Andrea L. Rogers's Blog

Siyo! I’ll be hanging around Tahlequah on Saturday. For sure, look for me at the One Fire Field after 1p.m. Come say “Osiyo!” Also, I made some earrings featuring the art Jeff Edwards created for Man Made Monsters. In order to go in the drawing, preorder Man Made Monsters. If you win, I’ll send you a message and ask you to send me a copy of your preorder receipt. It doesn’t matter to me where you buy it, but I always suggest a Native owned bookshop or local Independent store, if possible.

Also, we’ll be doing a book launch at Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas on October 6 at 6:30 p.m. Would love to have some other Cherokees there! Pearl’s is located at

28 E Center St,
Fayetteville, AR 72701
(479) 527.6984

Donadagohvi!

Well, the stories that were on my inside will soon be on the outside. Coming October 4, 2022, Levine Querido will publish Man Made Monsters. I promise the art by Jeff Edwards throughout the book is worth the price of admission. Pre-order from Birchbark Books, Red Planet, or your favorite independent bookseller.

https://bookshop.org/books/man-made-monsters-man-made-monsters/9781646141791

Welp, it’s coming. This October might be my favorite ever. My collection will come out then. The illustrations by Jeff Edwards are amazing. That’s all I got.

I have a piece in The Morning News. It was good to reflect on the last year. Here’s a link: https://themorningnews.org/article/2020-the-year-that-was-and-wasnt

Avatar by Artist Roy Boney-Follow him on Instagram or Facebook.

The year has been hard. I know there are people who are feeling isolated and trying to take care of themselves and work or learn or survive. If you need help, I hope you can get it. I wish you time to mourn all you have lost. You matter. No one is disposable.

I have reassessed my priorities a lot in the last several years. One thing that has become even more clear during isolation is that I was spending way too much time on social media-Twitter, mostly. This week I turned Screen Time on on my phone in order to limit myself to one hour for all social media and no more than two hours a day of e-mail. (I don’t think I normally do nearly that much e-mail, but better safe than saturated). Whittling the social media allowance down to thirty minutes next, because, really, I want to be writing books and stories more than I tweet.

During the pandemic my kids dubbed me a Swifty because after watching Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, I I fell in love with Taylor Swift’s new albums, Folklore and Evermore. There was so much in in the documentary that resonated with me and the things I have been thinking about regarding an Indigenous future. Prior to Covid, life was more hectic than I would have liked, disconnected from my culture and community, and friends. It was exhausting to try to do everything (work, parent) and write, as well. Too many things in my life were mere distractions. Now if it’s not my culture, writing and reading, being active, or time with my kids or good friends, it’s not a priority.

Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions,

I’m currently splitting time between the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and Fort Worth, Texas. I just finished a semester of teaching Comp. 1 and taking a class in Speculative Fiction and Pedagogy. Next semester, I’ll be teaching Comp. 2 and taking classes in both Native and Southern Literature. In between all the things I’ll be researching and writing.

It was a big year for some of the Indigenous writers I love. I hyperlinked the following titles to purchase through Red Planet Books and Comics. Lipan Apache author Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe is killing it (my daughter and I both loved it), as is Blackfeet writer Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians. And it was very cool to be introduced to the work of fellow Cherokee Nation Citizen Kelli Jo Ford via her wonderful book Crooked Hallelujah. It was a big year for me. Mary and the Trail of Tears came out and got a little attention in February and then Covid hit. Towards the end of the year it wound up on some best of the year booklists I love and that was awesome. I had the support and kindness of lots of Indigenous writers, especially, Traci Sorell and Cynthia Leitich Smith. Somehow they had time to help me, even while doing their own amazing stuff. Check them out.

Some people like to do resolutions. I’m just trying to plan my days better and make time for the activities that are important to me: staying active, being with my friends and family, learning Cherokee, and reading and writing stories. I realized that every moment I am making a choice to either do those things or do something that’s not a priority. 2020 taught me to choose more carefully. Stay well. Tell the truth. Defend those who need it. Question everything.

In creative writing classes you will often hear the phrase, “Show, don’t tell.” I’m trying to apply a bit of that to my life. If you love someone or love doing something, maybe both show and tell.

Cherokee New Year was actually in October, but I’m happy to celebrate another beginning. I wish you and me a better year.

ulihelisdi itse adetiyisgvi



ᎤᎵᎮᎵᏍᏗ ᎢᏤ ᎠᏕᏘᏱᏍᎬᎢ

Happy New Year!

By Artist Roy Boney

Years ago I saw a poster at our Indian Education office from Oyate that gave excellent tips for teaching about Indigenous people. The list is recreated here:

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/teaching-respect-native-peoples/

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Mary and the Trail of Tears:  A Cherokee Removal Survival Story is out in hardback and it is beautiful. The illustrations are by Matt Forsyth. He did a terrific job conveying both emotion and cultural details specific to Cherokee culture. Wado, Matt!

 

 

On January 7, You Too? a YA anthology of #MeToo stories will publish. It is available on Audible, as well. It’s a powerful and necessary book. Statistically speaking, it is much needed. RAINN helps survivors of sexual assault.

Here are links to the books. On February 1, the paperback of Mary and the Trail of Tears will be released. It is much cheaper than the hardback. I’ll have some for sale, as soon as I can. Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story

You Too? has essays by 25 authors writing about one of their #MeToo moments. It’s a powerful read. As alone as we can feel in trauma, we aren’t really. May you and your loved ones never need this book. May the people who need it find it.

Osiyo!

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Publishing news for me for 2020, as of now.

Out January 1, 2020 is Mary and the Trail of Tears; A Cherokee Removal Survival Story from Capstone. You can pre-order here: Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story

Additionally, I’m a contributor to an anthology titled You Too?, a nonfiction collection of #MeToo essays for teens edited by YA author Janet Gurtler. “The anthology shines a light on real-life experiences with sexual harassment and assault, and features contributions from the following authors: Patty Blount, Jennifer Brown, Jess Capelle, Kenna Clifford, Eva Darrows, Daa L. Davis, Ronni Davis, Natasha Deen, Nicolas DiDomizio, Jenn Glass, Janet Gurtler, Teri Hall, Ellen hopkins, Mackenzi Lee, Saundra Mitchell, Ali Novak, Eve Porinchak, Cheryl Rainfield, Beth Revis, Andrea L. Rogers, Lulabel Seitz, Mischa Thrace, Amy Zhang.

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Publication is planned for January 2020. You can pre-order here: You Too?

 

 

This is an update to a previous post. My friend, Rebecca Roanhorse recently reminded people to post about what works were eligible for awards, saying, “Don’t self reject!” Award eligible work by Rebecca Roanhorse I had to write and ask her what it meant, what to do. I joined Worldcon in time to nominate the work of others for a Hugo. I’m keeping a running list of those. Cat Rambo keeps up with much in her blog.

In this spirit I am sharing the two pieces I had published last year. Kweli Journal is the fabulous online presence of Laura Pegram’s hard work and love. It’s a good place to be. They published Man Made Monsters in early November. Kweli nominated this story for a Pushcart.

“Man Made Monsters” is the Frankenstein baby I thought about for two years before I sat down one night and gave it life in the wee hours. When I was done, it was exactly what I wanted. A month later it wasn’t. Tommy Orange read it and loved it. But he saw the same lack I saw. He gave me permission to kill and resurrect it. Laura Pegram saw the places where I was afraid, poked them, and encouraged me to do to my creation what needed doing. Limbs were chopped off and replaced. The proper eye colors were set and named.

I’m happy with it again. It’s set in Cherokee Nation in 1856.

Another piece published in 2018 is “Me & My Monster.” It’s the story of a girl and a goatboy and summer love. It exists next to a lot of great work, including creative work by Tommy Orange, Heid Erdrich, and Tiffany Midge. Transmotion is a great academic publication centered on the work of Vine Deloria, but exploring contemporary Indigenous literature. They do great work over there. Thanks, Dr. Theo Van Alst.

Here’s a link to that piece: Me & My Monster

Both stories are part of a literary speculative fiction collection I’m working on.

Happy reading.

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I try to reinvent as few wheels as possible. So, when I started to create a submission tracker this morning, because I can not remember what story I sent to a certain press in August, I hit the internet.

I found this link that took me to the webpage of writer Matt Bell. He created a tracker on Google docs. I downloaded it and had trouble with the function that automatically tabulates how long ago you submitted a piece. Not sure what I did wrong, so I downloaded it again, opened it as a Microsoft Excel document, and voila. Never do math again! YES. (I did leave the two samples at the top of the list in case I ever needed to recopy the function.)

So, here’s the link. Submission Tracker by Matt Bell

I have to say Matt’s Reading Logs made me hyper jealous. And I’m curious about the book Wolf Parts because, uh, Fairy Tales and Wolves. So many books, so little time not at my day job.

Happy submitting! And may the Road to Acceptance rush to meet you.

And here’s some Public Art from the exhibit at Burnett Plaza in Fort Worth. Suits the premise of Matt’s book, Wolf Parts. Loop is only up until October 28, 2018. Loop