Planted seeds and pleasing growth

 

Unexpected sunflowers in our allotment garden last autumn

Craig every second Tuesday

Kia ora and gidday everyone. 

I hope you've had a good start to the year, even as we all continue to live through unprecedented times. It's hard to believe that we're coming up two years now dealing with a once-a-century pandemic that has upturned so much of life that we perhaps took a little for granted, whether it's international travel or being able to hug our friends or attend weddings or book festivals or concerts - or any events really, without stress or anxiety - pre-2020. 

I don't know about you, but I've found myself compartmentalising quite a bit over the past couple of years - trying to be really grateful for all the good things that I do have in my day-to-day life and not dwell too much on the many things that have been curtailed or lost. It can be a little overwhelming at times to think too much about the latter. 

A couple of things I've found really beneficial in the last couple of years is spending time in nature. Living in a big city like London now, I miss the natural surrounds that were easily at hand growing up in small-town New Zealand (beaches, forests, mountains, rivers, orchards and more all 15 mins or so drive from my suburban home). I miss the sea, I miss the mountains. But as my daughter has grown, and especially the past couple of years, we've spent more and more time exploring the nature we do have in London - whether riverside walks along the Thames, spending time in some cool parks, commons, and woodland areas in south London (eg Wimbledon Common), and also thanks to some friends we met, eventually creating our own rustic, rather wild garden area in a local allotment. 

Miss Six is pleased with her 'pumpkin' (actually a Japanese squash)

After visiting our friends there regularly, having play dates and barbeques and helping with their produce in 2020 - allowable outdoors catch-ups during the pandemic - which was a great boon for the soul during tough times, last year we were offered the chance to have our own little patch. It was late in the planting season, but after working hard on the bindweed infested soil during the early summer, we planted a few things to see how they'd go (squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, a few sunflower plants etc), more using it as a test for next season than having any great hopes for lots of vegetables this time.

I remember thinking at the time about a saying I'd often heard or used in years past: 'plant seeds, pull weeds', talking about life in general and trying to take actions that may pay off later, and reduce or stop actions, habits or other things that may hurt later or are getting in the way. There was something therapeutic during the still-going pandemic to get my hands dirty, in the soil, literally pulling weeds and planting seed(ling)s. And it was really heartening when our pumpkin patch boomed beyond all expectations, and then later we got some late sunflowers - completely unexpected and very cheering. 

Physical work, nature, growth, learning. Lots to be grateful for. 

Finding ways to laugh and have fun each day

We've had lots of fun at the allotment, which feels like a wee oasis in our neighbourhood, close by yet somehow separate from the concrete jungle of the big city. Similarly it's been great to spend time nearly every day in local parks, as Miss Now-Seven and I have made 'nature walks' a commonplace thing (scenic detour on walks home from school or various extracurricular activities). Lately we haven't been doing much gardening in the allotment, as we pause over the winter a little before planning out what we're going to do for the coming seasons, but still enjoy hanging out there each week. 

Plant seeds, pull weeds. 

It's something worth doing in lots of areas of our lives. I've been plenty inconsistent on that front, so not trying to preach here, but along with the nature walks and allotment, lots of quality time with Miss Six-then-Seven, and a few other things that helped keep me sane in a very tumultuous year last year (a few personal things that I won't go into in much detail; suffice to say I deeply felt the distance from loved ones on the other side of the world in a way I hadn't previously, and time passing) - I did also plant a few other interesting seeds in 2021 that may flower rather wonderfully in the coming months. 

One that I can finally share publicly, as of last night: one of the coolest and most satisfying things I did in 2021 was play a wee part in terrific Māori screen storyteller Michael Bennett finding a home for his rather special debut crime novel, Better The Blood. You can read The Bookseller announcement here. 

This makes me feel really good on a number of levels - not just in terms of using some of my accumulated experience or connections to help someone else with their storytelling dreams, but in particular helping not just a talented Kiwi author but an indigenous author get notice and opportunities internationally. Over the 13 plus years I've been involved in crime fiction as a reviewer and features writer then events organiser, awards judge, festival chair, and occasional agent etc, I've increasingly become conscious of the need to bring a diverse array of voices into the genre we all love. 

And uplift them. Personally I think it makes crime and thriller fiction even better to have more and more writers of colour, LGBT+ storytellers, working class writers, translated authors, non-US/UK authors, and others involved and supported. So whether it's my reading, my writing, the events I'm involved with, or my advocacy, I'll be looking to support and celebrate a broad, inclusive genre. 

We're blessed with a startling array of crime and thriller writing nowadays. It's a great time to be a reader and fan of the genre. And that's another of the wee things that I've been thankful for the past couple of years, as we've dealt with so much real-life tumult. 

So whether it's gardens or nature walks or reading or time with your loved ones or whatever else it may be that you're using to get through these tough times, I hope that in the weeks and months ahead you can regularly enjoy some of those things. 

And maybe plant a few seeds and pull a few weeds along the way.

Thanks for reading. Until next time. Ka kite anō.

Whakataukī of the fortnight: 

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I've been ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life.

He iti mokoroa e hinga pūriri

(A small mokoroa (grub) can fell a pūriri tree, ie small thjings can have great impact)

A mokoroa, the caterpillar of the Puriri moth which can chew through trees that grow up to 20m high

More than a Month: 7 Native American Authors

Wes Studi and Adam Beach as Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee in a
TV adaptation of Tony Hillerman's Navajo Mysteries

Craig every second Tuesday

Kia ora and gidday everyone. 

Can you believe it's the end of November already, and we're hurtling towards the festive season (or already started it in some places and cultures) and the end of 2021? What a year it's been. 

It's also that time of year when many magazines, newspapers, podcasts etc are sharing their 'best of the year' lists, including best books. I've contributed to some, and shared others. Lots of amazing reads - in a troubled time we've certainly been blessed with some superb crime writing, at least. 

Over the past weekend I was involved with the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival, a wonderful event that was intended to be a hybrid festival somewhat like this year's Bloody Scotland - having in-person events in Tasmania alongside international authors and attendees appearing online - that in the end had to go fully online after recent COVID concerns in Australia. 

Australian booklover Romany Jane shared this pic of her enjoying my interview with Queen of Crime Val McDermid over breakfast. The beauty of online festivals!

It was a heck of a lineup, with international crime fiction stars including Val McDermid, Liz Nugent, Ann Cleeves, Abir Mukherjee, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and Naomi Hirahara joining a wonderful array of Australian and New Zealand crime writers for a weekend of interviews, author panels, masterclasses, and book parties. I had the good fortune to bookend the festival by interviewing Val to kickstart things on Saturday morning, and Abir to close out the festival on Sunday evening. 

In between I also spoke at the Southern Cross Crime Cocktail Party showcasing 20 Aussie & Kiwi crime writers, and had the privilege of interviewing International Guest of Honour David Heska Wanbli Weiden, a Lakota Sicangu author whose wonderful debut WINTER COUNTS has gobbled awards in the United States since its release, and has recently become available in the UK, Australia, and NZ. 

My feature in the New Zealand Listener on David Heska Wanbli Weiden
and WINTER COUNTS, recently published in Australia and New Zealand

WINTER COUNTS is one of my favourite reads of the last couple of years, the 'pandemic years' if you will, and I've been fortunate enough to interview David a few times this year for festivals, podcasts, and the New Zealand Listener magazine. You can listen to our CrimeTime FM conversation here. 

I've long been interested in Native American culture, and have spent a small amount of time on the Navajo Nation and Cherokee reservations when travelling in the United States in years past. But until I read WINTER COUNTS last year (I ordered the US hardcover on the recommendation of SA Cosby, author of BLACKTOP WASTELAND), the only crime fiction I'd read with Native American protagonists was written by non-native authors like Tony Hillerman and Dana Stabenow. 

While Wanbli Weiden is a fan of Hillerman's mysteries starring Navajo sleuths Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, it's great to see a Native-written thriller now getting lots of acclaim and attention too. 

Of course, Wanbli Weiden is not the first Native American crime writer, but hopefully his recent success - WINTER COUNTS has already won nine awards in the United States, including sweeping the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards for Best First Mystery this year - will bring more attention and open doors just as Larsson and Mankell did for Scandi Crime and Jane Harper did for Australian crime. 

Today is the last day of November (which is Native American Heritage Month in the United States) and given I've been thinking about this topic after speaking with David again recently, and we should read indigenous authors all year round, here are seven Native American authors you may want to try (some I've bought and read on David's recommendation, plus a few others) in the coming weeks and months. 

laFavor's ground-breaking crime novels were re-released by the University of Minnesote Press in 2017, six years after the author and activist passed away.

CAROLE LAFAVOR

A Two-Spirit Ojibwe novelist, nurse, and activist who lived and worked in Minnesota, laFavor published two crime novels in the late 1990s, around the time she was serving as the only Native American member of the of the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. ALONG THE JOURNEY RIVER introduces Renee LaRoche (likely the first queer protagonist in Native crime fiction), who must investigate the theft of several sacred artefacts and the murder of the Tribal Chairman while juggling the cultural differences in her new relationship with a white woman. 

"Ultimately the re-release of Carole laFavor’s novels serves to underscore the significance of her writing to the Indigenous literary canon, to remind us of the power of her activism for HIV-positive Native peoples, and to return her important claims for the centrality of Two-Spirit peoples, bodies, and histories to the public eye," said Lisa Tatonetti in the Foreword to the new 2017 editions. 

David Heska Wanbli Weiden is a Professor of Native American Studies in Denver
and an enrolled member of the Lakota Sicangu Nation. 

DAVID HESKA WANBLI WEIDEN

As I said above, WINTER COUNTS is one of my top reads of the past couple of years. It's a powerful thriller set on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, beautifully written and laced with themes of a broken criminal justice system and native identity. Virgil Wounded Horse is a tribal enforcer on the reservation, available for hire by victims and their families who are looking for some sort of justice when the FBI and tribal police fail. But when heroin threatens the rez, and Virgil's nephew, he undertakes a dangerous investigation into those who profit from others' pain.

This is a thriller with heart and soul. The kind of book that sticks with you beyond the events that have you rapidly turning the pages. Character-centric crime fiction that packs a punch in a setting that pulses through its lyrical prose. For me - and many other readers, critics, and awards judges, it seems - WINTER COUNTS marks the arrival of a strong new voice in crime fiction. 

An expert on John Steinbeck and pioneer of Native American Studies, Louis Owens won the Roman Noir Award in  France in 1995 for THE SHARPEST SIGHT

LOUIS OWENS

The first time I discussed Native American crime fiction with Wanbli Weiden, he immediately named Louis Owens as in his view "the most important" Native crime writer. A Professor of English and Native American Studies and the Director of Creative Writing at UC-Davis before his suicide in 2002, Owens blended thriller plots with broader themes, murder mysteries with mysticism in novels like THE SHARPEST SIGHT, BONE GAME, and NIGHTLAND. 

Says Wanbli Weiden: "His books are not really page-turners, but he pioneered a style of crime fiction which sort of set the stage. He incorporated a call for political action, social commentary, and a surrealistic style. There’s something really interesting about Louis Owens; he’s not really included in the canon of great crime writers and I’ve been arguing for a long time that he should." 

Chippewa poet and novelist Louise Erdrich won the National Book Award in 2012 for THE ROUND HOUSE, her tale of a teenager attempting to avenge his mother's rape

LOUISE ERDRICH

Considered 'one of the most significant writers of the second wave of the Native American Renaissance', Louise Erdrich is a poet, novelist, children's author and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She's won numerous awards including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and published more than 30 books, including a 'justice trilogy' of novels set on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota that may be most appealing to crime fiction fans. 

THE ROUND HOUSE, the second in the loose trilogy, centres on Joe Coutts, a 13-year-old boy angered by the poor investigation into a brutal attack on his mother, who sets out to uncover the identity of his mother's attacker with the help of his best friends. Blending crime story and coming-of-age, the Sunday Telegraph said "Erdrich has achieved an impressive trick; a spellbinding read, an earnest message and fierce emotional punch". 

Marcie Rendon's second Cash Blackbear novel was shortlisted for an Edgar Award

MARCIE R RENDON

Following David's recommendations back in September, I ordered novels from a few other Native American crime writers, including two mysteries by Marcie Rendon, a playwright, poet, author and activist who is a member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation. I really enjoyed both books - MURDER ON THE RED RIVER and GIRL GONE MISSING - and in some great news they're now more widely available thanks to Soho Press, with more Cash Blackbear tales hopefully on the way in the not-too-distant future. 

Set among the grain and sugar beet fields and small towns of North Dakota and Minnesota during the Vietnam War, the Cash Blackbear Mysteries centre on a tough young Ojibwe woman who’s survived tragedy and foster care and now drives truck, hustles at pool, and occasionally helps her only real friend Sheriff Wheaton solve crimes. I thought these were really good character-centric crime tales that also explore some of the prejudices and injustices faced by Native Americans.

Most famous for his Arkady Renko 

MARTIN CRUZ SMITH

Perhaps the most renowned Native American crime writer is one that many may not know is Native American, especially given his seminal work is a series starring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, Yes, Martin Cruz Smith, author of the huge bestseller GORKY PARK, and the eight Renko novels that followed, is of Native American (Pueblo) descent. While GORKY PARK was a breakthrough novel for Cruz Smith in 1981, he'd actually published eighteen books the decade before that, ranging across pseudonyms and genres. 

The film version of GORKY PARK went on to win an Edgar Award, but Cruz Smith himself had twice been an Edgar nominee for his earlier novels, including NIGHTWING (1977), a supernatural thriller inspired by the author's own tribal ancestry. Cruz Smith also co-wrote the screenplay of the 1979 film adapted from that novel, which did poorly on release but later developed a cult following. 

insert caption

STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES

A native storyteller that I've been hearing a lot of great things about during the pandemic is Stephen Graham Jones, a Blackfeet author of experimental, horror, crime, and science fiction. I've recently bought THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, his literary horror novel published in 2020 that was praised by NPR as also doing "a lot in terms of illuminating Native American life from the inside, offering insights into how old traditions and modern living collide in contemporary life". 

Talking with Wanbli Weiden in September, he said of Jones: "He’s mainly known for his indigenous horror, but he wrote a [crime novel] that I think is almost a direct descendant of Louis Owens, called ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SINNERS. He very much takes Owens’ surrealistic style and then moves it in a new direction." 

Thanks for reading. Until next time. Ka kite anō.

Whakataukī of the fortnight: 

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I'll be ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life.

Ehara taku toa, he takitahi, he toa takitini

(My success should not be bestowed onto me alone, as it was not individual success but success of a collective.)