On Making History--Together

being a Potawatomi children's author in a changing world

Friends,

We are taking a break this week from our current series on the sustainability of publishing, but I’ll be back next week with thoughts!

March is Women’s History Month, and I am thinking about how strange a thing like history is—that we are always making it, because we have no choice but to make it.

Every decision we make, especially at the macro level but even in our most intimate spaces, reverberates, crossing thresholds we cannot understand.

So you and I are very much a part of history, every single day. The books we read, the stuff we think about, our opinions, the ways we grapple with decisions or ask big questions abut what we believe and who we want to be in this world.

So, I want to tell you a little more about something that is really important to me, part of my history, our history, the stories we are choosing to tell.

Today I’m announcing that my next book in the Indigenous Celebration of Nature series is available for pre-order!

I teased this a little bit recently, but I want to tell you a little more about this book, this whole series, why it matters to me, to us.

I am the first Potawatomi woman published by my publisher for this series, Convergent Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

It’s a big deal to me, and sometimes, I don’t really feel it, like it doesn’t hit, I don’t understand all the ways that this reality matters.

It means I’m introducing my team and all of you to my culture, to my own stories and to Indigenous ways of being in the world. It means history is happening right here, right now.

It means I need folks like you to walk beside me in this, whether you become a paid subscriber here at the Liminality Journal or share my work online, or engage with me on social media or pre-order my books and buy them for your friends. We do all of it together.

Three things I want you to get from this series:

1. The seasons are sacred and we should acknowledge them

2. Indigenous kids are so special and should be celebrated

3. It’s never too late to invest in our relationship with Mother Earth

I love the changing of the seasons. Spring is coming, and I can feel it. It’s the Anishinaabe new year, and everything is sparking, slowly opening up, coming alive. Winter is laying down her role for the year, getting ready to pass the baton to her partner, Spring.

Bo is short for Bodewadmi Ndaw, which is how we say in a celebratory way, I am Potawatomi! Bo wears his hair in a traditional braid, and in the book, we learn about why that matters, a celebration of who he is as a Potawatomi boy. Our Indigenous kiddos get a lot of trauma from society and the history we pass down, and they shouldn’t have to live with that. They should be celebrated and loved, and their relationship to themselves and the world around them cherished. That’s what this book is about.

And lastly, friends, it is never, ever too late to invest in your relationship to Mother Earth. Start now! Start with a children’s book! Let it seep into you and remind you of who you are and what your role is on this earth. This relationship we have to the world around us is so tender, and deserves our attention and respect.

Children’s books aren’t just for children. They never really are.

So, please pre-order Summer’s Magic today!

I can’t wait to keep making history with you.