WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.830 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.830 --> 00:00:02.550 align:middle line:90% Wow. 00:00:02.550 --> 00:00:04.370 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:04.370 --> 00:00:06.650 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.650 --> 00:00:07.340 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:07.340 --> 00:00:08.257 align:middle line:90% Buenas noches a todos. 00:00:08.257 --> 00:00:10.520 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.520 --> 00:00:15.200 align:middle line:84% What an honor to be here with you all tonight. 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:18.740 align:middle line:84% In her recent book, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, Ingrid 00:00:18.740 --> 00:00:22.340 align:middle line:84% Contreras Rojas writes, "To believe 00:00:22.340 --> 00:00:27.020 align:middle line:84% in ghosts was to know the remnants of a past violence 00:00:27.020 --> 00:00:28.580 align:middle line:90% return. 00:00:28.580 --> 00:00:32.000 align:middle line:84% A country that doesn't even believe in its own history 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:35.510 align:middle line:90% cannot believe in ghosts." 00:00:35.510 --> 00:00:37.940 align:middle line:84% And yet it seems to me that certain ghosts, 00:00:37.940 --> 00:00:40.580 align:middle line:84% certain violences, certain histories 00:00:40.580 --> 00:00:43.550 align:middle line:84% haunt us whether we choose to believe 00:00:43.550 --> 00:00:48.520 align:middle line:84% or not, whether we choose to look or not. 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:51.940 align:middle line:84% In Bojan Louis's Sinking Bell, the pain 00:00:51.940 --> 00:00:56.830 align:middle line:84% of genocidal capitalism is not conceptual but personal. 00:00:56.830 --> 00:01:00.820 align:middle line:90% Human scale, almost mundane. 00:01:00.820 --> 00:01:03.730 align:middle line:84% Louis's debut collection of stories 00:01:03.730 --> 00:01:05.620 align:middle line:84% follow Indigenous and settler characters 00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:08.980 align:middle line:84% as they settle and struggle with their demons. 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:13.120 align:middle line:84% Matt Bell writing in BOMB says, quote, 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.340 align:middle line:84% "It's not so much that the characters win 00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:19.270 align:middle line:84% or lose or triumph or change, but that they're 00:01:19.270 --> 00:01:23.720 align:middle line:84% brought to the heart of their needs and their wants." 00:01:23.720 --> 00:01:27.230 align:middle line:84% In their various settings in and around Flagstaff, Arizona, 00:01:27.230 --> 00:01:29.150 align:middle line:90% they want and they need. 00:01:29.150 --> 00:01:32.300 align:middle line:84% And Flagstaff, if you're listening, 00:01:32.300 --> 00:01:36.230 align:middle line:84% it's time that you saw yourself in these stories, 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:40.620 align:middle line:84% to see that yourself as these stories see you. 00:01:40.620 --> 00:01:43.170 align:middle line:84% But then the same could be said for you, Tucson. 00:01:43.170 --> 00:01:46.140 align:middle line:84% It's time you saw yourself in these stories, 00:01:46.140 --> 00:01:48.900 align:middle line:90% see them see you. 00:01:48.900 --> 00:01:53.710 align:middle line:84% To read Sinking Bell is to not turn away. 00:01:53.710 --> 00:01:56.410 align:middle line:84% In an interview with Alexa Luborsky published 00:01:56.410 --> 00:01:59.950 align:middle line:84% in the Adroit Journal, Bojan says, quote, 00:01:59.950 --> 00:02:03.070 align:middle line:84% "In essence, the central emotional landscape 00:02:03.070 --> 00:02:07.180 align:middle line:84% of these stories is the image of a bell that is sinking. 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:10.720 align:middle line:84% It is, and has been rendered obsolete-- 00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:16.630 align:middle line:84% its purpose to summon, notify, signal, or warn is nullified. 00:02:16.630 --> 00:02:20.870 align:middle line:84% Now, is the bell sinking in water, 00:02:20.870 --> 00:02:25.700 align:middle line:84% in sand, in mud, or perhaps it is sinking metaphorically? 00:02:25.700 --> 00:02:31.880 align:middle line:84% Could it sink through historical trauma or lived trauma?" 00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:34.750 align:middle line:84% This is a book that has been in the making for 16 years, 00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:37.600 align:middle line:84% with its roots in Bojan's time as an MFA 00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:42.200 align:middle line:84% student at ASU in the mid-2000s and even before that. 00:02:42.200 --> 00:02:46.370 align:middle line:84% Quote, "I needed to survive," Bojan says, 00:02:46.370 --> 00:02:49.490 align:middle line:84% "and remake or alter myself in order 00:02:49.490 --> 00:02:52.100 align:middle line:90% to finish writing Sinking Bell." 00:02:52.100 --> 00:02:54.620 align:middle line:84% I like this quotation by Susan Sontag. 00:02:54.620 --> 00:02:58.050 align:middle line:84% She says, "The function of writing 00:02:58.050 --> 00:03:00.510 align:middle line:90% is to explode one's subject-- 00:03:00.510 --> 00:03:04.100 align:middle line:84% transform it into something else." 00:03:04.100 --> 00:03:06.050 align:middle line:84% And Bojan and I share an early mentor 00:03:06.050 --> 00:03:08.600 align:middle line:84% in the late Jim Simmerman, poet and professor 00:03:08.600 --> 00:03:10.640 align:middle line:90% at Northern Arizona University. 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:15.240 align:middle line:84% Since then many transformations, many revolutions. 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:18.750 align:middle line:84% But to call Jim into the room, especially because he'd 00:03:18.750 --> 00:03:22.260 align:middle line:84% be fond of this other Bojan quote, 00:03:22.260 --> 00:03:28.100 align:middle line:84% "I'm all here for the heresy even for the heresy of self. 00:03:28.100 --> 00:03:30.200 align:middle line:84% And I would be remiss if I did not 00:03:30.200 --> 00:03:33.965 align:middle line:84% mention to you all that these stories are metal as fuck." 00:03:33.965 --> 00:03:35.870 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:35.870 --> 00:03:36.920 align:middle line:90% It's true. 00:03:36.920 --> 00:03:43.250 align:middle line:84% Bojan Louis is Diné of Naakai dine'é, born for the Áshííhí. 00:03:43.250 --> 00:03:45.890 align:middle line:84% He is the author of the short story collection Sinking 00:03:45.890 --> 00:03:49.670 align:middle line:84% Bell, Graywolf Press 2022, the poetry collection Currents, 00:03:49.670 --> 00:03:53.630 align:middle line:84% MkBk Press 2017, and the nonfiction chapbook 00:03:53.630 --> 00:03:56.750 align:middle line:84% Troubleshooting Silence in Arizona, The Guillotine Series 00:03:56.750 --> 00:03:57.830 align:middle line:90% 2012. 00:03:57.830 --> 00:04:01.220 align:middle line:84% His work can be found in Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected 00:04:01.220 --> 00:04:04.730 align:middle line:84% Essays by Contemporary Writers, When the Light of the World 00:04:04.730 --> 00:04:07.550 align:middle line:84% Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton 00:04:07.550 --> 00:04:10.430 align:middle line:84% Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, 00:04:10.430 --> 00:04:13.280 align:middle line:84% Native Voices Anthology, the Diné Reader: 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:15.620 align:middle line:84% An Anthology of Navajo Literature. 00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:18.019 align:middle line:84% His honors include a MacDowell fellowship, 00:04:18.019 --> 00:04:21.350 align:middle line:84% and he is a recipient of a 2018 American Book Award. 00:04:21.350 --> 00:04:23.150 align:middle line:84% In addition to teaching at the Institute 00:04:23.150 --> 00:04:26.330 align:middle line:84% for American Indian Arts, Louis is an assistant professor 00:04:26.330 --> 00:04:29.030 align:middle line:84% at the Creative Writing MFA and American Indian Studies 00:04:29.030 --> 00:04:31.340 align:middle line:84% programs at the University of Arizona. 00:04:31.340 --> 00:04:33.950 align:middle line:84% Please, y'all, join me in welcoming the one and only 00:04:33.950 --> 00:04:34.460 align:middle line:90% Bojan Louis. 00:04:34.460 --> 00:04:37.810 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]