I’ve Always Loved This Land
I’ve always loved Indian people
Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. We are in the depths of summer right now in Western Montana and it has been a grim one. We’ve been enduring a stretch of hot weather – high 90s, low 100s – with no break in sight. Meanwhile we are under a pall of smoke from wildfires from communities distant and near; a couple are burning just on the edge of the Missoula valley. Air quality is “unhealthy.” We are under a heat advisory, an air quality advisory, and a “red flag warning” for conditions that will result in “critical fire weather conditions.” It’s hard to be upbeat about anything and I am in the process of working on a newsletter about that1 but I’m sneaking this short one in first because – Big News!
I’ve been on the road a lot but the real touring hasn’t even started yet.2 So, as always, your support as a paid subscriber is more meaningful than ever, and I appreciate your consideration to become one very much.
The Delay of the Century
I was in the middle of writing this newsletter the evening of July 24th with intent to have it out that night when a dark mass of clouds rolled in from the southwest. It was a predicted thunderstorm for which I was eager, mainly because we need the rain and I love a good thunderstorm. Only this was a storm unlike I, or anyone I know who has lived here for any length of time, have ever seen out here. The winds were 80+ mph (gusting over 100!), which is something like a Category 2 hurricane. I don’t know that anyone expected the power this storm unleashed on our community. It was twenty minutes of a kind of fury I never experienced even during my years in the midwest where storms are like nothing we ever get around here. Until the other evening, that is.
The rural road out to my place, Mullan Road, took the brunt of the storm’s fury. More than 40 power poles are still down and the wreckage between my house and Missoula is quite spectacular. There are long stretches with no poles standing at all, the power cables lying along the side of the road. As recently as yesterday there were still lines draped over houses and outbuildings. I’m still without power and water at my house, as of this morning, though they say they hope to have my area back online by EOD Tuesday, just shy of a week since the storm. You still can’t get to my house without waiting on a pilot car.
Trees and gigantic branches remain piled up all over my neighborhood and around Missoula but folks are pulling together to get it all dealt with. I lost my old willow tree and a good chunk of a maple but that’s about it. When the storm abated, all of us spilled out of our houses in a kind of collective daze, checking to make sure everyone was okay, looking in on older folks or people living alone, etc. There was a lot of damage to assess. Beyond the trees, chunks of siding from some places were torn off and tossed down the street, not to mention roof shingles from homes and sheds. A couple carports. Considering the carnage, I got off pretty light. Plus I now possess a generator and a chainsaw. I can literally feel my chest hair getting thicker and gnarlier. That’s what we call an undocumented feature.
Big kudos to all the workers getting everything back up and running. Crews from all over the region are pitching in. I’m amazed at how quickly poles are being repaired, lines being rehung. The Red Cross and others have been quick to provide water and places to charge devices. It’s inspiring and I am very grateful. It’s amazing how quickly we can rally to help one another when faced to.
Now, on to That Big News!
It’s here, friends. My author copies of Becoming Little Shell arrived in the mail a week ago and I was pretty thunderstruck to finally hold the book in my sweaty hands. I’m in agreement with what people have been telling me over and over: it’s beautiful. It’s hard to believe that after all these years, all the work and sweat and stress and tears it is all erupting in joy with its completion.
Then not many days later the shipment to Fact & Fiction arrived, per the above image. That photograph represents, I think, about 10% of the entire first print run of the book, not because my friends there are book hogs but because that’s how many preorders you all have generated. My gratitude overflows.
There is a lot more to come related to the release of the book. These are certainties:
Not specific to the book, really, but I’ve updated my website! You can check it out HERE. Big thanks to Jeffrey Jenks at Wolfpack Designs for being easy – and patient! – to work with.
An excerpt is appearing in High Country News. The print copy is out. It should be showing up online soon.
There’s also a nice little review/q&a about to land in the Fall issue of Montana Quarterly.
Same with the Missoulian, who will be running a feature (I think) the week the book “officially” releases on August 20.
And interview with AHP!
I agreed to a deal for an audio version of the book. Not sure when that will be available (it will be a while yet) but it’s exciting and I absolutely intend to audition to be the one to read it.
There’s a lot of other stuff too. Podcasts being recorded. Things and announcements I can’t talk about yet. It’s all wonderful, exciting stuff and I’m eager to share it all with you.
I’m working with Milkweed on a book tour beginning the week of the release with several dates already secured and more to come. To this end, I am going to begin a monthly event calendar I’ll post at the beginning of the month right around the same time the monthly sentences come out. I’ll also include links to reviews, podcasts, etc. that publish in the intervening time. It’s always a push-and-pull with this “marketing” stuff but I just swallow hard and accept that you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t interested.
Road miles and 100-year storms and everything else has me a little scattered. I think there was much more I intended to say here but it’s largely escaping me and I just want to get this post off my desk. I will conclude by telling you I am venturing into the conference room attached to Fact & Fiction on Wednesday where they will stack books around me and help me get them signed. I’m looking forward to it. And there will be pictures.
Which is to say this is almost your last real chance to get a signed/personalized copy before the actual release date on August 20.
I’m not sure how long this option will continue once the book is out because it will be more difficult to get into F&F to sign books3 once the events begin in earnest. So please, if you’d like to get in on the ground floor, you may do so HERE.
Folks who preordered in various places are already sending me pictures of their copies and I love and encourage that. As soon as I get the F&F books signed they’ll start going out too. Piles and piles of them.
Miigwech for the support. Miigwech to all of you who have ordered already. Miigwech to all of you who are about to. It’s all happening.
Expect that early next week, if not sooner, as well as two – TWO! – in the vicinity of the first of August. A bonanza of irritability coming your way!
Amazingly I bought a new car 2.5 months ago. It had 25 miles on the odometer when I bought it and I’m about to crack the 10K miles mark. That’s a lot of driving.
However, as has been the case with One-Sentence Journal and Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel, F&F will always have signed copies on the shelf. If they run out it won’t be for long!
Until the storm, my view out back was dominated by a huge ponderosa. A forester I know estimated it was maybe 200 years old. It was on a bench over Grant Creek, basically a perfect place for families to have camped 200 years ago -- and later -- berries along the creek bottom, abundant game on the hillsides. Old maps show gravesites up in the hills on both sides of Grant Creek here, a short ways north of the Town Pump.
The ponderosa was home to birds from kestrels to turkeys. Bears and lions move up and down the corridor along the creek. In all those years, this majestic tree saw a lot of life.
After all that, it was blown over in 15 minutes of high winds. On the one hand, it's kind of funny to mourn a tree. On the other, it isn't at all.
Glad to hear you were largely spared in that wild storm! Most of our friends got lucky in one way or another there, but I hope you get your power and water back ASAP!
So excited for you to see a pallet of your own books ready to be out in the world, carried in bags and set on shelves after being read.
Any chance your book tour will be including any Canadian stops? (Calgary would be lucky to host you!) ((I know the logistics of this are insane but you never know.))