#tim tingle

[native-indigenous-characters]

Today’s Native/Indigenous Character in Media is Turtle Kid from the short story, Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains by Tim Tingle!

You can read it in Flying Lessons & Other Stories!

Turtle Kid is of the Choctaw, as is Tim!

[-outofcontext-]

How I Became a Ghost #OutOfContext

[richincolor]

Happy early book birthday to Name Your Mountain, out tomorrow! What's on your to-read list for this week? What about the upcoming month?

Name Your Mountain by Tim Tingle

Name Your Mountain continues the exciting No Name series as the high-school team matures and faces new challenges. When the all American Indian high-school basketball team in Trust Your Name enters a national-level tournament, the team travels to big cities and has new experiences, but all is not well. Choctaw Bobby Byington and his new Creek friend, Eddie, are torn between struggles on the court and painful episodes back home. With the door of adulthood looming, Coach Robison urges his players to “never hesitate, never give up, in your struggle to reach the top.”

[thefoxydarwin]

I don't always like this country and I hate this state, but this town is ok and I fucking love this park.

[weneeddiversebooks]

If you liked Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr, try No Name by Tim Tingle because both feature teens dealing with alcoholic parents.

[withasmoothroundstone]

On our way home, I asked her again, “Mother, what were the old people doing?” “They are saying good-bye to their home,” she said. “Their homes are in town.” “No,” said my mother. “Their houses are in town. This river, this dirt, this is their home. This is our home."

How I Became A Ghost, by Tim Tingle

[ultrafacts]

Many of these old trees were dying or had died and, despite their age, were destined for a meeting with a chainsaw. Tingle, however, saw potential in the old trees and over time transformed many of them into remarkable works of art.

They are located in Orr Park, Montevallo, AL

(Fact Source) Follow Ultrafacts for more facts

[ginadora]

We've come to the point that we think we can't afford to feel for other people.

-- Ire'ne Lara Silva

The Book Festival was this past weekend, and there was one panel that was everything that I wanted it to be: Fantasy, Folklore, and Mysticism with Ire'ne Lara Silva and Tim Tingle. 

From her bio: "ire’ne lara silva lives in Austin, TX and does and doesn’t write about her life as a 39 year old, round, diabetic, caregiver, 15-year government clerk, college dropout, former migrant student, daughter of illiterate parents, childless, single, mostly lesbian, indigenous Mexican American woman of color—because everything begins and ends with a story." 

Her reading from Flesh to Bone nearly had me in tears. I sat there in one of the hearing rooms at the Capitol trying not to cry in public because that seemed a bit much, but the lyrical nature of the story mixed with the overwhelming violence made it hard.

Tim Tingle, author of House of Purple Cedar, made up the other half of the panel. He is of Oklahoma Choctaw origins, and has made it his goal to tell the stories that don't get told anymore. 

The two had in common a tendency to weave spirits into their stories. Tingle was very deliberate in saying it wasn't something he intentionally tried to do, or something he had to incorporate -- rather, it was as integral to the story as the people or the places. To tell it without the mystical elements would be incomplete.

They both spoke to the idea that keeping in mind the mystical or spiritual aspects of these stories helped us reach them in a way that we cannot always relate to other stories. The quote above came from the idea that we approach violence too casually today. We see so much of it - on the news, in our media - that it doesn't always hit us in a way that we can feel empathetic for those who are suffering. If we did always feel empathetic, I guess maybe we would never have time for anything else.

But when speaking to the way she weaves together folklore and modern problems (ex. the women of Juarez), she theorized that legends, folklore, old stories reach us in a way that a horrible story on the news wouldn't. And I can speak to this, because I was the one trying not to cry while she read.

Anyway, it was absolutely lovely, and I bought both books immediately following the panel. Living in a city with an annual Book Festival really is the most amazing thing.