Letter from the Editor | by Steve Elm

We wind up our tenth anniversary year at Talking Stick with a bumper issue of reflections, discussions, opinions and stories. It has been our intention this year to reach out further to our readers, to include you in having a say in how Talking Stick ultimately serves the community. As editor, I feel proud to welcome familiar voices as well as to introduce... click here for more...

The Ways We Gather | by Eric Gansworth

Recently, I was invited to be the speaker at the annual Tuscarora Nation graduation dinner, where the community celebrates the accomplishments of those members who have achieved some landmark in their formal educations. I was happy to be gathered with the graduates in the place where we had learned and shared so much, if not together, than at least in the same space. We are each... click here for more...

The Saint of New York: A Brief Reflection | by Sonny James Grant

I can recall the moment I arrived in New York nearly a decade ago. After months of patience and hard work I was on a red eye flight bound for New York to attend a writing program. Through the clouds I spied innumerable glittering orbs of light accentuated by a black backdrop. I always loved flying at night the ambiguity of... click here for more ...

Back to the Reservation | by Vicky Ramirez

I always find it odd when Indian people suggest that we should head back to the reservation. I can understand the disappointment generated by HBO's recent weak production of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. That book, in particular, holds a sacred place for Indian people. The first mainstream book to chronicle some of the injustices against us, that book signaled a shift in the paradigm... click here for more...

Gary Cooper or the Landscape | by Paul Chaat Smith

In the Red Nation, everybody, and here I mean everybody, knows Sheila Tousey. This is because she’s appeared in what seems like every Indian movie in the past fifteen years. She was Maggie Eagle Bear in Thunderheart, a Ghost in Silent Tongue, Louise Heavyman in Medicine River, and Mollie in Grand Avenue. These are modest films but for North American Indians, they are classics. For us Sheila Tousey is a... click here for more...

New York Native Artist For Real | by Nadema Agard

Let me introduce myself. My legal name is Nadema Agard. My ceremonial Lakota name is Winyan Luta or Woman of Sacred Red. I, however, just use Red Woman because I am not professing to be a sacred or holy person. The interesting thing is that my maternal grandmother gave me a Cherokee name translated as Red Earth and being a Virgo, an earth sign, ... click here for more...

The Origin of Displacement | by Danielle Soames

When I was first asked to act in the Australian Aboriginal play-reading of Stolen, I was honored. Written by Jane Harrison and part of the Australian Aboriginal Theatre Initiative (AATI) Festival in New York, Stolen chronicles the experiences of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their communities into repressive children's homes. I played a dark-skinned Aboriginal girl experiencing racism and sexual abuse... click here for more...

Finding the Actor's Voice | by Kim Snyder

In my last article I talked about taking risks and exploring all the possible outlets to perform in. Actors create a tough exterior that is forever resilient and undoubtedly flexible to the incessant calling of the actors' tale. What if your acting career was a thing of the past? You put your characters away, your voices fell silent, your colors became muted and the world became a one dimensional... click here for more...

Ambition | by Gabriel Archie

Ambition was hard to come by growing up in a time of change and despair. My parents grew up in the time of residential schools. Along the way of coping with being physically, mentally, and spiritually abused they lost their lifestyle and identity. This loss was passed onto their children, who grew up with a loss of identity... click here for more...

Affecting Change: Lunch With Alli Joseph| by Tristan Ahtone

Alli Joseph showed up to the interview a few minutes late, and the staff at the trendy little diner where we were to meet wouldn’t let me take a table for two without my guest in attendance. The wait-staff were squatty little bastards in Chuck Taylor’s with eyes like rats and too-cool-for-you-hair, so I stood patiently and waited while the surly staff swirled... click here for more...