Not long after my dad died, just after Christmas in 1999, I found myself in the throes of intense grief. I had experienced loss before. Grandparents had passed away. Friends had left me, too. But I had never felt the kind of profound sadness that engulfed me when my father died. It caused my knees to buckle and for months I felt like I was slogging through quicksand, each step muddier than the one before it.Guest Blogger: Kathi Appelt
Not long after my dad died, just after Christmas in 1999, I found myself in the throes of intense grief. I had experienced loss before. Grandparents had passed away. Friends had left me, too. But I had never felt the kind of profound sadness that engulfed me when my father died. It caused my knees to buckle and for months I felt like I was slogging through quicksand, each step muddier than the one before it.
For seven years, I’ve been sharing the stories of the many incredibly talented Native artists, writers, fashion designers, and entrepreneurs across North America on my blog “Urban Native Girl” and the online magazine I co-founded, Urban Native Magazine. So when Mary Beth Leatherdale came to me with the idea to create an anthology for youth featuring contemporary Native writers, artists, and teens talking about their experiences growing up Indigenous, I was thrilled.
I enjoy writing in the first person. I feel it gives readers immediate insight into a novel’s protagonist; from the beginning of the story they’re inside the head that person—with all the confusion and clarity that it entails. So, when I begin to write a book, I simply sit in a not-too-quiet place (usually the library) and have an internal conversation with whomever it is that’s narrating the work, and I start taking dictation. (Old-timer’s term, look it up.) It’s a fascinating process because so often I learn from this character that the tale I’m set on telling is all wrong.