Audience members can interact with Native American author Oscar Hokeah on Wednesday during a free event highlighting the writer’s debut novel, “Calling for a Blanket Dance,” at the Raven Book Store.
After a reading, attendees will have an opportunity to talk with the regionalist author about the writing process and how he translated his lived cultural experiences from Tahlequah and Lawton, Oklahoma, onto the page.
Hokeah, a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma on his mother’s side, holds Mexican heritage through his father.
“Calling for a Blanket Dance” tells the story of Ever Geimausaddle through the multigenerational perspectives of his family members as they face a number of obstacles, according to a news release from the Raven.
“His father’s injury at the hands of corrupt police, his mother’s struggle to hold on to her job and care for her husband, the constant resettlement of the family, and the legacy of centuries of injustice all intensify Ever’s bottled-up rage.”
Meanwhile, Ever’s relatives share their own “ideas about who he is and who he should be.”
Hokeah works with Indian Child Welfare in Tahlequah. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South and Red Ink Magazine.
He is the recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the winner of the Native Writer Award from the Taos Summer Writers Conference. He earned a master’s in English with a concentration in Native American Literature from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s in creative writing with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies from IAIA.
The event is free and open to the public. It begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 3 at the Raven, 809 Massachusetts St. The Raven requires attendees to wear face masks and present proof of vaccination against COVID-19. For more information, visit this link.
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Tricia Masenthin (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at tmasenthin (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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