The Canadian artistic community has been much a-flutter recently with the revelation that Thomas King, author of such books as Green Grass Running Water and The Inconvenient Indian, is not actually Cherokee. It was not a case of being an “Honest Injun”; he had been misled by tales his mother and father told him implying a false ancestry.
But there is another completely different branch of the Canadian writers community that is also in dire straits. Wordsmiths in ominous need of help. Authors being ignored, novelists being abandoned, scribes being denied the right to peddle their talented wares. I am speaking of those writers whose parents did tell them they were born of settlers and colonizers, who have in the past (and also in the present), created stories featuring Indigenous characters. Their stories burst with all the usual character and metaphor but, when they harassed their agents with dreams of success, found that today’s Canadian society is uninterested in such constructions. You see, these were white writers with Indigenous stories. In today’s world, it’s just not kosher. Some in the publishing and Indigenous community would consider it heresy.
As usual, I find myself somewhere in the middle. Veritably every six or eight months I get an email from some writer asking for direction. They usually have a story replete with Indigenous characters and focus and are sure the world is waiting for it. Dances with Wolves 2: Polka with Porcupines. That kind of thing. They always want me to give them the thumbs up; I’m never sure why they chose me.
Writing a story with an Indigenous character is never the problem. I have many stories with Black, Jewish, and Asian characters. But their stories are not the crux of my work. Why would I want to do that?
Some time back, a gentleman whom I’d met off and on in writerly circles asked me to join him for brunch. I had not really developed a relationship with the man and wasn’t sure why he wanted to break bread and eggs with me. Over scrambled eggs, he told me, in a somewhat sad-sack manner, that he was rapidly becoming unemployable. He was a middle-aged white writer and was fast going the way of the Commodore 64, Pepe Le Pew, and lard sandwiches. Obsolete.
He had this screenplay he’s been working on forever, taking place about a hundred years ago, out west. Something about a Native guy playing tag with a Mountie in the foothills of the Rockies. But nobody would look at it. The problem being there was this Indigenous guy who was one of the two leads, and this white guy who was writing it. That action was verboten, as we say on the Rez. He wanted help, and wondered aloud: how cool it would be if I pitched in as a cowriter, and added some authentic Indigenous DNA to the story? It might just sell then, he mused.
In my early twenties, I might have been interested. Most up-and-coming writers at that stage were guns-for-hire. Will write for rent. But as the decades go by, I only load very specific bullets. And limit my targets. All this meant, I had to pass.
Not that long ago, I had another similar experience. A scriptwriter I’ve known since back before the rebirth of Star Trek had an idea. He wanted to do something, possibly a script or maybe a novel, about the two years Sitting Bull spent in Canada, just after events at Little Big Horn. Unknown to most Canadians, there was quite a bit of drama involved during his stay. But as expected, he was having difficulty finding a home for it due to the aforementioned reasons. (For those not in the loop, Sitting Bull was Indigenous. It was in all the papers.)
Again, it sounded like a truly interesting project. Should it ever surface, I would definitely watch or read it. But I was not able to participate as a contributor. I had my own bannock to bake. Upon refusal, I always get asked if I can recommend somebody else in the Indigenous community who maybe could pitch hit. This puts me in an awkward position; it’s not a situation many Indigenous writers would be interested in participating in.
So far, I have not come across any Black or Asian writers wanting to tell Indigenous stories. I did once come across a Jewish writer who had been hired to adapt a short story about Indigenous people written by a Ukrainian. I’m not sure where that fits on the graph.
So, every time I run into a middle-aged white writer, I feel a twinge of sadness for them. I doubt they have any Native-oriented stories they want to write, but when I run into Terry Fallis or Will Ferguson, I buy them a coffee.