>> guest: she was the character murdered at the beginning of the book, and it was a pulitzer finalist by the way was that year nominee, it wt a nominee, it was the pulitzer was won by john updike. so i lost to john updike. pulitr but that is probably a given. ..to john updike. i lost to john updike but grace is the person who begins the book. this is -- mean spirit is based on the oil boom in oklahoma. it's basically a true story with fictionary characters woven in. and it's about what happened during the oil boom. the non-indian men tried to come into the area to become oil wealthy and they they felt they could do so by marrying indian women and because they were men they could become owners of the

land and so they often in certain areas were guilty of killing women, of killing their own children to have the land. they were very -- the world is a very greedy place at times, most of the time it seems these days, and the fbi formed around this case. the fbi's story, the movie actually has this in it, so they sent in one native man. i created the character red hawk to be the fbi informant, and he's actually a lakota, but i discovered later and indian writer was also sent there in real life. she is a writer and wrote several wonderful books at the

turn of the century and also started a magazine called wasaha which is maybe still in print. they were activists at the time. >> host: linda hogan, what was it about the 1920s in oklahoma that had you writing historical fiction? >> guest: stories from my family primarily. these are all traditions, not all traditions so much as stories. i had a woman from new york, dianne ferhe who was an actress and wanted me to write a script for her to be in and embedded as a novel because we couldn't figure out what to do with the script so i added to it, expanded it, and i had never written a novel before or studied fiction so i had to teach myself had to write fiction, and it was kind of a

complicated thing to do. i would look at someone who was a really good fiction writer and compare their paragraph with my paragraph see what was lacking in mine and think, oh, i could add this and do this, so it's a practice i still keep doing when i'm writing fiction. >> host: who do you compare yourself to when you write it? >> guest: it depends on what book i read recently and am amazed by. sometimes i'll look at -- one of the things i think with poisen wood bible is she was a best selling author which doesn't necessarily mean you're a great writer to be a great writer when she wrote that, a lit tear leap and masterpiece, and i wrote a

book and look at that now, and i'm writing about community, a few people who come from a firm forest, and it's on an island and so i do research and read books set in rain forest places and look at what's in there so a lot of work goes into every piece of work i do, and then i'm working on a book for the tribe, for the chickasaw nation which is also requiring a lot of research and a lot of travel to the southeast. very few people understand or know much about southeast indians or those of us who have been removed and why our cultures are different than the ones who are stereotyped like

navajo, lakota. most non-indian americans think indian and think of a certain kind of people, you know? they don't really think about people who lost their homelands, who have been forced from them. they think of people who are still there. >> host: well, as a self-identified indian writer, way do you write about? what's the definition of that? >> guest: well, i'm not really self-identified, i'm tribally identified. you know, i'm -- it runs in the family, but i where about what our difficulties are. i write about political situations that are going awry like the james bay hydro-qeubec

project where they decided to move a river, the st. lawrence river and drove many caribou and the people who were up there had to fight that dam project, and then i write about -- well, in my essays, you know, i take many different issues. now i'm writing about things that are very small including atoms that we think are there, but haven't seen and what they can do to people, but i usually select a political topic with the novel power. i wrote about the florida panther, a very endangered species and lives in an extremely toxic environment and

so is ill. as are all the creatures in the everglades because of the agriculture runoff and other difficulties there, and so i based it on a true story, which was the killing of a florida panther. i went to the everglades, stayed with the biologist, deb jansen, and then i did research in the courthouse on the case which was pretty cut and dry really if they had just told the truth of what happened, it would have been over, but the case went on for four years with much conflict between environmentalists and tribes and, you know, numerous people fighting for different reasons. >> host: who are the chickasaw indians and where do they live?

where's their nation? >> guest: oh, well, we're -- who are the chickasaw indians? let's see, we've been around for, you know, centuries and centuries and centuries, and we're from the southeast, mississippi, tennessee. i just came from repatriation. i call it a remay -- in ceps, some of -- in kentucky, some of our remains from the past, and we came from mississippi, which many mississippians were the builders and there's mound sites all over the southeast. it's an incredibly complex culture in the past, and we then were removed because of andrew jackson's policies, and

corruption and ended up in oklahoma which was it, indian territory, and oklahoma is from our word means red people, but united states government wanted to build a wall around oklahoma and place all the indian people of america inside of it of the americas, you know, this continent, and the idea was to keep everyone from going out so that the soil could belong to white americans and the immigrants and people coming in who wanted to farm, and, in fact, black kettles band was chased across kansas so often that eroded the land of goodland, kansas which is now a highway, the eroded area, but we ended up in the area around southeastern oklahoma, and we're still there. we survived civil war, and land

graph and corruption, the daws act, giving us allotments which happened on the reservation in minnesota and numerous other places so we lost our reservation system, and in that way lost our lands. we survived the sooners, and i always wonder why all of our guys really like the sooners because i keep thinking, doesn't anyone think about what that word means? >> host: what does it mean? >> guest: it's from the oklahoma land run, the land rush into the country of oklahoma so -- >> host: early 20th century? >> guest: i'm trying to think of the year. no, it would have been around the -- just before there, end of the 19th century. >> host: okay. >> guest: i feel like i grew

up in the 19th century, and i also get 1900s and 2000s and all those things -- when i talk about the 1700s, i call it the 17th century, so i have to be careful, but we went from poverty and especially, you know, when i was a girl poverty was really intense, and we had a very difficult life, and the tribal nation into being economically stable and we now are doing really quite well. we have all categories of people who make different kinds of incomes, so i can't say that everybody is doing great, but basically, economically, the tribal nation is doing really well and has scholarships for students to go to school. >> host: let's go back to the original question. what are sooners?

>> guest: sooners were the people who wanted to get in and claim land, and the land had belonged to the indian people. >> host: now, linda hogan, in your book, "the woman who watches over the world -- innative memoir," you write i concluded over the years the two ways native and european are almost impossible to intertwine. they are parallel worlds taking place at the same time, bridges only sometimes made allowing for a meeting place of lives. >> guest: well, there are different ways of knowledge, and i have been around so many different tribal nations that i understand the many different ways of understanding the world according to -- even the languages carrying the ecosystems of the people. they have the great amount of knowledge, great amount of

understanding even in the language, and it's very significant for us to realize that we have our own atronmies, for instance, that we have different ways of understanding and seeing the world than the majority of the dominant culture, the western mind, and so one of the things that i've been working with for many years and with different groups is how to bring the western minds and the native minds together. there's not just one native mind. in fact, i once said, realm, i know how i think or how some of us chickasaws think, but i don't know how an apache thinks. i can't say i'd know that. a week later someone sent me a question, a letter saying, you

know, the apache philosopher has a book, and we want to know if you'd like to write the enter duction. this is interesting now because i'll have a little idea how an apache thinks. we are not all alike, we have our own ecosystems, our own languages, and it makes for a very interesting mix, but it's not always the western mind, yet when you read a history book, usually they are written by non-indians, an they are usually from the western lands. the history seen through the western point of view, so we just want -- which is why i'm working on the project i am now which is history, archaeology, our world seen from an indigenous point of view. >> host: where were you

raised? >> guest: i was raised in colorado, in oklahoma, in germany, in -- i don't know. my father was in the military. we lived in california springs. he retired in colorado springs when i was 15, and after that, i graduated -- i went to high school for two years there, and then i moved to oregon, and then i continued to raise myself all over. >> host: tell us about your parents, linda hogan. >> guest: well, what would you like to know specifically? >> host: who were there, who are they? >> guest: my mother is from nebraska, a farm family that moved into the city, so i never knew them on the farm, but i knew the farm relatives, but i didn't know that family very intimately or well. i have cousins that i've met,

but i don't know, you know, i haven't kept up with, and then there's my father's family who has always been a very close family, and we would always return to oklahoma for reunions and to visit his family and his parents, and we'd all be there together, and i had cousins, and we'd all spend time together, and i felt very much like that was my home. i always felt that was my home. >> host: your father's chickasaw, your mother is pennsylvania-dutch? >> guest: that's right, yes. >> host: when did you start writing? >> guest: i didn't start any my late twenties, maybe 28. >> host: why? >> guest: well, i was marry add the time. i read my first book of contemporary poetry. i didn't know there was such a thing, and it was such

maimingic. well, first of all my read was about a cow, and i thought, well, i know about cows. i think i could write something about a cow, but the minute i started trying to write in a contemporary way, the minute i knew it was this maiming call experience, that there was a feeling that i had never had before, and i loved it, and i wanted to do it more, and i still feel like that. i mean, i wrote today before i came here. i just get up in the morning, and that's what i want to do. i want to write, and the days that i have to go to work, my office, i feel deprived of my real work. i feel deprived of writing. it's what i really love. and there's a maimingic to it

-- magic to it, there's something to it that i can't tell you. you hear it sometimes or you see it or you feel it and it just has to be fed in the right way. >> host: as a chickasaw nation writer and residence, what do you do? >> guest: well, i do classes sometimes. i teach creative writing now and then in some of the smaller -- i just worked with the chickasaw -- some girls at the chickasaw children's home, and it was a wonderful -- it was the highlight of my life. this year they were absolutely adorable and wonderful and they did up credible work, and they had relatives, they remembered their great grandparents and their grandparents, and i was figuring out time periods that they were writing, and i didn't ask them to write these things, they just did. they had a lot of freedom, but

two of them had relatives that hid bonnie and clyde from the police. they didn't know anything about bonnie and clyde, but they knew the police were dangerous, and so they helped hide them, but then the police chased them, and they both wrote about that. it made such an impact on their life, and another one had a grandfather that started the american indian movement, one the originators of the american indian movement, and so she wrote about him. it was exciting, and so i taught that class. i've also taught elders, adults, and where i live, it's an underserved community, i've taught there, and then i also have written the performance which is -- which was an amazing

performance that was put on, i think, for the first time last year, and we're working on sending it out on the road. it should be at the kennedy center. i couldn't believe it turned out so good. it was just amazing, and it had dancing in it, singing, it had our clans, it had the removal, my cousin margaret wheeler did many of the designs, set designs and some of the costumes, she's a professional weaver, and she does traditional weaving, and jared tate was the composer of the music, and it was a great set. the dance was amazing. the feeling and the emotion, everybody that saw it came away just moved and touched by it so that's one of the things i did.

i wrote a children's books for arts and humanities which is one of our stories for children, and it's in -- it's a bilingual book. >> host: how does it work, linda hogan, the capitol of the chickasaw nation, how does it work to have the chickasaw nation within oklahoma? what are the politics, ect.? >> guest: i'm not sure i understand exactly what you mean by how does it work? >> host: how does it work? is it another government layer, does it report to the state of oklahoma, how much -- >> guest: we're a sovereign nation. >> host: okay. so do you -- does that mean that -- do you have to follow the laws of oklahoma since you're con taped within the state of oklahoma? >> guest: well, i wouldn't want to break them. i did get a ticket once.

[laughter] i had to pay it. i couldn't say, i'm sorry, i'm not a citizen. [laughter] >> host: again, how does that work with the sovereign nation? >> guest: we have the ability to make treaties with the government. we have the ability to negotiate with the other governments if we want to. we have the ability to be a country, our own country, and make our own decisions, and so that's basically how it works to be a sovereign nation. we are a country. we are our own nation. >> host: why did you call your memoir the woman who watches over the world? >> guest: it's based on this beautiful folklore art piece that i bought in the museum in california at the folk art

museum, and it was a woman sort of flying, and she had the earth in her hand, and it looked like a pumpkin, but you can see the outline of the united states and south america and other continents on it, and i fell in love with her, and -- but i love folk art. a lot of it is clay. it's not fired and it's fragile, and when she arrived, i had them send it because i knew i would break it, but when it arrived, i believe her legs were broken off, and then later another part broke off, and i thought about how it's so like our world, it's breaking, and we need so much to protect it so i still have her and she's still broke p. i have not tried to glue her back together because i feel

like part of my work is not only to work for my own people, but to also work for the whole world, for every living thing on earth. i care about that, and it matters to me. it matters to me more than anything so i wanted this to be about someone who is watching over the world, looking after the world, caring for it, observing. >> host: in your 1995 book, "dwellings, a spiritual history of the living world," you write, here's is a lesson, what happens to people and what happens to the land is the same thing. >> guest: yes. what happens to the land also happens to the people.

for instance, i watch ranchers poisen cedar trees without realizing or thinking ahead to what happens when you put poisen on the trees, that that poise p them goes into the water, that it may kill the tree, you you've also put that in your water supply, and so we're connected to everything so we have to be careful about what we do and the effects of it in the future, and so what happens to the land, what we do to the land affects us, and the league of six nations talk about being careful for the next seven generations, but in my opinion, we have to think further than even seven generations. we need to think far into the

future. >> host: what ecofeminism? >> guest: you know, i have no idea exactly what that is. i am called that. there are conferences where they talk about my books on ecofeminism. the only thing i can think of is the idea, the notion that the body of the woman, the body of the earth are very similar and that when women speak out for the earth, somehow it's ecofeminism, i don't know exactly, but i know one of the problems, i think, academically that i have had is that i think of race and class first in my life, and i think of being a woman a little later down the line because race and class -- class is such an issue. people who live in poverty --

poverty is more of an issue for me than being a female. although, if i were a male, i certainly would have a different life. i mean, i realize that as i get older that my life would have had -- i would have had more income, more security, more -- probably more sales with my books, you know, than being a female, but, you know, it took me a long time to think about that. >> host: in the woman who watches over the world, you quote -- i don't know if it's a poem or essay -- "forgiving us the hooter, -- forgiving us the hort, is forgiving us the alcohol." >> guest: yes, that's from a friend of mine who's passed away now. >> host: what does that mean?

>> guest: well, the horse became such a sacred animal everywhere. the aztecs laid down red cloths for them to walk on, and the names were holy. the horse was and is not only valuable and useful, but is the only thing from european culture that has entered into the mythology of tribes. there's horse songs, horse stories, horse myths, the navajo have a beautiful -- i don't know if you would -- i would almost call it a prayer for the horse about, you know, the striped,

the feed, the lightning name. i mean, it's just this beautiful long ode to the horse that i love, and i actually would like to work on a book on indian horse us because most of them are northern plains and don't take in southeastern, and we had our own breed of pony, the chickasaw horse which is very much what my horse is. >> host: and you're a rider? >> guest: i'm a rider -- i was -- >> host: r-i-d-e-r. >> guest: i can't afford an accident. i've already had one. >> host: what happened? >> guest: i had a brain injury, niewrm -- numerous injuries, my body is older and fragile now, i just can't afford to have another accident, and even my horse is

very short whenever she has decided that she doesn't want me on her, it's easy to get off. i mean, she can just slide me off if she wants to, but she's a mustang, and she has some, you know, some habits. when i first had her, i was riding her and i was going to -- she was in a large pasture with 72 acres, and i was with friends, and we were riding up after some other horses, and she just laid down with me on her, and i thought, i got off, and the other women with me said, oh, that's the evil pony routine. never get off, and then when they stand up, you're in the right spot so i don't ride. >> host: what was the effect of the accident you had? can you tell us about that? >> guest: well, yes.

i had a brain injury, and it -- i lost my home. i lost my job at the university of colorado for awhile. i went back later, but i had memory loss. i had to do cognitive therapy. i don't remember the accident. i don't remember a lot of things, and i can work on my book and remember everything i'm working on, and, you know, there's just select areas of my brain that are still not full, that are not, you know, whole i should say. they are not quite making the same qexes that they -- connections that they need to make, but i'm forming new ones all the time, we always do, so i think writing really helped me

form new ones, and i kept writing the whole time i could while recovering. i had three fractures in my pelvis too so i had a lot of time before i could get around very much, writing time, and anyway, i still have some short term memory problems. one of my friends recently said you've asked me the same question or told me the same thing several times, and i usually don't talk about brain injury, but i had to tell her i had an accident, i don't always remember, you know, i just pretend like i remember everything, and i'm friendly to people i don't know because i think i probably do know them. [laughter] so, you know, i survived it. >> host: good afternoon and welcome to booktv's in-depth

program. we're talking with linda hogan. this is a program where we focus one author in his or her body of work to get to know that author a little bit by taking your calls, e-mails, and tweets. if you want to call in with the author, linda hogan, 202-624-1111. for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zone, send an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org or send us a tweet,@booktv. let's go to the second part of that. we can almost forgive the alcohol, almost. >> guest: well, you know, alcohol was a very

destructive -- very destructive to the tribes, and it was supposed to be. it was a manipulation, and we had many manipulations that we had to deal with, and for us, they started early so in the 16th century, we were having to deal with the slave trade which indian people on the other side of the mississippi never had to think about, but we were being sold into the caribbean for sugar plantation slavery, and so were other tribes, and we had to figure out how to get weapons, but also alcohol was brought in and destroying people, so we actually had laws against bringing in alcohol, but, of course, the laws were violated. you know, we did not want it because of the destruction of the people, but it also, part of

post-traumatic stress syndrome that indian people still have, so the use of alcohol is still prevalent in some regions because the people are in the process of decolinnizing themselves and it's a very difficult process, and sometimes it's just easier for someone to give up and drink i think, and i've watched people have difficult lives and spend money on alcohol, and, you know, ruin families. i've watched it ruin families, but i think that part of the -- there's a reason why people use it and part of it is the pain.

it's a way of killing pain. >> host: today, are native americans marginalized or invisible as you write? >> guest: it depends on where you are and where you live or do you mean as you write? >> host: as you have written in your books and in your essays. >> guest: well, i think yes. yes, i have to say yes just to be consistent with my books and essays, but, you know, there is a -- there's still racism. there's still conflict between native societies and america at large. i mean, i think about the

snowball in flagstaff building a ski area on the sigh cred mountain that's been one of the places of origin, one of the landmarks of many tribes, not just the navajo in flagstaff, and then not only that, but defacing it by using human waste and recycling to make snow for people to ski on, and this was a big conflict over it, and the lack of understanding of what is sacred was shown when the forest service said, well, exactly where is the line where the mountain ceases to be sacred as if there's a spot where you can say this is sacred, this is not sacred, so, yes, we're still marginalized. >> host: when it comes to

policy, what influence do native americans have here in washington? >> guest: not enough. not enough. >> host: lip lip -- linda hogan is our guest, and first call comes from gregg in cleveland. >> caller: hi, linda. >> guest: hello, graying. >> caller: part of my question is a comment and had has to do the political side there, but i really feel that americans have this tremendous burden of guilt for the way we decimated the natives, and i think that the americans are far worse than hitler ever was, so why do you think that the black people have more political strength than the natives do and are able to seemingly bring themselves more

up in of the western society? >> guest: there are a lot of things to respond to in your comment and your question. first of all, yes, america has been at war forever, and we continue to be, and we have a history of destruction in this country, and that it's been ongoing, so i have to agree with in part with your question. the second part is why i think that the historical process has been more difficult for indian people and also we're more up -- invisible. you notice when you read the newspaper they say asian, black, la tee know --

latino, and that's it. natives are never mentioned, or if there's an article about american indian people, it's in the past tense as if we no longer exist, and i think that that's why the black presence is stronger. it's a historical process. >> host: linda hogan what's the difference between a sovereign chickasaw nation and the reservation system? >> guest: well, all of the tribes are sovereign nations. we just have allotments while some have reservations, and the allotments were created to break up tribal nations, and it didn't work, but families were separated, you know, according to land, and land allotments were given and assigned in different areas. they call it a checker board plan really which was to give

people land here and someone else land here to break up political power and tribalism. >> host: next call comes from paul in liberty, kentucky. go ahead, paul. >> caller: thank you. it's pleasure to speak with you, linda -- >> guest: hi, paul, how's kentucky doing with that water? >> caller: well, we're fighting the good fight here against strip mining and mountain top removal of the coal fields, but it's not going real well. my question has to do with the presence, the present time of the native people's, not just in america, but all over the world. i mean, a lot of times we think of indians, we just think about the indians here in the u.s., but there are native indigenous people that are being rise --

viz rated all over the world. india has some being hunted down more or less, and native indians in brazil, even in afghanistan, they call the areas where they are doing all the bombing, they are tribal areas, and i wondered if you could just speak to the fact that indigenous people all over the world are under attack, and is there some way that we can get this out into the press so understand that this should be stopped immediately. >> guest: well, what you're saying is true. i was just in norway, and i did a performance with asami person

and a woman from india. she's a naga, that's the name of their indigenous nation under attack by the burmese, and i think what it is is there's always the land hunger, the need -- taking over for land, and the indoing nows people are -- indigenous people are vulnerable because they're in isolated areas or places they were sent that suddenly have resources available that others want. for instance, chevron has in, i think, it's costa rica has just covered the people, the land, the water, and the animals in oil so what we think about is the oil in the gulf, but we don't realize that that's happening in other regions as

well so it should be published. it should be in papers, and it's very difficult to have that information be out. one book that i read was by hawk ins, and i'm sure you remember him from loping ago, or maybe not, but the same thing is going on in a way that it's not just indigenous people under attack now like you're talking about mountain top removal, the assault on the land is the same thing. i mean, you're under attack in other areas, and you're water is being -- the water is being ruined. the land is being ruined. it will never be back. it will never be the same. we have to be ever-individual

lant about what is -- vigilant about what is happening. i said earlier on i pay attention to small things that affect the future many, many years from now because once something is gone, it will never return, and the wars against tribes are ongoing, and they are violent, and they're -- they're built on greed, and the idea of power. my idea of power is to take care of people, having the power and the money to take care of people up stead of buying and purchasing mansions or more than ten houses or whatever people do with a lot of their money. if they had real power, they would be taking care of people in the world, and why aren't they? what would really make them happy? are they happy? we need to think about that with

all of the companies that are doing the destruction that they are and all of the people who are attacking others for their land base. >> host: next call for author linda hogan comes from north carolina, ronny, you're on the line. >> caller: hi, linda -- >> guest: hi, ronny. >> caller: i'm asking you what do you know about the arowat indians and i was originally born -- [inaudible] >> guest: i'm having trouble understanding you. >> host: yeah, ronny, we just can't quite make out your words. if you can call back for a different connection or if you are on a cell phone, try a hard line.

huntington, kentucky, nancy, you're on booktv. >> caller: i tried several times to call the indian nation and they give me bogus number. i can't find any place close to me to hook up with my culture. i don't know imr this is, but i live in kentucky close to ohio, and they always want to send me way up in ohio or oklahoma, and i can't get to those places. how can i join the culture? >> guest: what nation are you from? >> host: same as -- >> caller: same as you. >> guest: you're a chickasaw? >> caller: uh-huh. >> guest: go to chickasaw.net. there are connections there. >> host: that caller is gone. what is on the cover on the

book? >> guest: nobody is asking me writing questions. >> host: who's on the cover of the book? >> guest: i have no idea. i don't design the cover. i pick them. it was a painting that i really loved, and i didn't have any choice in this so there is a car, a fap sigh car and a tepee which doesn't fit the area. it would have been a house with a fap sigh car. >> host: what is an encampment? you write about indian encampment in this book and some of your essays. >> guest: well, in those books -- well, in my novels, the encampments aren't so much like a camp or encampment, but regions where the traditional people still live, and the traditional people who are the knowledge holders are in one

reaming, and so they are visited then by others. they are the elders or the people who have the most knowledge and who are filled with wisdom, know the ceremonies, know the songs, remember remembering, you know? so they are actually places where people live, but i would say my idea of an encampment would have been in the 70s with wounded knee or something like that, but i don't know what you mean by encampments in essays. >> host: we'll move on. next call coming from new york. >> caller: hi, linda. >> guest: hi, tees is --

tessa. >> caller: we have a problem with taxation in new york. if we can get our hands on cigarette money, we can close the tax gap. i was wondering if your nation has the same problem with your state trying to tax you on sovereign money. >> guest: not that i'm aware of, but then i don't pay too much attention to cigarette tax, but i think that because oklahoma is so -- has such a large population as native peoples and that that's one of the way we educate and pay for our education and make a living to build our health clinics. i don't think we have the same problem you might have in new york. >> host: will from oregon, please go ahead.

>> caller: hello, linda. i heard you speak a couple times at oregon state university. thank you for coming to visit us. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: me question is today that i've become acutely aware, i guess, was differences between american history and u.s. history which most people seem to think that american history started in 1492. what happened to history in 1491 and before? i mean, where -- i appreciate that you said there was a bridge that seems unbridgeable between the cultures, and i'm interested in somehow learning to bridge that. is there some way through a legal process and awareness of what the legal process has been? it's really quite an atrocious history. paul -- wrote some interesting books on the history of

legalities in the u.s. hypocrisy of that so your comments, please. thank you. >> guest: well, yes, the history began here in some places 50,000 years ago, and there has been a long and ongoing tradition of change and response to environment like earthquakes, floods, and different kinds of things, but i think i found the way that i can uncover that is to put many histories together. i look at many histories and find what seems like glimmers of the truth in it and also the ways to bridge that i think are really just to read american indian literature essays, politics, history, and, you

know, by indigenous peoples themselves, and then see what the thought is like that's different from the thought of the other side -- the other kind of thought, and is anybody going to ask me anything about writing? >> host: what would you like to be asked about writing? >> guest: oh, anything. i'm interested that the questions are political, but that's all right too. >> host: you're most recent book, people of the whale, a novel. >> guest: yes. >> host: you spent a lot of time writing about the ocean. >> guest: yes, i know. i don't understand why. i don't live on the ocean. >> host: you lived in oklahoma, colorado, why? >> guest: why do i live there? >> host: no, why do you write about the ocean so much? >> guest: i just love the ocean. i just love the ocean.

i haven't seen the ocean in awhile, and i miss it, but in this particular case, i actually had my friend and i, brenda peterson, did a book for national geographic on gray whales and also some people in a whaling community preparing to whale, some of the elders asked us to come and interview them because they were against what their tribal counsel was doing, and so i followed the gray whales, we followed them, and went to different tribal communities up and down the coast, and i fell in love with doll fins and whales and sea mammals, and so the book is fiction, but it's based on events that did take place, and it's not exactly what everyone thinks it is, but, you know, it's like -- i was just at a

conference where someone was talking about my work, and one woman said linda hogan is for and against whaling, and i thought, well, that's a really interesting way of looking at it, but in the book, the main character goes home because he believes that there is going to be a return to tradition, and he's disappointed when he finds out that his people are involved in a business proposition instead, but i write about the ocean because it's a great power. it's -- it's a life. i mean, we're made up of the same, practically the same amount of salt water in our bodies, and it has mystery. i mean, it's just full of life. i mean, even the plankton is

fascinating. you know, the fact for me that the gray whales are landlocks and they have to stay close to land because they have to have their plankton and that has to be from the sun. it has to be photo synthesized for them to have health. that's amazing, and then, too, they were very friendly with us, and when we were in the birthing la goops, the last place you expect them to be friendly, the mothers bring their babies up on their backs to show us their children or lift up our skiff from the underneath and we'd be on top of the whale, and so anyway, i just fell in love with the ocean and with being in the ocean and kayaking with whales and having experiences that just

seemed beyond imagination. >> host: next call for linda hogan here on in-depth comes from cleveland, ohio. cleveland, go ahead with your question, please. >> guest: a good ocean city. >> caller: hi -- >> host: please, go ahead. >> caller: hi -- >> host: yes, go ahead, we're listening. >> caller: back to poll tibs, -- poll politics sorry, but we have been protesting to get rid of this for several years since the 20s, and they continue to disrespect popular society which is only interested in cash and disrespect to the people. >> host: are you talking about sports logos, the washington red skins, cleveland indians? >> caller: yes. >> host: thank you.

linda hogan? >> guest: yes, i don't understand why they don't just have integrity and change it. it would be so easy to do, and everyone would respect them so much, but they do have that. you notice they don't ever have the ohio sphix or niggers or anything like that which is exactly the same thing, and so if they thought of it in those terms they might change it, but they don't feel the same way about red skins or braves or whatever, sooners, you know, they don't feel the same way. it's meaningless. it's as if we do not exist to them. >> host: this e-mail from rose, ms. ho began as innative woman work --

ms. hogan, as an academic working, i explain how property and how this influences what is considered appropriate to share outside our communities, particularly regarding spiritualty. could you discuss how this has influenced your work? >> guest: i don't share some things. i wouldn't share some things, but i think as a native woman formally working in centuries and centuries academia, there's things i miss like what new books are coming out and things like that, but the misconceptions about spiritualty are really great, and are enormous, and i've finally just decided that i just don't say

very much about it. my response is that our spiritualty is the same all over the world that indigenous people respect the rights of nature and the environment and that that's basic spiritualty. when people talk about shamism, depending where they are and who is speaking, i always used to say that only exists in siberia, and have you been through the initiation process, but it's become such a commonly used word that now i've just -- i just have to ignore it because otherwise i would be discussing the issues with people all of the time, but it is sigh -- siberia, only a siberia event. people in other parts of the country are not shammism.

they may be a helpful of the people, an herbalist, ma medicine person, someone who is able to see things or define illnesses or diagnosis, but they are not shamins. since it's commonly used, i don't talk about it anymore. ..rld." i myself am a failure at faith. [laughter] >> yeah. that's so funny. i was just writing about small things to do. i was faced with one of them. yes. faith and belief, i mean they are things that you -- they don't really help. they don't -- they help you feel better in the moment. but they don't really do anything. and you can have faith in anything. or belief in anything. and it doesn't have to be real.

so i -- i pl m >> what is before me comment truth, the material world and not the abstract. faith is very much abstract. >> host: christianity is quite prevalent and a lot of your books. the influence of christianity on the native americans. >> guest: yes it is. because a and continues to- be one of a colonizing forces. christianity has been from the beginning save the soull but do not worry about the body. it is okay to kill thel.

person but save the soul. but to this day christianity, depending on where you live, some people are not christians, some people are southern baptist- in our area of lot of people go to the baptist churches. a lot of people in the pueblos are catholic but it is a mix catholicism. it depends on hooww it is usedi but it is one of the worsttion colonizing forces education and religion used against the indian people. >> host: the boarding schools? what is the effect of the boarding schools? when did they happen?wen >> guest: it was the source of christianity in education. thatnd happened in the 19

hundreds, i think. but actually probably hong there is something similar in the late 1800 psat ate least for us, before we moveea to the encampments, the children were educated and were taught christianity. and a the kristian believes a and the idea of being kristian instead of being a he then. >> host: another reoccurring relatedt themes in your work, 99, is native americans who crossed over to live the european lifestyle. >> it happens all the time. >> host: is that a bad

thing? >> i think it is a matter ofh choice but sometimes for people who have doneher that, there is a longing for home, there is a long 84 what is lost to them. host: the next call from them this tennessee. >> caller: hello. once saying that i don't think that you are giving justice to characterization of the chickasaw nation ist most historians believe that they were about the most belligerent, warlike and filing group of people who i were ever in the eastern part of the united states.y ifwe they were hardly ace-

peace-loving group of people.p not just to against the against thet other people of the southeast if it was never a a group of conquest it was of the chickasaw.o as a member of the creek nation, you have not done justice to present your tribe for what it was. you mated generalnu discussion >> guest: i never really said i do not mean to dob justice to say we weredu violent but during that time period of the war all of the miscode the nation's and tribes in the southeast were at war with each other

because some had allied with the french some more allied with the british and whoever gave them weapons of thees family would not be stolen by the other try. so into the slave trade weea all fought with each other t there was fighting among many tribes at that time but we had became known as excellent pop marksmen but we had to save ourselves those who were close allies and the two are again and there was slavery.

i am not rule -- misrepresenting i just haven't gone into detail because it is so complex. but we were all while it there was constant warfare we had in eastern band thatt went down to protect their british and south carolina from the french and the choctaw alliance with the french. they were getting the weapons from the french and shooting us. the creek, i am not sure who they were or where they were getting their weapons but there was a huge mass secure which is why we took the survivors and they kept their own culture but lived with us.iat so we were all violent at that time.ur does that answer a question?

>> host: we hope so. that caller is gone. we want to show you a list of the majorh works of linda hogan beginning with an indwelling, of the woman who watches over the world, mean spirit, solare storms, power, and "people of the whale" our caller from north carolina who had the garbled phone has a message from twitter, what do people do to preserve heritage?x indians still exist mixed indians with nowhere to go.r >> guest: if i recall era walk in the answer from jamaica and i think the

majority of our mix with black jamaicans and probably do not have a space and i have no answer for what theyne would do to create their own nation. >> host: how do preserve the heritage how do the chickasaw preserve heritage? >> interestingly enough i think our dancers and singers are the ones who most significantly preserve the heritageo and feel the strongest that are therew because it was against the law and tell 1978 actually, all indigenous religions were against american law and and tell

the american indian religious freedom act was passed. we were the only ones thata had nine. t but and interviewing people it seems to me that those t who are serious about dancing the traditionalv dances, keeping up the traditional activities, have done the best to preserve the heritage but we have a cultural center and research center that just recentlyp opened and writers to write for the press it isl definitely a book on preserving culture and heritage and tradition. >> host: what is thel bl

significance between full blood and makes? something you have alluded to in your writings 81 at this particular point* in my life i now believe there isnc too much difference because what your house to do with culture. and the people who even if it was a citizen or a white citizen to be intermarried with scottish they were still forced over the trail of tears. by the time theye got to indian territory, they were no longer thinking oft themselves as white people. not at all still connected to that c culture that sends them into such a situation.

the difference of plot -- pallone quantum is something somebody came up with and most of us theseyou days have a mixed pled children and grandchildren and zero were have the mixed blood grandchildreneti and onewh daughter that is blond and one has black hair that is just genetic but it is not cultural. >> host: who is genet and murray? >> guest: in your book the woman who watches over the world. where are they now? >> guest: my youngest d daughter is then south dakota is off the boundaries of the rococo reservation my

oldest daughter is in colorado i have quite ao complex family because i have adoptedfa children my oldest adopted daughter has given up her children fora adoption so one woman who adopted them i wanted to adopt my oldest granddaughter and she adopted her when i told her about a "solar storms" i dedicated it to her she called me and said you don't know me but i haven danielleh and live 20 minutes away from us so that night we were so excitelld and went over for dinner and there she was. >> host: is this the under horse?o

>> guest: why do you call her something else in the book? >> host: they made me.n >> guest: for legalst reasons?u they may be cut. >> host: your daughter is living off of the boundaries of the lakota reservation she is with the indian health service hospital and she is lakota indian and has lived on the reservation and and cathy works on the reservation and is a therapist at the hospital and bless her heart works in two different places and is a very hard-working woman. >> host: win that youer wrote "the woman who watches

over the world" it seems it was a series of essays then you got your family and maybe 180 pages straightforward almostcal biographical writing thenr after that you back into the sa form.ra is that a correctink interpretation? >> i don't think so because it may seem that way but i integrate native science and her everything. when i wrote about myg daughter, she was then the mineral chapter i hadwate elements water, fire, minerals, there is a scene where in then middle of the night wants tor go to research and place but her husband goes along with her and happens to be to theng

place where the healing earth comes from instead ofo going to the church, shetu actually goes to the place where the earth came from and goes to the river bed and doesn't know anything about it but we have looked at the map. you went to the healing earth and she had to and brought it back with her. i also put in mineral mountain story is what andby letters that were written to a man who is writing about thee traditions of the people in the north and steadying the minerals. i tried to put in different kinds ofw knowledge. i try to mix it up. >> host: was it tough writing that family history?

there is some pretty straightforward things in there. >> guest: no. it was not tough at all.ough >> host: the next calls comes from arizona. >> caller: i teach navajo writers and i have marvell wynne they make grammatical errors in english it is because they cannot concept fore example, there is no pronounus for male and female but just mcpherson and so they mix it t up but i was just wondering if there is aa word in your language that is notd translatable we should add to that english dictionary? >> yes but first let me say t

the navajo language is the most complex and the worldar and the number of verbs, you have more verbs in navajo then we have been the entire english-language. it is not translatable because they are more complex.k i think about how the mind works with that much more language in it. when you have a different concept you cannot translate oryo possibly, that is why it is so hard to get western thought system andt indigenous thought systemse to meet because the way of thought is so different. we do have words like that but i don't think they would fit to in the english because it would

be nice if we did not have he or she but we have words and for animal is it skipped in my mind, i have been writing about it but green and blue is the same lowered. it means when you take it apart it means south blowing and also life course. it comes from a river system and the colors due to when i was on the mississippi river in a canoe i realized where the bird came from a and with it -- what it meant ther word for green and four blu comes from theal river itself contains ecological and environmental knowledge.nm

the other word i was trying to think of was the word for animal. i like that very much thinking at animals are all alive. >> host: tell us about this down. >> dusty dry and hot and small town it is one main street there is a chickasaw capitol building this is a queen. [laughter]hh and end what do you call that? if most people go out on a day they go to the dairy queen to sit down and talk at. >> where is gene autrys oklahoma? >> westf of there.a

[laughter] >> host: how did that name come about? >> he bought land there thi people had hopes he would put money into the town to make it a bright and shiningd town as it was in the past. before that it was burr when then named after one of myhe great aunt. it was the town of many names. >> host: within the chickasaw nation? what is the thought of one of the most famous hollywood cowboys being named after a town in the chickasaw nation? >> guest: nobody thinks about it because there is so many strange names there.a many towns are named after people, weiss, i don't think anybody has given any thought to it. >> host: have you given thought the u.s.

independence day weekendgues that you do this program. >> guest: yes i have. >> host:he what was your thought? >> guest: we thought because we were working with the british so it is a problem.r [laughter] >> host: the next call from an rehearsed massachusetts.o thank you for holding. >> caller: hello.h i think i may have gone to school with few 3 million years ago. >> host: university of colorado? >> guest: coloradolnhi springs. >> >> host: nick 91 all my gosh.it' how are you? >> it is interesting to beamh teaching at amherst college and negative as you remember when we found out about thelan blankets for land a story it

was horrifying so we sang a song but that is not my question.wha you have written in so many wonderful nonfiction booksand filled with a maze same story is what was about the novel the grabs you? >>o guest: i found out as a poet i could not tell certain stories and poetry. it was the wrong form. i had to take up the form of the novel i am working on one right now and i have a new book coming out andt october that is from a newt press, opening this press but they're doing as

beautiful job and it will be a small house hardcover book. it is rattling your line. also narrative tone. >> host: are you still with us collar?n >> guest: i have question is for you. where have you been all of these years? >> guest: i am a career play write. >> we both have guggenheim in the same year. >> caller: lets stay int contact. >> host: what do you teach at embers? >> play rating. >> host: do you know, if linda hogan of books are ever used an english class is our creative writingi class is? >> yes.l i always check to see what people are buying and they

are. >> host: thank you. >> guest: please do keep in touch. >> host: do you have a web site? >> guest: i do. >> guest: maybe she can leave? her information are maybe and rehearse it did bd do. >> host: if you have a web site can people contact you. >> guest: i am also on facebook. >> host: you talk about poetry one of our books was oit nominatedison as a finalist for the national book critic and this is called a history of red i just want to read oneng section and tell us what it is about. >> read is the fear thata

turns the knife back against men. holds it at their throats they cannot see the clock on theo handle part of the animal hand that haunts them from someplace inside their blood.f tell us about the aplomb the history of fred. >> guest: it is hard to talk about and to paraphrase a section but but the poem is about being native, war, it is about sending-- hunting and thewith blood of this long history of what all of the meetings of the word read the also

the ninth even an combat we do too other people we do to ourselves and what we do to animals we do to ourselves.i people who hunted for food and sport hunts are very different kinds of animals. i lived in the country where people had tooo hunt for food but i also live in a place now where there is a lot of sport hunting and people have trophies everywhere and it is very different way of living 70 holbrook there is

this turning things back upon yourself. what you put out in some way returns.urn this this sort i'd like the first fouri seconds poem in the book and the main set up for what will follow. it also means love. i forgot about that. >> caller: hello. i am from minnesota originally. >> host: turned down the volume on your television and go ahead with yourh? question. > caller: this is interesting my dad is one of the most decorated he rose and white ancestors go way

back from the oregon traili and in my native blood my genealogy the knowledge andt wisdom carrieshe man with write and wrong with the positive aspect it and what is knowledge and i feel there is a lot to it from where my ancestors came from.batt that indians had battles, the natives and as far as mine, my ancestors were there were my first cousins are payola and they were in bread back then to

learn more of the language. >> >> host: anything you want to add to what he had to say? >> guest: it is interesting the ancestors married or wed paleface people because they wanted to learn that english-language because i am not sure, i did not understand what nation he comes from but one of the things that happens in the southeast was because of the treaty's and of the corruption, a lot of the

intermarried citizens became translators because of their translators would live. we really needed thetize intermarried white citizens to be a part of the us so we could have honest people looking out for us. when we had a great emphasis on education and at that time for the resents who went may saw the treaty's and things that the government presented us which was often and in numerous, we could get through it to have intelligentt responses. >> host: here is some of her major works including "dwellings", "the woman who watches over the

world", mean-spirited, "solar storms" comment "power" and "people of the whale" recently wewh visited linda hogan and her home at tosaw. tishomingo and this is what we saw. >> this is the meditation room in my house actuallythro this is the office and my computer is kind of hidden we had a broken pipe and flooded this room and the bathroom and the rug has been cut out i am actually wit starting to like the l concrete floor.. i may stay with it. i have been doing my best to put the things in order butard. there are papers everywhere and it is hard.

and it is kind of an intimate place to work for right now it is not in working order. this is my a dining would day standing room table. i write everywhere in the house that have projects in different places. these are my research books and use different ones for different things. it started off as my f chickasaw journal and this is how i work and i like toand work by hand first and then i type a 10. i wanted to be a writer

after it discovered poetry was then just read 10 by people who rhymed like edgar allan poe and the old poets. when i was married my husband was given a gift of poetry, ea book and i was very excited about the book and i started writing poems -- poem and it was a wonderful experience for me. i finally went back toclas school to take creative writing class is in a working-class literature because it comes from a family that was middle-class that when i read a working class literature, i thought

there is a place for the kind of right team that they do and i read faulkner who i had chickasaw and there. thy thought if he could then i should be doing it depth" by using your mobile phone. simply text the word "book" to 99702 to receive a weekly e-mail about our schedule, and sign up now for a chance to receive a signed copy of linda hogan's book, "people of the whale." standard messaging and data rates apply. ♪

>> host: linda hogan, you told us that you are cntly >> host: linda hogan you are currently reading of book called the ragged edge of the world. what is it about? >> guest: is about the borders, i am trying to think, it is a hard book to read. the borders, i guess it is about environmental justice but it is also about hist career as a journalist and w all of the places he has visited in the world and the things that he has witnessed and the changes he has seen over time. >> host: why is it a hard

book to read? >> guest: it is deep. [laughter] it is complex material. >> host: york currently reading another book? >> guest: i finished it. >> host: what was said about? >> guest: it is about america during the mccarthy era. >> host: linda hogan is our guest this month. s as we continue to take your

calls, you are on the line. >> caller: good a afternoon. i apologize i am excited and very nervous to speak with you.i, your novel "power" hasou changed the a trajectory of what i was studying at university and why i am so water now. my question one is typical. go in depth of view would york could that history is ahaa form but it is a bit more of what happened? >> host: before we get the answer how did it change thetudy directory of what you were>> c

studying? >>el absolutely i was the english major and i was changing a lot of things about myself to get rid of destructive habits and amazon kept recommending this novel i did not want to read it p because it was about shot but i did and fell in love then i started in a master's degree working with native american literature and its intersection with science park out i also have my ph.d. at oklahoma state university next month with native american studies.sod before it was strictly british literature so it changed. >> host: thank you very much. go ahead and comment. >> guest: i will probably see you at a conference in

the future and you can introduce yourself.kind because of the book is aboutf different kinds of power that can be explained away as. mystery is a form of power because it is because mystery holds or has a great hold on our life and directs us and mystery is something that changes people that moves them and drives them and has them given to believe systems and that is what happens in the book. all of those things. it became the first thing narrowed in the book because

it is the only way i could explain fold book which is a book of mystery and power and who holds mystery and power. >> host: what happens to the character? >> guest: every time i watch a film i one day to frantic ending. i think she goes on but she is shunned which is a form of punishment but she is not shunned forever because she has done something relieve fact only two people know that it was not an evil deed although it does seem like ain t crime. >> host: karen e-mails h

that you mention and a brain may haved re team helped could you talk about the writing process and how that may help with healing? >> guest: one of the things i wanted to do with the chickasaw nation is to work with veterans who were having brain injuries coming back from iraq and afghanistan and that had brain injuries to do creative writing and it hasn't taken off. i have worked on it tastes but there's something on the writing process that is almost a form of magic but you form the synopsys because the creative process, the whole notion is something that happens that

it iss like a mystery and also a form of power, but you create pathways in the brain that would not have been there before that suddenly something comes to you because words are an new-line hour and a concept together and it changes howin you think. for me, and retain during that time was a part of the process of healing and it may not have happened. i may not have done as well as i have did if not for writing. >> host: and our nextr at guest, she was my mentor the numbers do colorado where weents have the benefit of writing workshops with her and being a guest in her mountain home and gaining access to hercess amazing mind. i write to honor her as a a wonderful and a generous

teacher. how does your spiritual lifeitua affect your rite aid life and can you give an overview of your movement as a writer from poetry to the wide range of work that you create today? >> guest: i remember you. [laughter] i hope you are doing well.en it think about those days. they were wonderful teaching creative writing. i wanted to go back into that. but i went for poetry and i like to say it is mine first language and i write it all the time. no matter what else i am working on. but i felt i had to make a different kind of statement

that and way is to put words together to do different things. there are stories where fiction it is like character development and to show a change coming is more lanier now and how of these developmentsie that take place. i needed to teach myself how to do that. then i find i am working on some essays now because when i do, it is a different way of thinking. how do i put together two different notions puts

together a topic that works together as one piece although it has disparate parts. i like doing them. it is fascinating. but it is hard work.rd w poetry is hard work. fiction is hard work.th itro all is put of doing it too. >> about the. >> my sisters peak of my spiritual life affects my writing life. >> host: carol word h one -- woodward tweets how was your works machines gue friday you're nation's people? 1/8 feedback corrects.

>> those people are happy to have made there and the governor brought me home and asked what he had to do asan the governor of thell chickasaw nation. i said if you need a writer in residence so i changed jobs pretty quickly. i will say probably the majority of people probably have a read my books, but still are happy to have me around doing what i am doing and working on our own histories and projects. >> host: what does being a pulitzer finalist due to book sales? >> guest: nothing.ok s i am a writer and my book sales are pretty low even though i am read, i am read

more and other countries. >> host: you sell more books and other countries? why?ove >> guest: and they love the work. i travel all the time to other countries tie one, norway, turkey, somepla ce. i always get offers to go to other places. but they know my books and read them and to know my work. of but my book sales are not what they could have been termites have been in my life. >>d host: we talked to connie but do you know, ab if y your books are used for t teaching? >>hi guest: yes.yes, they are used in class is all the time. i am doing glasses innd wisconsin that use the book four years and i visit.

yes. i don't know why exactly they don't show no sales. [laughter] i find them. i know people are not giving them up. but the sales do not show up on my royalty statements. >> host: a q4 holding.of >> was going to ask if you were a poet i listened to some of the native women could you share your poetry on thefo air? we read it just a very small

portion of your poem the history of red but if youere wanted to see your poetry is w it onlinebe or on your web site?an >> guest: yes. some of it is on the website and as soon as i am home and have things in order it will be on universe but i think you could probably just look under linda hogan online to find some. >> host: which native american writers do you admire zero or which writers native american brothers have influenced your writing the most? >> guest: i really like garden of the -- which is an amazing book and i have used it in class is and i am

interested maybe literature from long ago up until the present sowed trying to keep up with everybody's work out which bid is hard because there is so many new writers coming out i cannot keep up. w garden of the dunes is one of my favorite. tracks is an incredible book. all of my friends come i love.ra there are all kinds ofrs writers that we know each other and they are excellent writers but when it comes to who influences me the most of it is probably the ones i

have named like d'arcy madtv -- make nicole turn-of-the-century, flat writersgsome of the who are very capable of saying a little with few words. also another brilliant novel is very difficult and took me three times to get into it. they are fairly well known writers but it is a world ofhere token writers and you hear of only a few and there is room for only a few. and is like applying for a job to say we already hirede an indian. not if you are a writer are not that we are not thinking

of view as a professional but thinking of you as, ethnic what ever. it is the same way and the y writing world. we already have our tocqueville and writers. so there are many good writers that go unseen and " unheard. >> host: you use of the terms native and indian so what is the current thinking on the use of the indian as a term to describe native americans? >> guest: i don't think we care too much indigenous, tribal, i interspersed down wherever.rs [laughter] >> host: are tribes important? >> guest: what do you mean? >> host: is the allegiance important more so than, does

that question make sense? >> guest: yes. whether you are i italian or german? >> host: right. is the more important or at that same level? >> guest: more important in. >> host:s, is it more important to have their tribal connection as opposed to white america and spain from scott landor norway? >> guest: i think so. is a country we belonged to a nation.now, and it is still there functioning. we have not left. we cannot. it is who we are. >> host: we have been email from texas, how hardt ti

was it to be published for the first time? >> guest: i think i was the very fortunate the first time because i sent to some polemist to the green fieldd review and he also is a great writer and editor per crowhop he said you have any more and i said yes. he made them into a book. that little book which is now out of print, calling my cellphone p was my first publication. then i was also published in a magazine. it is almost a process that you a start with a small press or magazine then keep going and tell somebody recognizes

your name because they have a seen it dean f. then a larger press is interested. >> host: with your first th novel what was the process of getting that published?foun >> guest: i found the publisher first and he found an agent for me. >> guest: in the publisher does not exist anymore. they were a part. >> host: the second part of the question i heard somesefn tribes refused to you use the $20 bill because of jackson? >> some people put tax on his face and he does notaugh have a good reputation. that is for sure.

[laughter] >> host: the next call comes from colombia maryland. >> caller:. >> host: could you please start again?teac speed . >> i am a teacher i have used your books and discussion month hospital staff and library and adult education class is and also "solar storms" is of great success. and you use awareness of spiritual energy and of the natural world and your work. is that something you started with or has that a grown over time? and do you have a rating routine? >> guest: for the first part of the question, yes. i think i have always been interested in the land and

is the life of the land andec the spirit. the second part is i do have a right team routine that i like to write from the moment i get up, i like to start. i like silence and quiet. and i usually do not like to stop but i have to because i have to go to work. sometimes it is hard 88 working writer not have the luxury adjusted to writing but other things interfere. .aninmi .ll comes from

estes park, colorado. hi, nan. >> caller: hi. linda, glad to hear you. just fascinating. and, but i did want to make a comment. i grew up south of pine ridge in crawford, nebraska, near fort robinson. >> guest: yes. >> caller: and i was always taught and it came easy that when you hear, you know, of these tribal names given to teams, to me i grew up thinking that's a form of respect, okay? i just wanted you to know. and thank you, and i'm nervous, so i'll get off the air. >> guest: oh, you don't these to be nervous. i should be nervous. >> host: any comment about her mascot comment? >> guest: i suppose that everyone has a different way of looking at, at, um, whether it's

a form of respect or disrespect. so i think, um, most of us don't think it's a form of respect. we don't like the things like the tomahawk chop and, you know? is. >> host: next call for author linda hogan comes from ackworth, georgia. hi, vicki. vicki, you with us? >> caller: hi. >> host: please, go ahead. >> caller: thank you so much. i am so thankful to be able to speak with you. >> guest: hi. >> caller: i was born, i was born in, um, i'm sorry, my brain isn't working because -- thinkway, i was born in oak city, oklahoma, and my family, um, my dad was born in, um, batesville, arkansas, and he is indian. his last name was taj.

and we have never been able to get any information about him. but yet, um, we cannot find, um, any information on that at all, but i was hoping that, um, maybe you could help me to find out information about the tajs? my dad was born in 1900, and then my mother was born right outside of oak city, oklahoma, and her last name was, um, ryland. and so there was some indian on that side of the family as well. >> host: resources. where would you recommend she start? >> guest: well, first of all, i don't know where that is, so i don't know who, um, who's there. but i would go on, you know, the

local tribes in that area and just go on their web sites, and most have lists of names. and, in fact, it's sort of a surprise when you find your own -- sometimes you'll find, you know, if they have your family, your own name will be on there, and you don't know it. and your children's and everything. so they have names of who is, who they knew was there in the past. >> host: linda hogan, does the bureau of indian affairs here in washington still have a lot of influence when it comes to agents? nation? >> guest: um, i don't know if influence is the right word, but they still do have a lot of, um, they still have a lot of, they still make a lot of decisions for tribes. and sometimes without notifying tribes. but they still do have a lot of influence, yes. >> host: and in "mean spirit" during the 1920s oklahoma oil

boom a lot of native americans had oil land, correct? and were quite wealthy from the royalties? >> guest: yes, uh-huh. >> host: you write about how many were declared feeble-minded by -- >> guest: incompetent, yes. >> host: incompetent and, therefore, could not receive all their royalties. >> guest: that's right. >> host: was that a historical fact? >> guest: yes, uh-huh. right. and, actually, more often it was full bloods that were declared ip competent too. -- incompetent too. >> host: now, are there still native americans with the oil rights, or has it been -- >> guest: a few, yes. >> host: just very few? >> guest: um, i think it's very few, but i think some of the oil rights are still being collected by non-indians. >> host: i'm going to read this portion from "mean spirit" that you write about. this is a letter that was sent, and you'll be able to figure out

what this means. >> guest: i know the letter already. >> host: dear sir: i am a young man with good habits and none of the bad with several thousand dollars and want a good inyang girl for a wife -- indian girl for a wife. i am sober, honest, industrious man and stand well in my community. i want woman between the ages of 18-35 of age -- not a full blood, but prefer one as near white as possible. i live on a farm most of my life and know how to get results from a farm as well as a mercantile business. having means, it is natural i want someone my equal financially as well as socially. if you can place me in correspondence with a good woman and i succeed in marrying her, for every $5,000 she is worth, i will give you $25. if she is worth $25,000, you would get $125 if i got her. this is a plain business proposition, and i trust you will consider it as such.

>> guest: yes. that's a real letter. it was taken from my research. and not uncommon. and that's how it was seen. it was seen as business deals. >> host: and why was this white man wanting to marry an indian woman? >> guest: he wanted her money. >> host: an oil allotment? >> guest: right. and be he was going to pay for every amount she was worth he would pay a percentage to this indian agent. >> host: who were the indian agents? >> guest: well, there were many of them, actually. they turned over, and i don't know the names of the people, but they were the people who were in charge of handing out the money, the checks and setting up tables and, you know -- >> host: were they indians, or were they -- >> guest: no, no, they weren't. they were assigned by the government. >> host: they were assigned by the government, okay. how common was that?

or how frequent was that? >> guest: that was everywhere. >> host: shirley in 'em metsburg, iowa, you are on the line with linda hogan. please go ahead with your question. >> caller: hi, linda. i've never read any of your book, but i'm sure going to. i'm three-fourths irish and one-fourth cherokee. i can't hear you. >> host: we're listening to you, shirley. >> caller: all right, good. my story of my grandfather and us passing on his life, we passed for irish because our family was scared to death to admit that we were native american. and i didn't really admit it until i was in charge of ruth ran world relief -- lutheran world relief in my church years ago and found out that there were people in my church that were not agreeable to giving any

of the lutheran world relief items to native americans. but i also wondered what kind of a education did you get in grade school? because my teachers were so terribly prejudiced against native americans and didn't know since i was blond and blue-eyed, the rest of my siblings were dark-haired and dark-eyed like my mother, they didn't know i was native american and were very outspoken and said, oh, it was good that those savages were gotten rid of because they were so savage and so stupid. it was too bad that we department have really smart savages like they did down in south america. i wonder if you ever heard any of that. and i have one more question. >> host: go ahead, shirley. >> caller: i thought of doing my grandfather's story which would be called probably "cherokee charlie: an iowa farmer," and

telling the story about how prejudiced the people were at the time that he followed my irish grandmother to iowa from oklahomaer territory, and that e had to change his name, his age, everything in his background before he was allowed to marry this pretty irish girl who was also the daughter of a, um, of pastor in the methodist church. >> guest: i think you should definitely start writing. just sit down and write, and enjoy the process and write about your grandfather. and as for -- i'm trying to remember your first part of your question now. um -- >> host: facing prejudice, i think? >> guest: facing prejudice. i was really very poorly educated. i didn't pay much attention in

school, and so if anyone said anything like that, well, actually, i would have probably perked up right away. but i don't recall anyone saying anything like that. um, in our school. but on the other hand, i went to schools that were multicultural most of the time. >> host: military schools? >> guest: yeah. army schools or schools in army neighborhoods or on bases. >> host: in your memoir you write about being a common law wife at the age of 12. >> guest: yes, uh-huh. >> host: how did that experience occur, and is there -- did it affect you later on in your life? is. >> guest: yes. i was in love, and it still affects me, i think. i still would like to find this man even though, you know, it was probably not healthy in that he would have been arrested

under other circumstances, i think. but i still wonder what happened to him and, you know, i would like to know. so on the other hand, you know, i don't know if it affected relationships that i had with people later or not. i know it was a form of love that was important in my life, and, um, you know, he was generous and kind to me and, you know, it was a good relationship. it sounds crazy, but it was a good relationship. >> host: next call for linda hogan comes from globe, arizona. hi, paul. >> caller: hello. yes, i'm paul from globe, arizona, i'm right next to the san carlos apache reservation. i've lived here my entire life. >> guest: hello. >> caller: and what i'm particularly interested in is the relationship or i should say the differences between native languages and the english

language. especially regarding abstract concepts. and i feel that english words often because of its complex history really are very difficult to use as a truly describing indian concepts. abstract concepts are difficult to talk about. and i was just wondering if that is one reason why you might have used poetry as a way of describing some things, was -- because it's more metaphorical, and that telling stories is so important. scott am dais lived down here in tucson, i don't know if he still does, but i had the same experience in talking with him. i just wondered what your comments are about this. >> guest: well, i do think that poetry is a way of saying what can't be said in ordinary language. and, um, that stories also, you

do what you -- you can tell, you can say things that you can't speak in just conversational language. but that's also one of my main interests s the difference in the languages and thought. language and thought and how it influences, um, the way we think. and there are, i think, many different complexityies to the system of understanding the world or seeing the world or knowing depending on the language you grow up with. >> host: riverside, california. hi, ruby, you're on booktv. >> caller: happy fourth of july, everybody. independence day. >> guest: hi, ruby. >> caller: hi, how are ya? my question is, indigenous people have been so stereotyped. are there any authors who have

done justice to any main figures you know of in the past? and also your comment about how you kind of lost faith. i would encourage you not to give up, because there is a creator out there, and all things happening now have been prophesized, so don't give up on that. he is real. >> guest: i'm afraid i had a hard time understanding exactly what you were saying. um, your words. but, um, does anyone deal with stereotypes, i think, yes, just about all the writers deal with stereotypes. and i don't give up on anything no matter what, so i'm not too worried about that. [laughter] >> host: linda hogan, for those just joining us now, why is it that you didn't start writing until your late 20s?

>> guest: well, i didn't really, um, well, it never occurred to me for one thing. and i didn't really discover the, you know, contemporary literature until i was older. i went back to school as an older student. >> host: who was a professor who influenced your writing? >> guest: well, the first person that allowed me to take his creative writing class was rod gellema at the university of maryland, and so i suppose i'd have to say him because i was very, um, nervous about going back to school, and i asked him if i could go to his class, and he said yes. and so i went to his class, and people were writing poetry. and it was a workshop, and it was exciting and, um, i really -- it was, sent me into

studying literature. i've studied psychology before, um, but then i went into literature and, um, i can remember taking working class literature, and i really related to the working class literature and proletariat literature more than anything else that i had taken. and so that had a big effect on me. and then, also, i knew many of the, um, writers even writers that had been blacklisted i had met, i met later in my life like maridel lassour and tilley olsen that are incredible and amazing writers that have been ignored in influence and sort of lost their momentum because of history. >> host: linda hogan, you open "dwellings" by saying you had long prayed for an eagle

feather. >> guest: oh, yes. and the interesting thing is that i worked with the eagles, but it was illegal to take an eagle feather. so, you know, i had wanted an eagle feather. and i'd wanted the naming ceremony, actually, when i was young. and we didn't, we didn't have them that i knew of at the time. so, um, yes. and then, then i had an eagle feather. [laughter] >> host: what's the significance of an eagle feather? is. >> guest: you know, i couldn't explain it to you. what's the significance, i mean, they're like having something that's so, so, um, special. i mean, it's like --

>> host: a talisman? >> guest: it can be used for helping, healing, it can be used for speaking, you know, it can be used -- it's like a speaker's rattle almost. it can be used for communicating with, you know, whatever you would conceive of as spiritual. um, i'm holding one here. [laughter] >> host: um, you say it's illegal to have an eagle feather. is it -- >> guest: no, not for native people, but when i was working with birds, it was illegal to pick one up or take one home. >> host: even if i picked one up off the ground, if i saw one on the ground and picked it up, it would be illegal for me to have? >> guest: keep it. you would just not display it, you know? but, like, my father could display his. >> host: lee in worcester, massachusetts, good afternoon. this is booktv. >> caller: hello, ms. hogan.

by way of very brief introduction, my maternal grandmother's grandfather was cherokee, but i think that small part, um, has my ethos comes from that in terms of respect for place, um, respect for those who came before, um, the infusion of the spirit in this each living thing is unique, consciousness. so i'm not familiar with your work, ask that's why we watch booktv. and where would be the best place for someone like me to jump into your writing? >> host: linda hogan. >> guest: well, any place, i think. but you might, if you're not familiar with the work, you might not read a lot of poetry, so you might start with "dwellings "or one of the novels. new, anyway -- but anyway, thumbs up on everything you said. that sounds wonderful. >> host: can you talk more about

your next book, "indios," and what else she is working on next? >> guest: "indios," as i said, it's a performance piece. it's a one-woman show, and i'm not a performer, so i don't know if i'll do it, but i might try and see how badly it goes. um, but it's -- for 30 years, i guess, i've thought about medea, the story of medea, and i've done research on the story of medea. and, um, to me she is an indigenous woman who was taken away. her father was a sorcerer, her aunt wasser sercy. she came from another world into her husband's world. and then he betrayed her.

and so what i've done is taken that story, i've thought about it for so long, how could i work with it, what would i do to make it into the story of a native woman, and, um, i put it in a contemporary setting where a woman is being interviewed from, in prison. she's being interviewed. and she's been interviewed before, so she's kind of tired of the interviews, but she does them anyway. um, but so it has this one woman on stage answering the questions. it's also poetry. so it doesn't have to be a performance piece, it's also a poem. and, um, which is, you know, like i said, my first language. it's what i love to do. but it's, it gives insight into the true story of medea who, actually, did not kill her own children. they were stoned by the

corinthians because they were worried that the mixed-blood children would come into power, and they wanted the, um, children, jason and his new wife's children, to come to power instead. but she wasn't innocent because she did put the burning, you know, the cape that would burn the new wife on her, she did give it to her as a gift. because she had a knowledge of plants. so it's about many levels about -- of things, about the knowledge of plants, about coming from another place, being in a different culture, being isolated. um, it's, it has so many different levels, it's very hard to talk about. but i'm excited about it. my regular publisher didn't publish it because it's, um, he wanted something longer, and he wanted me to do a new and selected book which i didn't think -- i think it needed to be

on its own. so, um, bryce milligan at wings press is doing it. and it's, um, it looks really quite lovely. a friend of mine did the design, the jacket design. dustin moder, he's a chickasaw. >> host: and that's due out when? >> guest: it's coming out in october. >> host: here are some of linda hogan's major works: dwellings: spiritual history of the world, the woman who watches over the world, mean spirit which was a pulitzer finalist, solar storms, power, and her most recent novel, "people of the whale with," published by norton. next call for linda hogan comes from starch, nevada. hi, lou. >> caller: hi, lou. [laughter] linda, i was enjoying your talk today, but a person mentioned

andrew jackson in an unfavorable way which is well, but i've just finished reading a book about tecumseh, the shaw knee indian who devoted most of his life, according to the author, to trying to join the indian tribes into a confederation which would be much stronger to fight the european invasion and the taking of the indian lands. what is the viewpoint from the native more american standpointt tecumseh compared to the favorable viewpoint that was in this book? >> guest: well, we think -- i think he's amazing. he was wonderful, he was a prophet, his brother was a prophet. they traveled together. um, you know, he wanted to do

something that actually turned out to be, would have been an impossibility. it would have resulted in massive genocide of the people in the southeast. but his ideas were really very good. but, um, when he came to talk to us and to the choctaws, there was this long speech about why he would not join in. and he, he was wrong on his reasons, but he was right not to join together. um, but tecumseh said, well, this proves that i'm not, you know, i'm not just a fake or a phony. when i get back to detroit, the earth will shake, and the buildings will fall. and when he got to detroit, there was the new madrid earthquake where the buildings did shake, and the river changed -- the mississippi river changed course for a while.

and new lakes were formed. so it was -- and it was a major earthquake in that part of the country. so, really, he was, he was -- i wonder what it would be like if he was around today. [laughter] >> host: linda hogan, i think tecumseh is an anglicized name of that chief, is it not? >> guest: i don't know. >> host: because you give his real name or his native american name in "the woman who watches over the world." >> guest: oh, something like something star, shooting star. >> host: no, you give the indian pronunciation. >> guest: it had something to do with a comet. that's right. >> host: there you go. next call for -- how did it get to tecum shah, do you have any idea? the. >> guest: oh, yes. because when the white men were there, he scared them by telling them there was going to be, you know, a flash of light through the sky that night, and there

was. >> host: next call, troy, michigan. hi, lillian. >> caller: i've been waiting and happy to talk to you, miss linda. >> guest: hello. >> caller: i don't know you, but i am very happy to know that i am going to read all your books. i would like to ask you sin you say you like the ocean, you should take a trip to nova scotia and see the ocean, but you will also visit the mix mack tribe there if you're familiar with them. and i don't know if i have indian in my background, but i have been told i have, and it could be through the french. and looking at you i have to say you'd be surprised, if i met you, we kind of look alike. my hair is darker. but i'm old, and it'll get like that soon. but i'm enjoying all your conversation, and i have a very strong indian feeling, if you understand what i mean, about things in the life and the earth and animals, and i don't know

why, and i get very angry when i hear disdiscrimination. i left canada when i was 17 and came to america, and before that i hadn't heard or seen discrimination there against indians or black people. i'm sorry to say that, i am an american now, and when i came here i was kind of shocked. but that's still going on. you know it and i know it. but i am going to read your books, and i really commend you having a brain injury that you're such a good writer. >> guest: thank you very much. and, actually, i would love to go to nova scotia, and my cousin is married to a micmac, so i am familiar with that area. so i would love to go up there, and that would be great. thank you. >> host: we have this tweet for you from tarcia. linda hogan, advice for a writer who has a passion for writing but does not have the ability to pay for creative writing

classes. >> guest: well, i think the thing is if you have a passion for writing and you love writing, just you can do your own classes, do your own, you know, read the writers you love and write. and, um, you don't have to take classes. you don't have to go to school. in fact, many of the writers that are doing well couldn't get into school for one reason or another. they thought they were not good enough, or for some reason it didn't work out. but i remember barbara kingsolver saying that her work was considered not good enough to get into a creative writing class. so, um, i don't think that you have to go to school or pay for the class to become a writer. just do it. that's my, those are my, my sayings which is like mikey,

just -- like mike key, just do it. and the other one is just because it doesn't work this time doesn't mean you won't be able to do it. >> host: chris is on the line from new haven, connecticut. >> caller: dear, dear lady. you're such an inspiration. i've been sitting here having, just listening to you since i called. my whole questioning is changing. just your name, hogan, i mean, to me it means home. [laughter] let me guess where you're from. [laughter] >> host: i'm from new haven. >> caller: but i was in a production of the play, "medea," and if you ever write your book and it's turned into a movie, i want to play creon, okay? the. [laughter] when you talk about your love of the ocean and i love that the lady from nova scotia talked about it, i was thinking to

myself, but native people have been traveling to the ocean and across the whole continent forever. i mean, i remember hearing the name council bluffs, and i said why is it council bluffs? it's because it was pretty much equidistant from every place in the north america, that we could all meet there. and another thing was your use of the word, "we." earlier you were talking about the viciousness of the americans, and you said "we." you included yourself. you include the native peoples as, also, part of america. we are all americans. and so i thought about sacajawea, and she's hooked up with lewis and clark in, i think, st. louis, and she didn't run into her brother who, by the way saves her life because he was the chief of a tribe out in idaho, okay? and she said, oh, there's my brother. so she, obviously, travels from idaho down to st. louis, and now she's going back -- >> host: hey, chris, can you

bring this to a conclusion? >> caller: are you surprised that you love the ocean even though you come from a landlocked part of the country? >> host: thank you, chris. >> guest: well, we're river people. you know, we were the mississippi and, yes, the trading paths and the journeys and across the gulf of mexico. we've all, we were everywhere in the past. so there wasn't anyone that stay inside one place. stayed in the one place. we journeyed all the time. >> host: rachel in amherst, massachusetts. you're on with linda hogan. >> caller: hello again from amherst. i'm so delighted to be able to speak with you, linda. >> guest: hi, rachel. >> caller: hi. well, i wish my partner hadn't fallen asleep. he loves greek mythology, and he would have been awed to hear about your medea project. [laughter] but we've read your works aloud to even other, we -- to each

other, we really love them. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: and, let's see, i guess i have to frame a question. >> host: no, you don't have to. if you just wanted to call and say hi, we'll move on. >> caller: well, just quickly, i live in a community that's renowned for being very multiculture, and yet i find we're still very isolated within our little cliques and groups and that it's very hard to create those bridges. um, i appreciate how much writing can do that and reading aloud can do that, um, but i wonder if you have any advice or ideas about really breaking those boundaries? also i want to just share a little bit, i was born in mexico to north american jews, i've lived in puerto rico, i've always been hyperconscious since childhood of the issues of class and race, and it just shocks me myself how little people seem to know about anything outside of their own experience.

and how little we seem to empathize. >> guest: well, i have to say that, you know, i thinking beinn the army, having a father that was in the army, that that was a multicultural experience. and, um, that living in oklahoma is not. um, so i feel the same way as you do. i mean, i feel that there's a sense of isolation that i haven't always felt. and so, um, but i do see what you mean exactly about how do you break down the boundaries and how do you break through the borders. but, um, i notice that one thing is i'm home, and i'm homesick for my friends and for the community i've been in before. because of the same thing that you're talking about which is

live anything a community that -- living in a community where everybody stays to themselves in this different ways. >> host: mary manning e-mails in if, as you write, do you need to spend time alone? is after a journalism career, i find being alone helps deeper thinking, especially writing in journals by hand. >> guest: yes. yes. and yes. because i also write in journals by hand, and i haven't been able to find my favorite kind of journal, and i finally found one yesterday here in washington, d.c., and i was thrilled. so i'm carrying an extra little weight in my backpack. [laughter] >> host: do you use a laptop? >> guest: um, i do have a laptop, but i always write by hand first. and so i have journals that are, um, they're all the same kind now. but i try to get different colors, and it's not possible anymore, so i have to distinguish, distinguish them in other ways.

but, um, i write by hand, and i these to be alone. or i need total silence. i just, i don't -- my dog can be around or, you know, any other animals or anybody can be around, but they can't talk. they're not allowed to talk in the morning. >> host: charles in nevado, california. you're on with linda 40 goon book -- hogan on booktv. >> caller: hi. >> guest: hello. >> caller: i admire your bravery in the current political situation as you stand fast for the downtrodden. my question is, do you feel that the reason the other groups representing the oriental, the blacks and the latinos gain recognition and our indigenous people don't get the recognition that they should is because if they were given that recognition and the truth of the stolen lives and stolen land were

brought to a court of law, that there would be tremendous recompensation for what has been done to them? >> guest: well, i think to answer your question, um, it's not just the lack of recognition, but the form of treatment, yes. there would have to be some kind of compensation. the president did sign an apology to the indigenous peoples of america, but that was all, that was as far as it went. it wasn't like a public apology like in australia and other countries. but, and that was last year, i believe. um, but most people don't know about it, and most of us don't even know about it. so i think that, um, maybe there's a fear of that kind of recompensation. and certainly the asians and

what they went through at angel island and other people who have been, i mean, sometimes i find the atmosphere now to be shocking and frightening and, um, i just -- there's nothing to be done except to wait it out and see what's happening and to write letters and make phone calls and things like that. but we live in a very, um, we live in a pretty dynamite situation right now. >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: well, i think we have people who are, um, backed by corporations and money and who, um, want to keep it. and they don't want other people, they don't -- there's a lack of fairness. there are, um, i mean, look at wisconsin, you know? it's like who do we need the most?

the we need our teachers, we need our, the work force. i mean, we need the people who are working class. and those are the people who are losing the most. and so, you know, this is happening not just in wisconsin. now it's happening in new york, it happened in oklahoma. it's happening in other states. but it's happening in other countries. and other countries as the fallout of our own greed. >> host: next call for linda hogan comes from eugene, oregon. hi, sara. >> caller: hi. thank you so much for taking my call, i'm really honored to speak to you. you guys were speaking about native americans from oklahoma having oil rights. um, actually, the bureau of indian affairs currently to this day -- my brother-in-law is from one of those tribes -- the government actually makes those decisions for them and pays them pennies for the millions of dollars that they make off of

their oil rights. so currently natives in oklahoma, in our country right now are having those rights taken from them by the government, basically, making those choices for them, the bureau of indian affairs is making choices about the finances for them currently. so i just wanted to make that comment. >> guest: no, that's a good comment. and it's true, and they're doing it to all of us. and there is a review, a financial review of the bia which is supposedly going to take over ten years for the wrongs that they've done and for the money that they've stolen. and the same thing happens in this other places where ranch lands are leased out for pennies a year, and, um, we had an incident with forest being cut without us knowing about it on our lands to timer rights given by the bia to the timber industry. and it's in court now.

>> host: being here in washington, have you visited the relatively new american indian museum down on the mall? >> guest: yes, i have. >> host: what are your thoughts about it? >> guest: um, well, you know, you need a lot of long, slow, contemplative time there. it's not some place you walk throughly. and so i have been there -- walk through quickly. so i have been there, but i haven't been able to formulate good thoughts because i've never been able to be there for a few weeks and go through the place really slowly. >> host: bill, mobile, alabama. this is booktv's "in depth" program. this month linda hogan. >> caller: hi, linda. glad to see and hear from you. in the field of psychology, you'll often see in textbooks and hypothesis called the wharf

wharfian hypothesis, and it goes something hike -- like this: that we think, people think in terms of the language that they learn. for example, if we learned english, we'll think in terms of that language. if we've learned italian, we'll think in terms of that language. and, of course, bilingual people are interest to that extent. and also from that point of view the language would often govern the thoughts that we have. i have two questions regarding the whorfian hypothesis. one, can you tell from the spelling of this person's name, w-h-o-r-f, if that may be a native american person. and, two, what do you think about his hypothesis regarding how we think from our acquisition of language? thank you.

>> guest: um, no. benjamin whorf was not. he was a scholar, he was not native. and the, i think that probably the language has a great influence on how people think, but so does the environment and ecosystems. if we're talking about cultures, also have strong influence. and the languages and the ecosystems actually go together. um, they work back and forth together, so they're formed, the language is formed by the ecosystem. so, um, but, you know, there were a lot of people at that time thinking and coming up with different theories about language that were, um, significant. >> host: sounds like he should read "dwelling. ". >> guest: yeah, maybe. read "dwellings." >> host: because it's all about language, much of it. [laughter]

when you say that the ecosystem is important in language development, can you give an example or explain what you mean by that? >> guest: well, each people grew up in their own environment, their own ecosystem. and so their language and their, their worlds are really formed by what's in that environment. and so, you know, the artifacts that you find, that archaeologists find have to do with the certain environment that you wouldn't find those particular artifacts in the another environment. but the language especially is formed by what is many that environment -- what is in that environment. and so if you live in the desert, you know, it creates a certain kind of person and certain kind of, you know, like it was what's -- the english patient where they talk about all the different names for

wind, you know, or you think about all the different names for wind or all the different name for snow or all the different names for kinds of flows and currents of water. all those things would be in a language that might not be in another language. >> host: teresa e-mails in from bloomington, indiana -- first of all, are you familiar with helen hunt jackson's writings, and -- >> guest: yes. >> host: question -- what's your opinions of those writings? >> guest: well, i this i she made some pretty strong statements that were important at the time that she wrote. on the other hand, i've looked at her journals at the colorado college library, and she didn't have a lot of experience with native people, but she still really wanted justice. >> host: linda hogan, you write about how your childhood was a childhood of solitude in many ways. does that affect how you write?

does that, does that make you a writer? >> guest: no, i don't think. i don't think. i just, um, had a quiet life. you know, and i didn't have a family that yelled. i mean, i didn't have, you know, just -- it was just a very different kind of life than i think what most american people have. and i don't think it made me a writer. actually, when i decided to go to school, my mother couldn't figure out why i should go to school instead of becoming a beauty opener or, you know -- operator or, you know, like going, becoming something else that was where i could actually make a living. [laughter] >> host: are your parents still alive? is. >> guest: no, they're not. >> host: just recently passed? >> guest: no, it's been a while now. >> host: and here is a picture

of your parents with, i believe it's tonya thunderhorse -- >> guest: my daughter, tonya. name is tonya park now. >> host: tonya park, and your granddaughter -- >> guest: vivian. yeah. >> host: rochester, new york. david, you're on the air. >> caller: hi. just a quick comment about tecumseh that you mentioned a few minutes ago. tecumseh was the original name, and it does mean shooting star in the shawnee or whatever his mother's maiden tribe was. metacomet refers to king phillip, and he fought in the 1600s. and my question to the lady, linda hogan, is how many indian tribes today still have their original language, and are they producing works, scholarly work in that language? and do you speak any of

different tribes' language? >> guest: um, i think almost all the tribes still have their language or are revitalizing, and, um, even have, um, programs for children where they only speak the language in school part of the time. and so immersion programs. and i think that, um, i've taken classes in chickasaw. i don't speak other languages. if i did choose one, i think i would try to speak navajo, but it's way too complex, so i'm not sure i would ever be able to learn it. but i'm an amateur speaker. [laughter] and it's hard to learn another language, and it's hard especially as you get older. >> host: linda hogan, why in many of your books have you chosen to write about tribes

other than the chickasaw? >> guest: um, you mean, like in the novel? >> host: yes. >> guest: oh. because i don't want my own tribe to get mad at me. [laughter] so i take political situation that's happening somewhere else and, you know, and use that. then that way i don't alienate myself. >> host: cynthia, betten, arkansas. hi. >> guest: hello. >> caller: hello. >> host: you're on the air, please, go ahead. >> caller: okay. >> host: you know what? you've got to turn the volume down on your tv, otherwise you get that feedback. we're going to put you on hold, and we will come back to you, i promise. ted in sand san diego, good aftn to you, sir. >> caller: good afternoon. so many good questions and commentary today.

you know, i'm curious, and this may have been commented on earlier today, but i came into the program a few minutes late. recently there was a lawsuit that was settled up from eloise cobell v. the united states government, the interior department. and i think it was finally decided on in the supreme court, and i'm wondering if ms. hogan has heard of that. she may have commented on it when i was on, when i had my tv on mute. but if she knows anything about that, i'd be interested in hearing her thoughts. >> host: you know, i'm not sure, but i believe that you're talking about the shoshone woman, and i really department know it was settled -- didn't know it was settled, so i have to say i don't know much about it. but i'm surprised that anything has been settled yet because it takes so long in court. and i think she's still alive. and i know that is the uranium

miners' suit is still ongoing, and everyone has passed on. so it usually takes a really long time to get things taken care of in that court. >> host: let's go back to benton, arkansas. go ahead, cynthia, with your question or comment. >> caller: yes. i have a question about the trail of tears. i'm sure -- can you tell me something about this? >> guest: which one? >> caller: the trail of tears? is. >> guest: yes. >> host: what specifically do you want to know? have you not heard of the trail of tears? is that what you're interested in hearing about? >> caller: yes. >> host: all right, thank you. >> guest: well, there were many, but it began in georgia with the cherokee when gold was discovered in georgia, and laws were made that cherokees could not even represent themselveses in court.

so they lost their land because of the discovery of gold, and they were sent into indian territory. and it continued up through, from tribe to tribe up -- we were among the last, the creek were the last. and so we went, and we observed what was happening and who survived and how they survived and, um, went in smaller groups at different times. so, um, and never the less, we're still not in good shape when we reached indian territory, those of us who survived. who, as joy says, were not meant to survive. >> host: what was the significance of pine ridge of wounded knee? >> guest: you mean in the '70s? >> host: uh-huh. >> guest: i think it woke everyone up. i was in school with connie --

[laughter] who called earlier at the time. and it, my father and i both got notes from -- it was a newspaper that went out to all the native people all over the country. and, um, we both got it at the same time and read it, and we were just horrified at what was happening. and that the united states government would call out tanks and everything just because there were, you know, some people inside of a church. and, um, it was really significant in making everyone conscious. it was politically -- it was a time of people becoming, um, politically aware of what was happening. >> host: kathleen from grants pass, oregon. we have about a minute left. please, go ahead. >> caller: yes, good afternoon, ma'am. i'm really glad to be able to

ask you this question. i've been writing off and on since i was 8 years old, and in the last few years, excuse me, i've written several native american quote-unquote legends and stories, and people ask, well, where do you do your research? and i don't do it, and my mother's very fond of saying, well, she does it through osmosis. what i want to know is if you ever find with your writing when you sit down and put your pen to paper, it just flows for you? thank you for taking my call. >> guest: oh, yes. that's always good when writing just happens. i love that when it, you sit down, and it just flows. but it doesn't happen every time, unfortunately. >> host: how, how many times does it happen? >> guest: um, well, i have, i haven't really counted, but -- [laughter] about a fourth of the time maybe. >> host: jennifer, boston? got a second left or two.

>> caller: approximately how long does it take you to write one of your books? >> guest: um, sometimes it takes -- depends on the book. sometimes it takes three years, sometimes it takes six. it just depends. um, and it depend on whether it's poetry or fiction, um, because i moved and because of other circumstances. the books that i've -- the novel i'm working on now is taking a very long time. but that's just the way it is. i'm doing other things at the same time, and i have other books coming out. so -- >> host: linda hogan, of the books you've written, which one is your favorite? >> guest: oh, it's always whatever i'm working on now. >> host: but as, again, of the books you've written already. >> guest: oh, in the past? the. >> host: yeah. >> guest: oh, i don't know. i just -- that's very hard to say.

i think i like "solar storms" because it brought my granddaughter to me. >> host: and if you were to recommend one book to people to read of yours, what would it be? >> guest: well, i suppose "dwellings." >> host: why? >> guest: because the essays are small, um, they're, um, about topics that people really care about. they're, like, short stories in part, and, um, it seems like it has more meaning to it in if a short space. -- in a short space than the novels. >> host: we have had the pleasure of having the last three hours with linda hogan, author and poet and chickasaw nation writer in redense.

residence. here, very quickly, are some of her major works beginning with dwellings, then the woman who watches over the world, her native memoir. mean spirit, pulitzer finalist. solar storms, power and "people of the whale" came out in 2008. linda hogan, thank you for being on booktv. >> guest: thank you. >> host: coming up in the next couple months on booktv, ann coulter, michael moore, david brooks. thanks for being with us, here's more booktv.