Welcome
Thomas Francis Meagher
USING NATIVE VOICES... our story from 2010
August 6, 7, 8, 2010
August 6, Reception at 5:30
The Old Ringling Mansion, Home of Reidar and Marga Johnson
Hosted by Upper Musselshell Valley Book Club & Wine, Women and Song Book Club
Mardell Plainfeather - Clothing as Art: a Crow Tradition - demonstrates five different styles of Crow women's clothing, using items she created herself beginning at age fifteen. She shares some history of the different styles, how they evolved through time, and how and why they were made. Audience will also see accessories such as moccasins, leggings, jewelry and some children's clothing which Plainfeather made for her children.
August 7, Saturday Session
White Sulphur Springs Community Center
Registration and Coffee 8 a.m.
8:30
Welcome - Jamie Doggett
8:30 - 9:30
Poetry
Henry Real Bird
Henry "Hank" Real Bird is a rancher and educator who raises bucking horses on Yellow Leggins Creek in the Wolf Teeth Mountains of Montana. He was born and raised on the Crow Indian Reservation in the tradition of the Crow by his grandparents, and has punched cows and worked in rodeos. Henry began writing poetry in 1969 after and extended stay in the hospital. He still speaks Crow as his primary language and feels this has helped in the writing of his poetry.
He holds a master's degree in general education from MSU Billings and has taught school from kindergarten to college levels. He currently teaches K, 4th and 6th grades at Northern Cheyenne Tribal School and is also the director for Crow Tribe Head Start and the Seven Hills Healing Center, and was Interim President, Little Big Horn College, 2001-02.
Henry began working with the YMCA Writer's Voice in 1992 as a visiting poet and has since shared his work and the Crow language with thousands of students and teachers across Montana. As an instructor he infuses a love of language and an appreciation of landscape into the minds of the audience and students.
In 1996 Real Bird won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 2002, he and Stephanie Davis performed her song, "Why the Cowboy Sings" at the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Arts Festival. He also performs annually at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. Hank has had six anthologies, four poetry collections and twelve chldren's books published, along with many other article, tapes and CDs.
Henry Real Bird is currently the Poet Laureate of Montana.
Mandy Smoker Broaddus
Mandy Smoker Broaddus works for the Office of Public Instruction in Helena, Montana in the Indian Education Division where her work focuses on Indian Student Academics and Achievement. An enrolled member of the Fort Peck Sioux and Assiniboine tribes, Mandy earned her BA in English from Pepperdine University, a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Montana, and has completed all course work towards a Masters degree in American Indian Studies from USLA. For three years she served as an Administrator in an all-Indian public school on the Fort Peck Reservation. Mandy has also taught various college level courses at the University of Colorado, the University of Montana and Fort Peck Community College.In addtion to her work in the field of education, Mandy is a publilshed author. Her first collection of poetry entitled, Another Attempt at Rescue was puiblished by Hanging Loose Press in 2005.
9:45 - 10:30
Jim Johnston introduces
Brenda Johnston: D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded
Discussion:
Brenda Johnston has taught 9 and 10th grade English at Browning High School for the past 11 years and has been involved with the University of Montana Writing Project for the past 5 years. Brenda has been a teacher/leader at Writing Project Summer Institutes for teachers for the past 3 years regarding the teaching of writing incorporating Indian Education for All mandates, and is currently serving a three year term on the Writing Project rural Sites Leadership Team at the national level For the past 2 years she was selected to attend institutes in New York City sponsored by the Holocaust Educators Network and National Writing Project where she was focused on the teaching of the Holocaust and Indian Education for All through writing. Brenda and her husband Jim split their time between two places, living both in Browning and White Sulphur Springs.
10:45 - 11:45
Brenda introduces
Debra Magpie Earling
Debra Earling teaches Fiction and Native American Studies full time. Her novel, Perma Red (Putnam, 2002) won the Eastern Writers Association Spur Award, WWA's Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for Best First Novel, a WILLA Literary Award and the American Book Award. Her publications also include stories in The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology, Talking leaves: Comtemporary Native American Short Stories, Circle of Women: Anthology of Western Women Writers and Wild Women: Anthology of Women Writers.
Earling is the recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship
Lunch 12:00 - 1:00
Indian Tacos, Plum Pudding, Drinks - $8
12:30
Lee Rostad introduces
Louise Agemahgeshig Fischer
Blending Culture and Art
Louise Fischer - recounts stories and facts that detail a rich array of Native American history, traditions, art, music, economy and leisure activities. This overview of American Indian customs links present day practices to the traditions of the past.
Artist and consultant Fischer of Helena, MT was raised in a traditional Indian environment and she has been sharing traditional knowledge for the past 30 years. Her insights into American Indian culture and history will delight and inform the audience during lunch on Saturday.
1:45 - 2:30
Nancy Widdicombe introduces
Dottie Susag
The Native Voice in Literature
Retired after 17 years of teaching, Dottie still likes to study history. She was instrumental in bringing the Montana Heritage project to the Sun River Valley and was an Award Winner for her work with Simms High School Heritage project.
2:45 - 4:45
Brenda Johnston, Maggie, Haili Jones Graff
Dinner at Camas Creek
Sadie Creek Catering
Beef, Salad, Grilled Vegetables, Dessert, Drinks - $15
THE METIS DANCERS...
Jim and Krystal Fox bring the Meti dance tradition to the Book Festival of Native Voices
The age-old Celtic tunes and dances mixed with Indian rhythms show the relationship of fundamental forms traversing boundaries of people, time and place. The Metis tradition dates back to the fur trade era of the 17th century and the first generation of European and Aboriginal mixing in the upper reaches of the North American continent.
August 8
Sunday Session
8:30 - 12:00
Community Center
Bonnie Bowler and Zoe Ann Stoltz
Discussion:
If a Lion Could Talk, by Mildred Walker
Zoe Ann Stoltz and Bonnie Bowler will discuss If a Lion Could Talk, a novel by Mildred Walker that brings another approach to the Native Voices. The native voice here is Eenisskim, a Blood Indian from Canada married to the factor of the trading post at Fort Benton. (The real people were Major Culbertson and his wife Natawista) The reader finds a strong voice from Eenisskim--a woman who could ride with the buffalo hunters, swim like a fish, preside over her huband's dinner table in her regal gowns and enrapture the men. In the end, she cannot accept the white man's way and returns to the Indian life.
10:00 - 12:00
Valerie Harms Writing Workshop
Writing for Children...
Continuing the tradition of the Meagher County Book Festival to conclude the weekend with a workshop of those who wish to write...
Valerie Harms is the author of three books for children, and six for adults. These include Frolic's Dance and Beezus and Ramona's Diary. Another book, Tryin' To Get To You! The Story of Elvis Presley, was a young adult/adult book. She has been an instructor for the Long Ridge Writers' Institute as well as a consultant on writing, publishing, and creativity issues for years.
Festival sponsors and volunteers:
Montana Committee for the Humanities
Friends of the Bair
Mountain Star Book Club
Wine, Women and Words
Meagher County Public Library
Bank of the Rockies
Meagher County Historical Society
Meagher County Arts Council
Writers Voice