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Native American Author Roundtable
10.
AOTW: Tell us about your current project(s).
David and Aimee Thurlo: Our popular Ella Clah series continues in March with the reissue of Death Walker, the second in the series, and in April we have a brand new Ella book out called Tracking Bear. In this book the issue of a proposed nuclear power plant on the Navajo Nation comes into focus after several opponents to this project are murdered. Another Ella Clah novel is already in the planning stages for 2004.
Blood Retribution, the second novel in the Lee Nez nightwalker series which began in November with Second Sunrise (Lee is a Navajo state police officer and half-vampire) is in it's early drafts, and Thief in Retreat, the second novel in the new Sister Agatha series which began with Bad Faith, is already at the publishers.
A special book for us, The Spirit Line, is a Young Adult novel we've just finished for Viking. This is the story of a young Navajo weaver and her friend, an apprentice medicine man. The two teens are forced to complete a quest that takes them into the world of the Navajo creation legends in order to gain the favor of Spider Woman.
Another important project for us is Plant Them Deep, a mystery featuring Ella Clah's mother, Rose, and her Plant Watchers group. This book will be out late next year, and is one of the rare times in publishing when a secondary character in a series gets their own novel.
Thanks for the opportunity to participate in the author roundtable.
Penina Keen Spinka: I plan to continue the Norse-Mohawk connection by bringing the story to its conclusion: the curing of Tododaho and the beginning of the Longhouse Confederation. Jekonsaseh is the legendary woman who became the Peace-maker's first convert. There is a great deal of background in the Jekonsaseh character. I used this to recreate her past and her connection to Hiawatha, Deganawida, Tododaho, and to my introduced Greenlander characters. I am constantly learning more as I write, and discovering the connections in history. Whenever I feel like I've hit a wall in my narrative, a little more research shows me the answer. Historical research is my inspiration to help me find and convey the wonder of how history really might have happened. There is enough drama in the history to tell an engrossing story. I'm glad I discovered it and had the luck to get discovered myself, so I could share the Longhouse history with my readers.
David Marion Wilkinson: I'm working on a memoir with retired Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson. He lived through a period of transition in Texas and the American Southwest and I'd like readers to see what this man accomplished. After that, it's back to fiction. Among other projects I've got in the works, I'd like to return to the Western Cherokee in the period before the Trail of Tears. A situation there in 1829-1832 I read about sparked my imagination and for me that's all it takes. Thanks for including me.
Joseph Marshall III: My current project is a biography of and cultural insight into Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota leader from the 19th century, for Viking Penguin and I expect it will be published in 2003.
Thomas Perry: My current projects: I guess this is a chance for a commercial. In December Dead Aim, my thirteenth novel, will be published. I'll be appearing in bookstores in several cities (Los Angeles, Boston, Tampa, San Diego, St. Louis, and Milwaukee so far) in January. The paperback edition of Pursuit also appears in January.
Next spring, my first book, The Butcher's Boy, will be republished as a Random House trade paperback with an introduction by Michael Connelly, and my second, Metzger's Dog, will be republished with an introduction by Carl Hiaasen.
The book I'm working on right now is set in Los Angeles and so far, has no Native American characters. I do hope to write more about Jane Whitefield in the future, when I know something new about her that's worth reporting.
Margaret Coel: I just finished Killing Raven, the ninth novel in my mystery series, due out next September. Now I'm hard at work on a new novel, which, like the others, takes its cue from history and what happened when the photographer Edward Curtis came to the Wind River Reservation to photograph the Arapahos, and how the events from that time have percolated into the present.
David Matheson: I have started several books and publishers/agents have changed my direction a number of times. I really have several books unfinished. One of the unfinished books is a sequel to Red Thunder. Another is a nonfiction about some of the life lessons that I put in Red Thunder. My current project is a nonfiction book about native principals in managing. Managing life, projects, organizations, etc. I believe native people have a lot to offer. We have contributed a lot to the world today. Medicines, foods, American history, and character wouldn't be the same if our people were not here to interact with the European settlers. We have much more to offer. Of all the ethnic groups in America, Native Americans proportionately have been the first to have volunteered to defend this land, this nation and to fight under its flag for democracy and freedom because it is our land and our country. Not in historical and ownership sense, but because we really are all in it together. I want to be able to bring something new something more to the table that will bring us all together as a people and as a nation.
Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear: We just finished the copy-edited manuscript for People of the Owl. We've waited a long time to do this book. People of the Owl is based on one of the most important archaeological sites in the United States. If you ask people to name the first city in North America, most will say Saint Augustine, Florida. Some will say old Oraibi on the Hopi mesas. Chaco Canyon crops up occasionally, so does Cahokia. They're all wrong. It's not the Hopewell site in Newark, Ohio, either. Rather, the first city built in North America is at Poverty Point in northeastern Louisiana. It was built about 3,500 years ago --- yes, before the Israelites left Egypt. The population may have been as high as several thousand people. Poverty Point is the culmination of the early mound building cultures in the lower Mississippi Valley. It was the center of trade for half the continent, the home of artisans, traders, and ancient astronomers. We see it as the cultural core for all that followed, much as Mesopotamia was for Europe.
People of the Owl is about a young boy, Salamander, who is vaulted into clan leadership long before he's ready. As usual, the Hero Twins are at it again, and Salamander is caught between them. Most people think Salamander is a half-wit, including the three wives he inherited from his dead brother. His only allies are the phantasmal Masked Owl and a dying shaman who can see Salamander's latent greatness.
This is a special novel for us. Not only can we explore the ins-and-outs of arranged multiple marriages, but it takes the reader into the center of clan politics. We believe that People of the Owl is the equivalent of People of the Lakes in its scope of character, drama, and place.
People of the Owl should be on the shelves in hardback in July of 2003.
The next book in the PEOPLE series will be People of the Raven. We're currently revising the story and will be delivering it to Forge Books within the next month or so.
We have received numerous requests from fans all over the world to write the story of the Kennewick Man. For those who don't know, this is a 9,600 year old skeleton found on the Columbia River in Washington State. His physical appearance is similar to a Caucasoid's, and indicates that at least two distinct populations were present in North America around ten thousand years ago. Kennewick has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle between archaeologists who want to study him and local tribes who want to rebury him without study. People of the Raven is set in Washington and British Columbia during a time of environmental upheaval at the end of the last Ice Age. Expect it in bookstores sometime in 2004.
We are also working on another genetic thriller, Genesis Athena, which follows in the vein of Dark Inheritance and Raising Abel. Americans do not realize the speed at which genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology are advancing. Within years we will have unlocked the door to our own genesis. For the first time, a species will have the ability to direct its evolution. A whole new economy will be born, one that deals with black market human genes and genotypes. Genesis Athena explores the dangers.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in Authors on the Web. Readers are welcome to visit our website at www.gear-gear.com for more information about our books or our buffalo.
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