Readers across Maine will join Indigenous writers Julian Brave NoiseCat, Morgan Talty, and Brendan Shay Basham for a daylong discussion on Tommy Orange’s award-winning novel “There There”
ORONO — The Maine Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit organization and Maine’s affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities), is bringing together Mainers from across the state for its annual Readers Retreat, a public book event on April 6 from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. at the University of Maine’s Wells Conference Center. Readers Retreat is also being hosted in-person and streamed live at two satellite locations — Scarborough High School and Cobscook Institute — as well as online via Zoom. This year’s event is featuring “There There”, the national bestselling novel by Tommy Orange, as well as talks by three Indigenous writers: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Morgan Talty, and Brendan Shay Basham.
A Pulitzer Prize Finalist and winner of the 2019 American Book Award, “There There” follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Together, this chorus of urban Native American voices grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.
“We’re thrilled to hear from this year’s talented speakers, who will each reflect on ‘There There’ through their own unique lenses as contemporary Indigenous people, writers, and thinkers,” said MHC Operations Manager & Program Specialist Marcela Peres. “‘There There’ invites us to witness a small number of Native lives in the present day that are inextricably linked to one another and to the ripple effects of decisions made in the past, present, and those yet to come. With this year’s event, we invite Mainers to engage in meaningful discussion with one another on the very real themes and ideas posed by this work of fiction.”
Peres adds, “Maine is a large state, so in addition to a Zoom-only option, for the first time, Readers Retreat will also include two in-person satellite locations that will link to Orono via Zoom. By adding these hybrid satellites, we hope to create opportunities for even more participants to attend, no matter where they are located or how they prefer to connect.”
Tickets for Readers Retreat are on sale till March 31 and available at mainehumanities.org. Readers Retreat is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United We Stand: Connecting Through Culture initiative. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Readers Retreat has been made possible in part by funding from the Library of Congress and the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.
The Maine Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit organization, uses books, poetry, and big ideas to bring people together to discuss issues of importance and create positive change in Maine communities. Their programs and grants encourage critical thinking and conversations across social, economic, and cultural boundaries. The MHC is a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and is the home of Maine’s Center for the Book through the Library of Congress.
Tommy Orange is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California. His first book “There There” was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award. He lives in Oakland, California.
Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, filmmaker, and student of Salish art and history. His first documentary “SUGARCANE”, directed alongside Emily Kassie, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. “SUGARCANE” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival where NoiseCat and Kassie won the Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition. He is concurrently finishing his first book “We Survived the Night”, which will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in North America, Profile Books in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, Albin Michel in France and Aufbau Verlag in Germany.
Morgan Talty, a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation, is the author of the national bestselling and critically acclaimed story collection “Night of the Living Rez” from Tin House Books, which won the New England Book Award, was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, and is a finalist for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Talty is an assistant professor of English in creative writing and Native American and contemporary Literature at the University of Maine and he is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in creative writing as well as the Institute of American Indian Arts. Talty is also a prose editor at The Massachusetts Review. He lives in Levant.
Brendan Shay Basham (Diné) is Tó Ts’ohnii (Big Water) and Bit’ah’nii (Folded-Arms People), born for bilagáana (Irish, Scottish, English, German). A writer, artist, educator, and recovering chef, Brendan was born in Alaska and raised in northern Arizona. He received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and BA in liberal arts from the Evergreen State College. His debut novel “Swim Home to the Vanished” was released Aug. 22, 2023, from Harper Books, flagship imprint of HarperCollins. He is a fiction faculty member at UNR – Lake Tahoe’s Creative Writing MFA Program.