#alicia elliott

[librarycards]

I’ve heard people say that when you learn a people’s language, you learn their culture. It tells you how they think of the world, how they experience it. That’s why translation is so difficult—you have to take one way of seeing the world and translate it to another, while still piecing the words together so they make sense.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that there is no Mohawk word to differentiate between reactive and melancholic depression. No scientific jargon to legitimize and pathologize. Just wake’nikonhrèn:ton, and wake’nikonhra’kwenhtará:’on. A mind hanging by a thread, and a mind spread out on the ground. A before and an after. What does that mean about our culture?

Though the two phrases differ in severity, perhaps, when you think about it, they’re referring to the same thing. Maybe all words for those feelings are—endogenous, exogenous, depression, melancholia. All in their own way describe a person in pain who needs help to heal.

Is there a language of depression? I’m not sure. Depression often seems to me like the exact opposite of language. It takes your tongue, your thoughts, your self-worth and leaves an empty vessel. Not that different from colonialism, actually.

In fact, the Mind Over Mood depression inventory checklist could double as an inventory for the effects of colonialism on our people. Sad or depressed mood? Check. Feelings of guilt? Check. Irritable mood? Considering how fast my dad’s side of the family are to yell, check. Finding it harder than usual to do things? Well, Canada tried to eradicate our entire way of being, then forced us to take on their values and wondered why we couldn’t cope. Definite check. Low self-esteem, self-critical thoughts, tiredness or loss of energy, difficulty making decisions, seeing the future as hopeless, recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts? Check, check, check.

And if colonialism is like depression, and the Onkwehon:we suffering from it are witches, then I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone that our treatment has always been the same: to light us on fire and let us burn.

I know now why that therapist in that church reminded me of residential schools. When I think of that man sitting across from me, chastising me for not saying the right words, the words that made it easy for him to understand me and cure me, I think of how my grandparents and greatgrandparents felt when priests and nuns did the same to them. The difference is that therapist was trying to cure me of being depressed; those priests and nuns were trying to cure my ancestors of being Indian. In some ways they succeeded. In many they did not.

Alicia Elliott, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground in Shapes of Native Nonfiction. [emphasis added]

[scholarofgloom]

[libraryleopard]

Adult psychological/genre-bending fiction

Alice is a young Mohawk woman living in Toronto and married to a white academic who studies Mohawk culture

After giving birth to their daughter, Alice beings struggling with paranoia and hallucinations and decides that the only way she can prevent something bad from happening to herself and her daughter is to write a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story

Explores motherhood, mental health, racism/genocide against indigenous people, and the power of storytelling/language

Mohawk main character with psychosis

[walrusmagazine]

The Two Moments That Changed Alicia Elliott’s Life

The author talks about her new novel, And Then She Fell, and the experiences she shares with her protagonist

In the first few pages of Elliott’s new book, And Then She Fell, Pocahontas transforms from a two-dimensional character on television into a delusion of the protagonist, Alice; not only does Pocahontas talk to Alice but she’s argumentative, clever, a little sneering, and woefully direct. “You watched this perverted version of my story all the time,” she says to a teenaged Alice. “Knew the words to all the songs. Even ‘Savages.’ I’ll never understand why Native kids sing along to that one.” Naturally, the depiction of Pocahontas by a Mohawk writer from Six Nations living in Canada will diverge significantly from the story that a team of mostly white people made for Disney almost thirty years ago. It’s a blessing.

Read more at thewalrus.ca.

[phaedraismyusername]

Seeing as this list is being shared around again I just wanted to add on a few more I've read since then that I'd highly recommend

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

This little 100ish page novella was my very first read of the year and I truly could not have started with better. It follows a 15 year old Native American boy who believes he sees his dead father walk through their house one night and his mission to recreate the experience to find answers. It's an exploration of grief and trauma, and whether or not these cycles can be broken

A Mind Spread Out On the Ground by Alicia Elliott

This is a nonfiction book about the authors life experiences as she is reflecting on what it means to be Indigenous in North America. She covers every aspect of life including race, colonialism, love, identity, health, politics, parenthood, etc. but for me it was her musings on mental health, especially depression, and how not having the 'right' language to communicate what's wrong can lead to catastrophic deterioration and dehumanisation when living with your oppressor that just blew me away.

Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris

This weird little story follows Rita as she spends a week at a secluded pondside cabin with the goal of completing her current art series when things start to take a graphic turn. It's about grief, identity, family, and cultural bonds and how you can be left behind when those bonds break. I was sold on this book in just one word - *Swampcore*

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

If you can then please get ahold of the audiobook version of this so you can listen to the authors dulcet tones as she introduces you to her lifes passion as a botanist and just fills you up with hope and wonder and gives you the language to understand and celebrate the natural world and the knowledge of how you can play a positive role in it.

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

One of my favourite reads of 2024. This a slow, meandering stream of consciousness style story about a teenage boy in Texas in the 80s who finds himself at the centre of a slasher killing spree that's targeting his high school classmates. The way the author mythologises the slasher genre and moulds it into a possessing spirit hellbent on revenge is just so good and so original. I genuinely don't think I've ever read anything like it.

This year some of my favourite books I read were written by indigenous American authors and I just wanted to shout out a couple that I fell in love with

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Horror being my second most read genre, I did not think books could still get under my skin the way this one did lol. It follows four Blackfoot men who are seemingly being hunted by a vengeful... something... years after a fateful hunting trip that happened just before they went their separate ways. The horror, the dread, the something... pure nightmare fuel 10/10

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

An apocalyptic novel following an isolated Anishinaabe community in the far north who lose contact with the outside world. When two of their young men return from their college with dire news, they set about planning on how to survive the winter, but when outsiders follow, lines are drawn in the community that might doom them all. This book is all dread all the time, the use of dreams and the inevitability of conflict weighs heavy til the very end. An excellent apocalypse story if you're into that kind of thing.

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

This book follows Jade, a deeply troubled mixed race teenager with a shitty homelife who's *obsessed* with slasher movies. When she finds evidence that there's a killer running about her soon-to-be gentrified small town, she weaponises that knowledge to predict what's going to happen next. I don't think this book will work for most people, it's a little stream of consciousness, Jade's head is frequently a very difficult place to be in, but by the last page I had so much love for her as a character and the emotional rollercoaster she's on that I had to mention it here.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Taking a bit of a left turn but this charming YA murder mystery really stuck with me this year. Elatsoe is a teenage girl living in an America where myths, monsters, and magic are all real every day occurrences. When her cousin dies mysteriously with no witnesses, she decides to do whatever she can, including using her ability to raise the spirits of dead animals, to solve the case. The worldbuilding was just really fun in this one, but the Native American myths and influence were the shining star for me, and the asexual rep was refreshing to see in a YA book too tbh

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

The audiobook, the audiobook, the audiobook!!!! Also the physical book because formatting and illustrations, but the audiobook!!! Tanya Tagaq is an Inuit throat singer, and this novel is a genre blending of 20 years worth of the authors journal entries, poetry, and short stories, that culminates in a truly unique story about a young girl surviving her teenage years in a small tundra town in the 70s. It is sad and beautiful and hard but an experience like nothing else I read this year.

[lilianeruyters]

Alica Elliott || And Then She Fell

Longlist 2024 And Then She Fell should have been accompanied by an alert: Be careful, you are going to read some pretty scary descriptions of someone falling deeper and deeper into mental chaos. And Then She Fell turned out to be a rough read, one not made easier by being in a work turmoil myself and the spring having returned to winter once more. I must admit that I put the novel away for…

[desdasiwrites]

– Alicia Elliott, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

[popclture]

Missy Elliott, Ciara, Bow Wow & Alica Keys at the VMAs (2005)

[iminmypeace]

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

Christmas Con 2023: See Photos of All the Celebrities Who Were There to Celebrate (People Exclusive) - Part 1

Current and former Hallmark Stars at Christmas-Con 2023 in New Jersey on December 8, 9, and 10.

Here's the LINK

[whiskeycat991]

[90s-2000s-barbie]

Beyoncé Website (2003)

[loliquiu]

This is lesbian activity

[the-aila-test]

do you have any recs for horror by Indigenous authors?

Do I ever!

Never Whistle At Night is a collection of short stories that will chill you to the bone. A wonderful collection that includes several Indigenous women authors.

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline was definitely a fun choice to bring on a camping trip last year. The ending had me feeling all kinds of conflicting emotions.

And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott is a WILD ride. More Thriller than Horror and I feel that Native readers and Non-Native/White readers will have very different experiences reading it. I don't want to give too much away because figuring out what's going on as you're reading it is definitely part of the appeal.

Mexican Gothic is exactly what it sounds like. A scary remote village in Mexico? A big scary mansion run by a rich colonizer family? A badass Meso-Indigenous main character trying to figure out a mystery? It's all here. The build up is slow but as soon as shit starts getting WEIRD it's nothing but thrills and fun.

Anoka by Shane Hawk is another collection of short stories. It's a short read but each story is as fun and creepy as the next. Read at night <3

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth is for all the urban NDNs out there. The main character is a certified badass. I love the NDN/Punk rock feel of it combined with the horror of the supernatural.

Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories. Terrifying. Scary. Dreadful. Cannot recommend it enough. Read it alone or at night when all is quiet to get the most of this experience. You'll have nightmares. lol