Wednesday, 2:30 p.m.
"Somebody say 'Hi,'" Marcie Rendon said as she came to the podium. Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Esrth Anishinabe Nation. She's a playwright, poet, and freelance writer who has to make her living with her writing. She is the author of two children's book, Pow Wow Summer and The Farmer's Market/Families Working Together.
"I didn't start out my life with the intention of being a writer," Rendon said, but now "all I really want to do is write, raise my children, and sew...."
"I actually flunked creative writing in college," she said. "That put a damper on my writing...."
Of children's books: "There was never any place that looked like me, or like my family...."
"Lots of white people don't like to think of themselves as immigrants," she said, "yet their stories are exactly the same as immigrants today...."
"This is a poem I wrote for my mother. The last time I was her I was five years old...."
"A common misconception is that God created flowers on a higher plane than dirt...."
Of her mother: "... her final blanket, a Montana snowfall...."
"She can sign it with X's and O's and I'll get the message...."
"He had 'John' printed over the pocket of his shirt. It really read 'asshole' but he couldn't read...."
"I have to breathe," Rendon said. "You have to say 'Hi' again...."
"He learned to hide his love deep inside and explode his anger out his fist...."
"What's an Indian girl to do when the white girls act more Indian than the Indian girl?"
"Ravenwoman - damn, I swear I knew her when she was a Jewish girl...."
"When you're writing, you can make up anything, but then the people think that's you...."
"He loved her first husband out of her..."
Of rumors: "They gave her power she didn't know she had...."
"I just write...."
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