represented in poverty porn, or as leathered and feathered on the prairie, or as these very stereotypical representations that we see from Hollywood and from Disney films, but certainly degrading images.

00:03:11 Speaker_01
And I couldn't use that work to teach from. I couldn't use Edward S. Curtis images to teach from. I couldn't use National Geographic images. I needed something more accurate, more honest, something that uplifted our contemporary complexity.

00:03:27 Speaker_01
And so I said to Shelly, I said, Shelly, you know, like the work doesn't exist. I can show my work, but there's not like a comprehensive collection of Native people from this whole country, you know?

00:03:38 Speaker_01
And so I was like, well, maybe I'll just go make the work. And really that's how this book started, was this idea and this dream, like, maybe I can do it. So I launched a Kickstarter and it was funded and then I was on the road.

00:03:52 Speaker_01
And so I spent years traveling around the country, visiting, engaging, photographing, interviewing folks. And I always knew that I wanted to develop a curriculum and that I wanted to publish a book, but I really had no idea how to do that.

00:04:10 Speaker_01
Certain publishers reached out to me and offered to co-publish the book, right? Like, well, why don't you give us half of your Kickstarter funding and then we'll make you a book.

00:04:19 Speaker_01
And others reached out to me and said, well, yeah, we can publish a book, but you have to pay for all the costs. And none of those things really worked for me.

00:04:28 Speaker_01
It really wasn't until after we started this podcast that Kate reached out to me, who's my agent now, and said, let me help you write a book proposal and find you a publisher.

00:04:40 Speaker_01
And so that's how this, that's kind of the long version of how this story started.

00:04:46 Speaker_03
So when you started out with Project 562, was a book the end goal? Was that always part of what you wanted from this?

00:04:55 Speaker_01
I always wanted to make a book, I just don't think I ever really knew how I was going to do it. And yeah, let's talk about your book. Tell me the origin story of your book.

00:05:04 Speaker_03
Sure. So, as most folks on the podcast know, I've been public writing for probably the last decade or so.

00:05:12 Speaker_03
I used to have my blog Native Appropriations, which I started in grad school and during the early days was writing up to like five blog posts a week on that platform. So, So much content on there over the course of that decade.

00:05:30 Speaker_03
I mean, the blog still exists. I just don't really write on there anymore. And then alongside of it, of course, I was like doing my academic writing and publishing and the things I needed to do for my job.

00:05:43 Speaker_03
But something that I learned through the time of the blog and then through our podcast is, and it goes along with your work, is that there's such a need for representations to replace all of the negative ones that we're constantly tearing down.

00:05:59 Speaker_03
So you and I have built a lot of our writing, our speaking, our platforms on tearing down misrepresentations and stereotypes and these harmful images of Native people.

00:06:11 Speaker_03
And I realized at some point, as did you, that we need to have these images to replace it with. We need to be showing people the complexity and diversity of Indian country.

00:06:23 Speaker_03
And so I had always held that in my head as something that I really wanted to think about how do we create more of these true, complex, positive representations and things that are very accessible.

00:06:36 Speaker_03
And so then out of the blue one day, our amazing editor Caitlin sent me an email and was like, hey, my name is Caitlin. I am an editor at 10 Speed Press and I have this idea and wanted to see if you had any interest in maybe writing a book.

00:06:56 Speaker_03
And so we started going back and forth.

00:06:59 Speaker_03
And it was so, from the beginning, like, everything just aligned, where she pitched this idea to me of being like, you know, we have all these other books that are like short biography books for all kinds of different communities that tell stories of cool folks from, you know,

00:07:15 Speaker_03
communities that aren't represented, but we don't have one for Native people. And it was honestly something that I had thought about a lot, like buying gifts for nieces and nephews and nibblings. So Caitlin and I went back and forth.

00:07:28 Speaker_03
I created a book proposal that had 50 short biographies of Native people with kind of like inner spreads about different issues in Indian country. And after going through all the approval processes at the press, was offered a contract.

00:07:46 Speaker_03
And I did things backwards. So you had an agent and then you shopped your proposal to different presses. I got the offer from the press and then found an agent.

00:07:56 Speaker_03
So I got hooked up with my amazing agent, Aaliyah, through my friend Clint Smith and Eve Ewing. They hooked me up with their literary community. And she's been an incredible, incredible person to work with, as has been Caitlin.

00:08:12 Speaker_03
So for me, it kind of was ideas that have been percolating. And then the opportunity really came to me in a way that was amazing. And then I got to move forward with the project from there. Did Caitlin find you through the podcast?

00:08:29 Speaker_03
When we first talked, she said she had been following my work for a while through the writing and Twitter. I used to be very active on the Twitters and then also the podcasts, obviously.

00:08:45 Speaker_01
Yeah, that's pretty amazing. It's like, it's pretty amazing how, you know, you both I also used to write a blog, right? I used to try to publish weekly on the Project 562 blog.

00:08:56 Speaker_01
And, and then I also published films, you know, weekly, and, you know, how long that happened for, for like, you know, eight or nine years, and then also years of making the podcast and putting these stories out on our own platforms.

00:09:14 Speaker_01
Like I mentioned, I initially wanted to work with a publisher from the very start, but was told by multiple publishers and agents that it wasn't possible.

00:09:24 Speaker_01
You know, like people actually laughed at me when I told them like, yeah, I want to go visit all these tribes and I want to put this book together. And people said, oh, no, that's going to be too hard. You know, like that can't be done.

00:09:35 Speaker_01
That'll take forever. Or that's going to take too much money. You know, a lot of people just sort of, yeah, they just sort of laughed at me. So it's really amazing to think like, OK, because of that, we had to turn to our own devices.

00:09:51 Speaker_01
and publish like on our own blogs, on our own Instagrams.

00:09:55 Speaker_01
And it was because of social media and because there was a hunger and a desire from community to hear these stories that we finally got to a place where, you know, these big publishing houses saw our stories as relevant and important.

00:10:11 Speaker_01
And, you know, but it took like that sort of internal push.

00:10:16 Speaker_03
Absolutely.

00:10:37 Speaker_01
So maybe, Adrienne, you could just give me a little overview of your book. We can just start by talking a little bit about what is in your book. What is it?

00:10:46 Speaker_03
Sure. My book is called Notable Native People, 50 Indigenous Dreamers, Leaders, and Changemakers from Past and Present, I think.

00:11:00 Speaker_03
And basically it is 50 short biographies of awesome American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian folks, heavily weighted towards contemporary people, but also historic folks as well.

00:11:13 Speaker_03
And then in between all of those are sort of these short little spreads that are things like

00:11:20 Speaker_03
Settler colonialism 101 or whose land are you on or current issues of focus for Indian country, who belongs, I have a two page spread about like identity and belonging and that kind of stuff.

00:11:36 Speaker_03
Yeah so and then at the back there are I think 20 more like little one sentence bios.

00:11:42 Speaker_03
So overall there's you know like 70 Native people in the book and then it's illustrated by someone that listeners of the podcast know very well, Sierra Sana who is the incredible artist who does all of our episode artwork for the podcast.

00:11:58 Speaker_03
So she's Chamorro and it was incredibly important to me to have an Indigenous illustrator for the book. Like there was no way the book was going to happen without that. So we decided to go with Sierra because she's amazing and her portraiture is really

00:12:17 Speaker_03
just so impressive that she does with the podcast. So she illustrated a portrait for each of those people, as well as all the spreads in between. And it's just so gorgeous.

00:12:28 Speaker_03
And that was important to me, too, to have it just be something that was really accessible and beautiful, as well as informative. So what about yours? I haven't even, I don't even know.

00:12:40 Speaker_03
I've seen all the pieces and been hearing the backstory, but I don't know actually what the final form of the book looks like.

00:12:47 Speaker_01
So my book is 416 pages. It's a textbook. It's six pounds. It's like a little baby. It's really like, when you hold it and carry it around, it's like, oh man, I put it on my hip because it's heavy.

00:13:06 Speaker_01
You know, it's a collection of images and stories from folks that I encountered. So every person that I encountered along the way and photographed, I interviewed and I spent quite a bit of time with.

00:13:18 Speaker_01
And, you know, our discussions would range from conversations around sovereignty, identity, self-determination, relationality, we'd talk about racism, structural racism.

00:13:30 Speaker_01
We'd also talk about people's lives, their husbands, their wives, their love lives. We'd talk a lot about spirituality and the little people or dear woman or the other forces at work in our lives. And And they were very organic conversations.

00:13:50 Speaker_01
But like you said, a lot of this work is narrative correction work. It's about understanding contemporary Indigenous identity. And for me, that's really what this work started out as, is trying to overcome some of these harmful and toxic stereotypes.

00:14:08 Speaker_01
And I spent a lot of time talking with folks about representation and identity. Honestly, now that I'm at this particular stage and I've been talking about this for so long, I'm really ready to move on to new topics.

00:14:24 Speaker_01
I think that that's kind of, for me, the joy and the beauty of completing this work is that it kind of allows me and frees me and liberates me to think about what kind of new possibilities there are for in my own evolution as a photographer and as a storyteller.

00:14:41 Speaker_01
Yeah. So there's, you know, about 250 people in the book. And, you know, that is, I feel a tremendous amount of Disappointment in that fact, because I wanted to represent all of the 562 federally recognized tribes when I started the project.

00:15:03 Speaker_01
There's now 574. And then as I would go on the road, I would also visit with urban Native people and with communities who are not recognized, who are fighting for recognition, but not every single place that I went to is represented.

00:15:18 Speaker_01
you know, like we're doing the book launch here tomorrow in Swinomish, you know, and we're doing all these projects in Washington State, but not all the 29 tribes of Washington are represented in the book.

00:15:29 Speaker_01
And that kind of like, makes me feel kind of just sick to my stomach, because because I was very limited by the 400 pages and the six pound book. And the book is already $50.

00:15:43 Speaker_01
So if I would have put one from every tribe, it would have been like a $200 book and 2,000 pages.

00:15:52 Speaker_01
So hopefully the book does well and there can be volumes and I can print a second volume of the book and a third volume with more representation in the book. what's in it.

00:16:03 Speaker_01
In my first draft, the book was like 800 pages, because I photographed about 1200 people in total for this project, and that's how many are in the archive.

00:16:13 Speaker_01
And so when I first started writing the book, I was like, okay, let me go back through these 40 hard drives, and let's pick out every person's interview and every person's photograph.

00:16:24 Speaker_01
And I printed all the photos, I put them, I wallpapered my house basically with images. And was like, okay, like, here's all the people I photographed. Now, how do we narrow this down to something that fits inside of a book?

00:16:37 Speaker_01
And I initially organized the book by chapters like I thought it would be. you know, related to sovereignty and identity, feminisms, matriation, rematriation.

00:16:50 Speaker_01
And I thought I would have like these different topics in the book, but then that took up so much space and took away so many people from actually being in the book that I took out all of my chapter introductions. So.

00:17:01 Speaker_01
Yeah, that's what the book is right now.

00:17:04 Speaker_03
So for each person that you photograph, there is a narrative along with them, right? There's the story, like beautiful words from each of the people, the kind of themes that emerge from your conversations with them.

00:17:17 Speaker_03
So it's not just a photography book, it has like all of this beautiful writing with it as well.

00:17:22 Speaker_01
Yeah. And then there's also excerpts, longer essays. I wrote an essay about missing and murdered Indigenous women called Protect Indigenous Women. I wrote an essay about Standing Rock, the movement to protect Standing Rock.

00:17:36 Speaker_01
I wrote another essay about the canoe journey and the revitalization of canoe culture and potlatch culture in the Pacific Northwest. And another essay about Indigenous Women Hike and the reclamation of that national park, now known as Yosemite.

00:17:50 Speaker_01
I wrote another essay about Mauna Awakea, the movement to protect Mauna Kea. And so there are some longer essays in the book. But it's mostly each person has about 1,000 words. There's a few people that got 1,500 words.

00:18:06 Speaker_01
When I initially wrote the book, like I said, it was like 1,800 pages. We started by giving everybody 1,500 words. And so then it had to be pared down, pared down, pared down to about 1,000 words per person.

00:18:18 Speaker_01
And most of it comes directly from the people themselves.

00:18:22 Speaker_03
And how did you make, and we can talk about how I did it too, but how did you make the choices of who you were going to include? Because I know that was kind of the most agonizing part for me.

00:18:32 Speaker_01
I mean, so painfully, I I didn't make a lot of the choices. A lot of the choices were made based off of representation and image. So there was a photo editor in my case that helped, that pared a lot of the choices down.

00:18:54 Speaker_01
And then also it was like sometimes two or three people would all be talking about the exact same thing. And so those ones, we have to just pick one of these person. But I mean, Honestly, I don't know how we made the choice.

00:19:11 Speaker_01
When I look back on it, I'm like, oh, did I make the right choice? I feel so worried, Adrian, of disappointing Indian country. Did I do a good job? Did I make the right choices?

00:19:30 Speaker_01
Those were deliberate choices that I made, and I feel sick to my stomach about it.

00:19:37 Speaker_03
I mean, I think we should definitely talk about that piece of it because that was huge for me throughout the entire process was just that like weight of, I mean, anxiety, but it was just the

00:19:50 Speaker_03
not wanting to let Indian country down and also knowing that when there are so few books like this where you're showcasing like different folks from across different communities that the burden of representation is so high that I couldn't screw up.

00:20:11 Speaker_03
I like I mean, I was literally think I had an amazing team of three former students who helped me with my initial spreadsheet of like trying to narrow it down to 50.

00:20:23 Speaker_03
And we had like columns that were like region, tribe, gender identity, like if they were like part of the broader queer community, life's work, age, education level, like all of these things trying to get a really diverse group.

00:20:43 Speaker_03
And then we had to have a column that was like, did you do the deep dive on controversy? Is this a safe person? Is this a person that we want to be promoting?

00:20:54 Speaker_03
And that was really hard to find out things about people that I really respected to have to remove them from the list or whatever it was.

00:21:05 Speaker_03
it for me was so anxiety-inducing of that like who to pick, who not to pick, but a lot of it was just that I felt the burden of representation. I felt like it had to be perfect because we had so few books like this.

00:21:23 Speaker_03
And now there will at least be two, there will be both of ours. So between your 200 plus profiles and my 50, like that's a lot of amazing people that folks get to learn about. But yeah, what was that like for you?

00:21:39 Speaker_03
And like how and we can also just move it into what does it feel like that the book's about to be in the world to like, what are you feeling?

00:21:47 Speaker_01
I think you know what I'm feeling because you did it last year. I mean, people keep coming to me and saying, like, aren't you so excited? And I am, I am. There are some big things that I'm really proud of.

00:22:00 Speaker_01
And one of them is that I'm doing a partnership with the National Education Association and we're co-branding the curriculum that we've developed in partnership with Santa Monica College, a residency that I've been doing there with Emily Silver.

00:22:13 Speaker_01
You've heard us talk about that on this podcast and we're going to, we got a grant to be able to go around and make books available to native populations and to teach the curriculum and to give educators the resources to use this book as a tool in their classroom.

00:22:28 Speaker_01
So for me, that feels like a ginormous win, right? Like that's what this book is about. I come with an education background with working with students. I want the book to be available to educators.

00:22:38 Speaker_01
And so I've been able to strategically write grants to make sure that this book can be delivered to that group of people that I really feel like I serve and that I have a responsibility to. So that feels like a big win to me.

00:22:58 Speaker_01
And so a few weeks ago, Adrian, I went into the Swinomish Tribal Council and I brought the book in and I showed them and my mom came with me and I asked them to buy books to make it available to my community.

00:23:15 Speaker_01
And in Swinomish, you know, the chairman of the tribe stood up and he said, you know, we support you. Like, we love you, and we want our people to have this. We're proud of you. And they said, we'll buy 500 books.

00:23:32 Speaker_01
And so tomorrow at the book launch in Swinomish, we're going to give 500 books away to community members and to our kids in my community. And my community is going to sing the book in tomorrow and pray for the book.

00:23:48 Speaker_01
So I feel like enveloped in this incredible love from my community, you know, and then we're doing it again on Wednesday, you know, like the Tulalip tribes. I also went in and talked to my dad's tribe and went into council.

00:24:04 Speaker_01
I went on an open general session on a Saturday morning and I asked them if they would support the work, and I gave a full presentation.

00:24:15 Speaker_01
I showed them the whole thing, like the need for representation and the stereotypes, and then I showed them a lot of images and what I'd done.

00:24:22 Speaker_01
And then at the end, I said, you know, would you be willing to support this and buy and give books to our people? Right then and there, you know, Terry Gobin, the chairwoman of our tribe, she made a motion to buy books and Mel Sheldon seconded it.

00:24:38 Speaker_01
And they made a motion and it passed unanimously. And the whole boardroom stood up and clapped and raised their hands. And my Auntie Judy was there. And my Auntie Judy started, you know, she stood up, she was crying.

00:24:49 Speaker_01
And she said, you know, you're a grandmother. wanted to make books. She had written, she wrote letters to publishers trying to publish books about tribal law, and she was rejected over and over and over again to the point that she gave up.

00:25:06 Speaker_01
But it was always a dream of hers, you know, to have books made about our people. And now I can feel her here, you know, in this boardroom, I can feel her spirit here, you know, she would have loved to, to live to see this day.

00:25:23 Speaker_01
And everybody raised their hands to me. And so they bought 1,200 books that day. And we're giving them all away on Wednesday. I'm going to Heritage High School, where I used to teach. And I'm giving books to all the students there.

00:25:34 Speaker_01
And then I'm going to Marysville Getchell High School and giving books to all the students there. And then I'm going to another high school in Marysville and giving books there at Pilchuck. And so I feel good about that. It's beautiful.

00:25:50 Speaker_01
On Wednesday night, we're going to do that same thing. We're going to have another book giveaway for the elders in my community. So that to me is like I feel incredibly honored and loved by my community.

00:26:01 Speaker_01
I think I felt for a long time like I didn't know where I belonged, you know, because I was like on the road for so long. Yeah. So I'm nervous. I don't want to disappoint people.

00:26:19 Speaker_01
I'm embarrassed, honestly, and scared to talk in front of my own community. And I'm scared of the criticism that is going to come. I know there's going to be a lot of criticism. But...

00:26:34 Speaker_01
I hope that people will receive the book and the spirit in which it was made, you know, like this book started in ceremony. I asked permission from the ancestors and then this project was made through ceremony.

00:26:44 Speaker_01
I can only explain it that way, like people loving and supporting me and letting me sleep on their couch and sending me off in a good way, you know, and telling their short stories with me, including you, you know, even you, Adrian, you know, shared your story with me and talked to me and guided me and loved me through the process.

00:27:00 Speaker_01
And I made a lot of mistakes in the process. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of mistakes in the book, because I'm only a human and I make errors, you know. But I did my best and tried my hardest to make sure that it was done right.

00:27:14 Speaker_01
You know, that's all I can say. So yeah, I feel all those things. Having you having been through this for a while, how was it for you and how is it now?

00:27:26 Speaker_03
I mean, just so much resonance in that. And also, I mean, I wish my book launch could have been more like that. I wrote my book during the depths of the pandemic, like during 2020, when we were not going anywhere.

00:27:42 Speaker_03
And then it came out during the Omicron wave where we were not doing anything. So I did a couple of online things, but didn't really get to give the big all out.

00:27:54 Speaker_03
And I also dealt with a lot of anxiety about the fact that it wasn't an academic book in the traditional academic sense, meaning that it wasn't with an academic publisher. all of those things.

00:28:07 Speaker_03
So I myself was really hesitant to promote it because I was afraid that it would be seen negatively by my academic community because I didn't yet have tenure and I hadn't finished my academic book, which in hindsight is super sad that I basically didn't really celebrate the release of the book or promote it very much because I was afraid of what

00:28:31 Speaker_03
my academic community would say. But the amazing thing has been, I was, I mean, all of the anxieties that you feel I 100% felt. I like laid awake at night thinking about the typos and about the mistakes, thinking that I should have

00:28:47 Speaker_03
been in better relationship with the people in the book, like thinking that maybe I'd included someone who was harmful, maybe I hadn't included someone who I should have, maybe, you know, all of the things, just like a constant stream of fear.

00:29:00 Speaker_03
And the internet, we both know, is a very harsh place, so also fearing the blowback that I was gonna get online. And honestly, it never really came. Like... People overall have just been so kind.

00:29:14 Speaker_03
Yeah, there were some salty people about choices I made or whatever, and I know that that's going to be the reception for your book too, is that the importance of books like ours outweighs

00:29:28 Speaker_03
the fact that there's an entire sentence missing from one of my profiles in the book, or the fact that I got the date of the Pueblo Revolt wrong in the first printing, or things like that, which I still cringe about.

00:29:41 Speaker_03
But the stories that I hear from people of the impact that the book has or them being able to give it to their younger cousins or their kids or whatever it is or having it in classrooms.

00:29:56 Speaker_03
My friend Eve always talks about, Eve Ewing, she's written a lot of beautiful books and she always talks about that your book is going to go out and have a life like

00:30:04 Speaker_03
far beyond anything that you know about or even can imagine, and that that's really exciting, that your book is just out there living its life, doing its thing, having all of these relationships with people, and you're not even going to know.

00:30:18 Speaker_03
And that's incredible to have created something that can go out and have that impact in that way. So I think the anxiety is real. And from what I've heard of my other author friends, very normal.

00:30:32 Speaker_03
I think we have an additional weight of Indian country that most authors don't. And that, like I said, the burden of representation. as time has passed, like the more I can kind of step back and celebrate the my book and like be excited by it.

00:30:51 Speaker_03
And it doesn't cause me anxiety to see it on the shelf anymore, like that kind of stuff. So I hope for you that that will come quickly.

00:30:59 Speaker_03
Because it really is an amazing, amazing thing to have written something that's going to be in the hands of thousands of people all over the world. Mm hmm.

00:31:30 Speaker_01
Let's talk a little bit about some of the unique challenges of writing a book as a Native author. You know, we've kind of touched on it a little bit. You know, there's very few Native books authored by Native people.

00:31:40 Speaker_01
I think one of, for me, one of the big challenges is that most of the collaborators that I worked with in this process were non-Native. And meaning like editors, copywriters, like all those folks. Yeah.

00:31:52 Speaker_01
And I wondered, you know, like Caitlin is amazing. I don't want to say anything about Caitlin that would make Caitlin feel bad or. because Caitlin put up with me in ways that, I mean, I was like a baby in this process.

00:32:08 Speaker_01
I was like a, and then I was like a terrible teenager.

00:32:11 Speaker_01
And, you know, in so many ways, she like coached me through and held my hand and encouraged me and made me feel seen and whole and like a person like that deserved and was smart enough and capable enough to do this work. And so, you know, like,

00:32:29 Speaker_01
I am eternally grateful to Caitlin, but I also often wondered, if the designer was Native, if the editor was Native, how might the scholarship have advanced? Would I have been able to think about these things more in a more complex way?

00:32:49 Speaker_01
What if you were my editor, Adrienne?

00:32:51 Speaker_01
You know, and like, and I had got to turn it into you and you could say, yes, Matika, this, like the way you talk about colonialism here is interesting, but it, but you could talk about it like this, you know, which might be more useful to our community, which could have like, you know, really elevated the conversation.

00:33:08 Speaker_01
I wondered often about that in the process. Then there's, of course, the challenge of representation and making sure, of course, that we the weight and the burden of being one of the only authors, because there's so few Native authors.

00:33:28 Speaker_01
And there are incredible authors. We can't overlook the work of people recently like Tommy Orange and Dr. Robin Kimmerer with Braiding Sweetgrass and you know, Louise Erdrich and on and on and on. There's a lot of incredible authors.

00:33:46 Speaker_01
We're not saying there's not. I mean, Joy Hojar was the poet laureate, served a third term, like only the second person in US history to ever do that. And she's incredible and prolific.

00:33:55 Speaker_01
So, you know, obviously, there are a lot of Native authors, but there also aren't a lot of Native authors. When you think in terms of the scope of how many books are published every year, and how few of those are published by Native people,

00:34:06 Speaker_01
And in publishing and in terms of publishing houses, how many of those are Native or people in power are Native? I think that's a unique challenge for us.

00:34:15 Speaker_03
Absolutely. And I think so, Caitlin, who we keep referencing is Caitlin Ketchum, who is our editor at 10 Speed Press.

00:34:23 Speaker_03
And I think a lot about how important it was, like she believed in these books, and she believed in us in a way that I don't think a lot of other editors would have gone to the lengths that she did to make sure that everything was like,

00:34:38 Speaker_03
culturally competent and reflected the values that we wanted to in the book. Um, because, I mean, like, we had so many conversations around, like, the style guides for, um, Penguin Random House overall.

00:34:51 Speaker_03
Like, the fact that re-matriation wasn't, like, in any of the style guides. Or when we were talking about, um, Hawaiian language, like, the okinas and the different, um, what are they called? Diacritical? Dialectical marks? Uh, like...

00:35:07 Speaker_00
We had to hire a Hawaiian copy editor for that, yeah. I was like, oh my God, I have no idea.

00:35:11 Speaker_03
But it's true that everyone in who the book touched was a non-Native person on the publishing side of things. And so it takes people who are the true and dedicated allies in the deepest meaning of that word, like Kaitlin, who are willing to...

00:35:33 Speaker_03
have faith in these projects, to green light these projects, to give space for them.

00:35:37 Speaker_03
But then we also need Native folks in these positions because it's a lot of labor for the author to have to be explaining everything to 14 different people at every stage.

00:35:49 Speaker_03
To be explaining decisions when, yeah, if I were your editor, I would look at something and be like, yeah, that makes sense. Of course, you're going to do that.

00:35:56 Speaker_03
Or, of course, things are going to take way longer because we have to talk to the people in the book. Or, of course, we need to

00:36:02 Speaker_03
shift things up and do it a little bit differently because of Indigenous relationality and the way that things work in Indian country.

00:36:10 Speaker_03
Or thinking about like ownership and like about copyright and yeah, like all of these things that don't necessarily map on to an Indigenous worldview. So I think

00:36:23 Speaker_03
Yeah, we need more Native folks on the publishing side to be able to bring more books to life.

00:36:28 Speaker_03
And I think part of this is also a question of audience, too, in terms of writing, which we could have an entire episode on, as well as, like, if you're writing to Indian country, that's very different than writing to everyone.

00:36:42 Speaker_03
And how do you still hold, and that's what we try to do with the podcast, but like how do we still hold our communities as the center and still make it accessible to everyone. So that was something that I struggled through and thought about a lot.

00:36:59 Speaker_03
The bottom line is, yeah, like most of the folks in publishing are not Native, are not even people of color.

00:37:05 Speaker_03
And so being able to have a team that believed in it and was willing to work with us, I think was really important, but doesn't, but underscores the fact that we need more Native folks in those roles.

00:37:20 Speaker_01
Yeah, exactly. Exactly that, Adrienne. Good words.

00:37:24 Speaker_03
Yeah, so what was that like for you, Mantika, in terms of like thinking through those levels of agency and how things don't necessarily map on to that Western style of doing things?

00:37:36 Speaker_01
Yeah, so for me, it was critically important to share agency with my sitters. I asked them where they wanted to be photographed, how they wanted to be photographed.

00:37:47 Speaker_01
I asked them what stories they wanted to talk about, what they wanted to share, which questions they wanted to answer.

00:37:52 Speaker_01
After I transcribed all the work, I sent the transcriptions to the people in the book to make sure that there wasn't anything that they didn't want to discuss. I also sent them their photos and told them they can use them as they want.

00:38:05 Speaker_01
Those are things that are not standards in Western journalism. But I thought it was critically important. You know, it's so pretentious, and Western and capitalist to think that I own somebody's image when it's a photo of them.

00:38:20 Speaker_01
I just don't that just doesn't make a compute with me. And then also, You know, after I wrote the profiles, I sent them to each of the people in the book.

00:38:30 Speaker_01
And I know you did the same thing, Adrian, because I was in your book and you wrote it and sent it to me. And that meant the world to me, and that's how I knew you did things differently.

00:38:40 Speaker_01
And I wanted to do the same thing because I didn't want anybody to have this book come out in print and then have them be some kind of way with me afterwards.

00:38:48 Speaker_01
You know, it was more important to me that I maintained my relationality in Indian country than have a sensational or prolific you know, expose that could harm Indian country. You know, this work is about harm reduction.

00:39:03 Speaker_01
It's not about hurting my relatives or my community. And I know that in terms of Western journalism, that like, compromises what is considered a journalistic neutrality. I don't believe that that's even a real thing.

00:39:18 Speaker_01
I don't believe that journalistic neutrality is even possible. We are the summary of our experiences. We enter everything that we do with all of our bias and experiences that we come from wherever we come from. So, you know.

00:39:31 Speaker_01
people can do whatever they want with their journalistic neutrality, but I just don't believe in it. So anyways, that was some of the process. And it took a long time, right? It wasn't standard.

00:39:43 Speaker_01
It's not standard in Western journalism to do any of these things. I certainly had, you know, after I'd written my rough draft and my first pages and my second pages, then I decided to send them to all the people. It certainly delayed the process.

00:39:54 Speaker_01
You know, this book took me three years from when we were in contract to publishing it, but people had a right to review and so it took longer. But yeah, I think that that's a whole nother topic we could definitely spend a long time talking about.

00:40:16 Speaker_03
Well, maybe to close this out, why don't we both share one thing that we learned in this process and one thing that we hope for the life of our book?

00:40:27 Speaker_01
Well, as this is like starting to get very real for me, you know, like I just signed like thousands of books over the weekend. Um, and that was really wild.

00:40:37 Speaker_01
What I've learned in this process is to be a little bit more gentle with myself, you know, and a little bit more forgiving with, um, with those around me. And I think that I've,

00:40:57 Speaker_01
I've had to overcome a lot of my own fears and a lot of my own insecurities about myself. I feel like for a long time I've had this imposter syndrome really plaguing me, that I don't belong here.

00:41:12 Speaker_01
that I'm not a writer, that I'm not a... Do I have a place here? Do I have a place in my community? Do I have a place as a photographer? I feel like I've been overachieving for a really long time trying to earn my place.

00:41:31 Speaker_01
And I think this process has been really affirming for me. Despite what I think about myself, I can get up every morning and do the work.

00:41:40 Speaker_01
I can make myself wake up at four in the morning and sit down and write a book, even when I feel like I have no right to do so. And for me, the road has been my greatest teacher. Going on the road, meeting folks, spending time in community has been

00:42:00 Speaker_01
my greatest teacher.

00:42:01 Speaker_01
And so I think what I would like to say to young people about what I've learned is that if you are brave enough to extend your hand to self-will, a journey for yourself, the world will conspire to help you and community will stand with you.

00:42:22 Speaker_01
And Indian country is so supportive and I have felt so loved and held by Indian country. And so I feel so affirmed in my love for our people. I have said it over and over again. I feel like this book is like a love letter to Indian country.

00:42:39 Speaker_01
I just, I want to, I want the people that read the book or the relatives that listen to the stories,

00:42:47 Speaker_01
that listen to this podcast to know how much I love Indian country, you know, and I love our people and I feel deeply blessed and honored to have got to witness so many incredible and beautiful things in our communities.

00:43:00 Speaker_01
Does that answer the question? I don't think I have anything more to add. I think that's beautiful.

00:43:04 Speaker_03
And really what I what I hope for the life of my book too. So, I mean, Yeah, your book is out in the world by the time folks are going to be listening to this.

00:43:22 Speaker_03
So for everyone who is listening, you can go and find Project 562, Changing the Way We See Native America, wherever books are sold. And share your photos on Instagram. Let us see what our books are doing out in the world.

00:43:39 Speaker_03
It makes me really happy when I see that. And And wado to everyone who's been along this journey with us. It's really exciting. It's an exciting day.

00:43:49 Speaker_01
Really exciting. It's a big deal. And I'm doing a book tour, you know, I'll be traveling around for a while where I just like started packing up the RV. Yesterday, I got new solar panels for the RV.

00:44:05 Speaker_01
And so me and Alma B and Lino, we're going on the road. I'm doing a little book tour. So we're starting in Swinomish, come through if you're in Washington, then Tulalip on the 26th, Seattle on the 27th, Elliott Bay Bookstore.

00:44:17 Speaker_01
We're asking all relatives to come to Seattle to the bookstore to sing I'm going to give a little talk, but then we're going to have a jam. And Off the Res is doing a food takeover.

00:44:26 Speaker_01
So we're asking for relatives in Washington to come and jam with us on the 27th at Elliott Bay Bookstore. Then I'll be in Portland at the Oregon Indian Education.

00:44:36 Speaker_01
Summit, then Eugene, then Tulsa, New York City, Berkeley, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Fe, New Orleans.

00:44:48 Speaker_01
So if you're in any of those places, please connect, come to the book tour, hang out, get your book signed, say hi, take photos. It would be really great to have our community join us in that process.

00:45:02 Speaker_01
And if you want to buy a signed book, you can do so from Elliott Bay Bookstore. That's all, that's the whole plug.

00:45:12 Speaker_03
And huge shout out. Thanks for letting me talk about it. Of course. And huge shout out and thank you to 10 Speed Press for both of us and to Caitlin Ketchum and our teams there for really making these books possible. So we're so grateful to them too.

00:45:27 Speaker_01
Oh my God, Caitlin, you're the best. And Kelly, you're the best. And all the folks that worked with me on this process, thank you so much for putting up with me and helping me to make this book real.

00:45:44 Speaker_01
Thank you to our AMR team, Jonathan Stein, Max Levin, Sierra Sana, Jameena Bone, and Lindsay Hightower. Thank you to all of the folks that make this podcast possible. Thank you for contributing to our Patreon.

00:45:59 Speaker_01
If you're interested, you can find us on my relations podcast on Patreon, which really pays for all of this to happen. So thank you so much for that. If you want to connect with us on a daily basis, we're on Instagram at amrpodcast.

00:46:14 Speaker_01
You can also find show notes and transcriptions for these episodes at allmyrelationspodcast.com. If you want to come to the book launch and come to the book tour, all the information is up on my website, project562.com.

00:46:33 Speaker_01
Once again, that's project562.com where you can find information about every one of the stops on the book tour. So that's all for now. Thanks, relatives. Until next week.

00:47:02 Speaker_02
All my relations.