NDN Girls Read

Hello, relatives! WE'RE BACK! Welcome to Season 7 of All My Relations! For our first episode of the season, we're hanging out with two fabulous young Native women who are doing something pretty extraordinary. Kinsale Drake (Diné) and Lily Painter (Kiowa and Winnebago) are the brilliant minds behind Indian Girls Book Club, and these girls are on a mission to get Native books into Native hands! And when I say they're doing the work, I mean they literally loaded up a big pink truck with 10,000 books and drove around Navajo and Hopi communities giving them away. FOR FREE! I mean, come on! How cool is that?! But this conversation is about so much more than books. We're talking about what it means to grow up Native and rarely see yourself reflected in the stories you're reading. About the generations of Native poets, writers, and storytellers whose work has shaped us. About the complicated history of Western education in our communities, and the extraordinary possibilities that open up when we tell our own stories. We get into Indigenous feminisms, literary gatekeeping, the books that changed our lives, our favorite Native authors, some good old-fashioned 49 songs, and why we all need a little more Native romance in our lives! Kinsale and Lily also share some beautiful poetry, and we talk about their next big dream: a traveling bookmobile bringing thousands more books to Native communities. I loved this conversation because it reminded me that our communities aren't defined by what we lack. We have knowledge. We have stories. We have each other. And we have generations of brilliant Native writers who have been telling us exactly who we are all along. So grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and come hang with us. We're talking books, kinship, poetry, and the beautiful possibilities of Native storytelling. Welcome to Season 7, relatives! We're so glad you're here. P.S. Join the All My Relations Book Club! For $20 a month, we'll send you a book every quarter, and for every person who joins, we're sending free books to Indian Girls Book Club to distribute to Native youth. Reading books AND getting books into the hands of our young people? AMAZING! Text us your thoughts! Support the show Follow us on Instagram @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon.  Show notes are published on our website, Allmyrelationspodcast.com. Matika's book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is available now!  T'igwicid and Hyshqe for being on this journey with us.