Why I Wrote Hawk Dancer
A confession by the author

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1. How the book started

     It took me about five years to write Hawk Dancer. I had no illusions, at least in the beginning, that I would actually be published some day. I wanted the story to get published, but I knew the chances were very remote. So, it may be needless to say making money and fame was not a driving force, though the thought did cross by in a few moments of day dreaming.
     Paternal Uncle Charlie Browne was very encouraging. We worked as if this would get published, even though we figured the chances were remote. We drew on experiences, our own and from the stories others told us. I molded the things many dozens of folks shared on the Native Concerns topics found in the novel to fit a handful of characters in our little 517 page story, most of whom live or did live in the Village of Birch Clump in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Some of the seemingly mundane things in life were brighten up a bit, polished, and reworked with a bit of fantasy that we figure would make the ordinary sound more exciting. In other words, we exaggerated the worth the original teller may have put into certain events. The later we stayed awake, the better a story got worked over. It was a bit like getting drunk, minus the use of alcohol. Neither of us put much stock into bottled influence.
     The actual writing of the story began around 1999/2000. Maybe it began a year or two earlier, but certainly no earlier. That’s how some of old timers from the North Country count time: give or take a few days, years or what ever the case. It gives us credibility without having to be precise on accountability. We do the same with distance. For example, an outlying farm can be a couple three miles or so from the post office gas station convenience store complex. In case you didn’t get it, one single small building houses the local post office, is a gas station and a country convenience store all owned by the same person or married couple. It helps to be located near a small public marina. “Location, location, location,” is what one realtor told me.
     Getting back on track, Hawk Dancer began with a short story called The Cure for a creative writing class conducted by Dr. John Kandle of Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio. I no longer recall if it was my first class or second class I had with him. The second, or advanced class, was by Kandle’s invitation. I figured I’d clarify that before ya’ll thought I repeated the first class. Not that there’s lasting humiliation in “repeating” a grade or class. I know, I repeated the fifth grade and still hept as positive a self image as can be expected of an 11 or 12 year old kid. “Repeated” sounded better than “flunked.” I also changed schools in between my two years as a fifth grader, so the kids at my new school hadn’t a clue about my history. I was free to make up what ever background I wanted to explain my height, more matured experiences and earlier than usual puberty developments than the other 5th graders; if a classmate should ask. No one did, so I didn’t have to come up with any stories about that.
     Again, I’ve run off track. The earlier short story, The Cure is on this web site. Just find the “read a section” button at the bottom of most pages.
     The Cure consisted of about 5 or 6 pages. It is set in the woods during a snow blizzard. It is a Christmas story of a terminally ill six year old. Kandle mentioned that he could see the story becoming a Christmas tradition. That sounded good to my well developed ego. He also saw how it could build up into a novel. So I set out working on both possibilities, the Christmas tradition possibility and a novel. I played around a bit to see if the novel could be written as an epic poem, but then gave up on that idea. Still, the reader can see the poetic tendency here and there as they read.
     Well, it became a Christmas tradition, alright. At least two or three folks email me each year to say they made it or will make it a Christmas tradition. I like email from readers or from folks thinking of becoming Hawk Dancer readers.
     Then a retired art teacher, Kathy Johnson, got involved. Uncle Charlie showed her sections of the novel while it was still just a literary piece in the development. She asked if she could illustrate it. I was astounded. I must have written Charlie a few times to make certain Kathy Johnson understood that I had no money to pay her and that we don’t know if the book would ever be accepted for publication. We were writing primarily out of pure enjoyment, the thrill of weaving a story on our own. Story telling is a family tradition. Some of those stories even have a certain level truth. Charlie did a lot of research and is the editor and proof reader. He offered lots of advice and corrections. His wife, my Aunt Elaine likewise aided in the proof reading, corrections and as an advisor. Kathy Johnson insisted she wanted to illustrate the story because she enjoyed it so. I dare say, besides her being such an excellent artist, her pictures are perfect interpretations of what I was trying to portray through words.

2. What I get out of writing
and the benefits to those around me

     I also wrote because I have the irritating habit of talking too much. That hasn’t changed, but those around me are more at ease when I’m out of sight and writing instead. Heck, why not write something and have folks pay me for my life long passion to use words on and on and on? (E.g. – as in selling books).
     The reader, unlike polite company finding themselves trapped into listening to me, can close up the book and turn me off if they have something better to do – and then open my words up again when they are ready to resume hearing from me. “Leave you company wanting for more,” my Mom would advise me. I always listen to my mom. I might not follow her advice, but I listen.
     Writing lets me go on and on, as I enjoy doing; and fewer people need suffer the irritating audio affects of a near ceaseless voice. It’s a win/win situation.
     I started to write books way back in the 1970’s. I never got much more than fifty or a hundred pages and would give up. I didn’t know how to write. I could do a decent job at very short pieces, a couple or three pages, and some rather excellent single page, power packed stories. I had lots of energy in those short pieces, but no training or discipline to continue until I met Professor Kandle. He cautioned me about the highly driven works I produced at times, especially with The Cure . He said it might be difficult to continue the momentum and might overwhelm the readers once the story lengthened. So I would back off, let the story ride easy for a bit; and then, like a jogger taking a break – plow ahead once more.
     Our family has a long history in peace and justice issues, civil rights and civic duty. Many families do. Grand and Great Granddad were Methodist Ministers ordained to proclaim the Gospel. They were likewise members of a Midiwin Lodge, the traditional organization, for lack of a better word at the moment, of indigenous theologians that are also called Medicine Elders. These men championed inculturation decades before the word inculturation was coined. They greatly influenced the writing of Hawk Dancer.

3. Civil rights, Social Justice
Vatican II

     My immediate household, parents and siblings, were actively involved with civil rights in the 1960’s. We were pressed into emergency relief work when race rioting burned out many homes in Detroit. I think that was the summer of ’67 – give or take a year. Our father drove the emergency supplies that neighbors and parishioners gathered. His van was shot at a few times. Less enlightened neighbors felt he had it coming.
     We had no time to debate with the White Christian neighbors who opposed our efforts. Food, blankets and clothing had to get into the city right away. No doubt Dad needed to keep his cool with the ignorance of the racists so he could stay alive to assist those burned out of their homes. Mom and we kids were in a safe place, but we were genuinely worried for our Dad’s safety. We had to be courageous for his sake. I knew I was a potential target for roving bands of angry White kids, mostly Irish, who wanted to beat up anyone who would aid the Blacks in Detroit or who supported the cause of civil rights. Those kids were cowards; they moved in bands of six or more looking to beat up some other kid (like me perhaps) that walked alone.
     Many of those kids were still talking racist garbage years later. Maybe they are still cowards.
     The greater portion of Hawk Dancer is written in the American Indian Termination and Relocation era, 1948-71. Nearly 50% of the Native children born in that era died before age 18. Termination and Relocation government orders withheld medicines, food and heating fuel from Reservations. Native youth then and now suffer a disproportionably high rate of racial violence over any other racial or ethnic group in the USA. The stories victims and their families shared are molded into Hawk Dancer. My Grand and Great Grandpa found clandestine means of getting the needed supplies to the Reservations they served. Some of those means included working on the sly with the Kennedy White house.
     Other efforts of relatives, friends and a cross-country networking of other rising Native movements dealt with issues of religious freedom. The result was the passage of the American Indian Freedom of Religion law on August 11, 1978. That’s 30 years ago this year. We have living with us still, the adults who worked for this freedom and the first generation of Natives who were raised up in near total freedom of religion since the conquest.

4. Church, State and Native Concerns
Native Seminarians & Bigotry 101

     The Churches and the State are still struggling with the concept of religious freedom for the First Nations. Native candidates for seminary or Religious Life in the Churches are still challenged to make a choice between being Native or Christian. This demand made by the institutes’ religious or seminary directorship is totally against the precepts of their own Church. Those non-Indigenous directors or formation leaders were, themselves, raised with institutionally accepted falsehoods.
     Accepting Native spirituality as an inculturated part of these particular Native vocation candidates’ total faith journey has become a spiritual crises for the Ethnic Church leaders, not for the Native People; but certainly not a problem for Pope John Paul II and Magisterium.
     Hawk Dancer and the upcoming companion novel, Cloud Burst, are written to address and help correct these misconceptions. The literary endeavor has a positive aim to progress with inculturation. I even wrote a rule and constitution for a Native American Franciscan Order of Friars (and perhaps for Sisters) called the Congregation of St. James. The rule and constitution imagines the pastoral work of Native People by Native People in accord with Native custom. Up to and including our current state of Church affairs in the USA and Canada, and even in other countries, the Pastoral apostolates of the Church are still in the assimilation or acculturation mode of thinking and controlled or directed largely by non-Native appointments. This needs to change immediately. Hawk Dancer tells how this is possible without making a choice between The People and The Church. No race should ever be asked to choose between their people and Church. No seminarian or other person in religious life formation should be told they must make a choice between a Church ministry vocation and being Native, Italian, African, Asian, or what ever the case might be.
     I know of many young Native people who applied or entered ministry formation programs in the 1960’s and even to the current day, who were told to make such a choice. Most left the seminaries or formation programs; some left the Church. They were too young to bring argument to a director as old or older than their parents, but they were the smarter and wiser than their seminary or Religious Life formation directors in that they know the biological condition of birth is not something to be chosen or rejected after age 18. Those Ethnic (as in non-indigenous) Church leaders who say otherwise go against what God has done. They, the ethnic ones demanding the impossible, reject the greatness of Creation.

5. Entertainment Value of Hawk Dancer

     With all that said, let me add that reading Hawk Dancer is fun. A butcher cheating at the scales is caught red faced, a retired paint chemist tries his hands at farming planting a crop of chickens, a teen clumsily falls over desks in a failed attempt to impress the girls, and a young curate contemplates shooting his irate passive aggressive pastor in the rear.
     It’s all true. All those things were told to me at some point or another in real life. I simply fictionalized the time, place and names to protect the innocent and myself. (I guess the way I worded that could be misconstrued suggesting that I am not among the innocent).

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Here is a second version of this same article. The second version is written mostly in jest, and having a bit of fun; but also as a form of gentle protest.

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Google Book Search

     The big blue button above with the gray background peeks inside HAWK DANCER.
     The big blue button below with the RED background lets you read portions of CLOUDBURST, the second book I wrote.