Season 3, Episode 6: Life in the Vast Plains

Sara and Daniel interview author David Heska Wanbli Weiden to discuss his novel Winter Counts, a gritty crime novel taking place on the Lakota Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. This episode explores ReadICT category 10, a book set in the Great Plains, and how place can be inextricably linked to one’s identity, especially for Native Americans.

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcription. Some errors may occur. If you find a transcription error, please contact us with any corrections and we will make those corrections as quickly as possible.

[MUSIC]

SARA, VOICEOVER: Hi everyone, welcome to Read. Return. Repeat. I'm Sara Dixon here with my co-host Daniel Pewewardy. How're you doing today, Daniel?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Hey, Sara. I'm doing great. Today we're gonna cover category 10, a book set in the Great Plains, and I thought maybe we could start today with some regionally specific humor.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay, what do you got?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: So I went on ChatGPT and asked it to write some jokes about the Great Plains, so I figured I'd share some of y'all.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay, I'm scared to hear but go ahead.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All right, here's the first one. Why did the prairie dog start a rock band?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Why?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Because it wanted to be an underground music sensation.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Oh my... all right.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Here's another one. Why did the scarecrow move to the Great Plains?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay, why?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: He heard it was in an a-maize-ing place to live.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Oh, my goodness. If you could see my eyes rolling right now.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All right, now you should try one. Do it.

SARA, VOICEOVER: All right, here we go. What did one rolling tumbleweed say to another on the Great Plains?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: I don't know, what?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Let's keep rolling on this flat out adventure. [FAKE LAUGH]

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All right, that one was probably the best but they're not, none of them are good. All right. So okay, I went ahead and wrote one.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All right. Are you ready?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Yes, I am. Very ready.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: What does the plains of Kansas and Frosted Flakes have in common?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay, what?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: They're grrrreat!

SARA, VOICEOVER: Oh my gosh.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Because of the tiger in the commercial.

SARA, VOICEOVER: I mean, probably that's better than ChatGPT. But I mean, you know... maybe let's just get on with the episode today. How about that?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah. Let's just do that, yeah.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Great. Today's guest is David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: David is an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, the author of Winter Counts, which was nominated for several awards, including New York Times Editor's Choice, and named the best book of the year by NPR, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and The Guardian and other magazines.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Weiden received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, his law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He's a professor of Native American Studies and Political Science at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. And he's joining us from Denver today. Let's get on with it.

DANIEL: Hi.

SARA: Thank you so much for joining us.

DAVID HESKA WANBLI WEIDEN: Thank you.

SARA: So why don't you just kick us off? Tell our listeners a little bit about this book.

DAVID: Well, first of all, it's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And I think I mentioned to you guys before we started recording that I spent a couple of years in Kansas, in Hays as a matter of fact, and my son was born there. Now, since he was born, we left when he was about a year old. He has not returned to Kansas. But we may very well take a pitstop there. He's just graduated from high school, he's turned 18. And I'm driving him out to Dartmouth College for him to begin his freshman year.

DANIEL: Oh, congrats.

DAVID: And so yeah, and so I... you know, he's not ever visited his birthplace. So anyway, it's really an honor to be with some Kansans. So thank you.

SARA: Yes, absolutely. And let me invite you to come join us in Wichita. We're just a couple hours south of Hays, right, I think?

DANIEL: Yeah.

SARA: And, yeah, we'll show you the library. We got some really great stuff here.

DAVID: Wonderful, wonderful. Well, I think you asked me if I can tell you a bit about the book. So Winter Counts -- I just happen to have a copy right here as a matter of fact. This is the paperback, the U.S. version. It's been released in... oh, geez, the U.K., Japan, just recently Poland, various countries.

Anyway, Winter Counts is the story of Virgil Wounded Horse, who is a private vigilante on the Rosebud Reservation. So I am an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation known as the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in English, which is located in south central South Dakota. Now, because of some legal issues which we can get into later, criminal justice is a real problem. Crime is a real problem on the reservation. And again, I'll be happy to get more details about that later. And because of the failure of the U.S. government to adequately prosecute felony crimes, many felony offenders are set free, and thus we have a real problem in this country of missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives. And so what has happened is on some reservations, private vigilantes -- hired thugs, if you will -- have sprung up and if the U.S. government won't give you justice, if your wife or your sister or your cousin has been harmed, you can hire somebody like my hero, Virgil Wounded Horse, who will put down a beating on someone for a price and his price is $100 for each tooth he knocks out and each bone he breaks. So it is the story of Virgil and also the story of his attempt to reconcile himself with his Lakota identity. And so yeah, I'll stop there. It is, it is a tale of identity, criminal justice, family, there's a lot of stuff running through there.

SARA: Think you would put this in the thriller genre for our listeners, and you can rest assured that we all very much strongly recommend it, it was very good,

DANIEL: It was great. It was, the book is set, like you said, on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. While the Great Plains might not be renowned for their like scenic beauty since a lot of it is flat, you take the opportunity to discuss the region in your novel. What are the, what was the significance of the landmarks you included? Such as the Black Hills, Carhenge, Casa Bonita, for example. Were there, and also, were there any landmarks or locations that you wanted to... you wish you could have included?

DAVID: Yeah, thank you for asking that. You know, I've done a lot of interviews and I don't think anybody has really ever honed in on the Great Plains the way that you guys just have. And, you know, I will say that I find the Great Plains to be a place of immense beauty. All right? That's how I feel about it. I mean, the Black Hills, which, you know, are included in the technical definition of the Great Plains, you know, are really some of the most beautiful, majestic hills on the planet. And for that matter, I find, you know, driving through the plains, you know, parts of Nebraska, parts of Kansas, there's, there's a real gentle beauty that I love. Now, I'm not going to say every, every square foot, you know, of parts of Wyoming and Nebraska and everywhere are absolutely beautiful. But I do think there's a beauty and a majesty to the Great Plains. And I wanted to portray that.

Our reservation is quite beautiful, and are the Rosebud Reservation and our cousins just to the west of us, the Pine Ridge Reservation. They have the Badlands included in their reservation, which if listeners and viewers have not seen that, it's these amazing rock formations and it looks like something from you know, the surface of Mars. So I loved writing about the Great Plains. And I loved writing about my reservation. I knew that few of my readers would have visited a Native reservation. And even if you're Native, you likely would not have gone to the Rosebud Reservation. We're one of the lesser known Indian reservations. And so I wanted to write about it, I think, you know, in a very respectful way to describe, you know, the beauty of the place as well as the challenges that exist on the Rosebud Reservation. Now, you asked me what were the significance of landmarks. I absolutely wanted to talk about Mount Rushmore and how Natives have a let's just say ambiguous feeling about Mount Rushmore, because the Black Hills are sacred land to us. And so for the U.S. government to put Mount Rushmore right there on one of our hills, you know, is somewhat problematic for us. But you know, so I have dual citizenship. I'm Lakota and American, you know, so I can appreciate the majesty of the monument. But then there's the other part of it, which is why the Treaty of 1868, that land was never supposed to be taken from us. But let me not get too deep into that.

SARA: I was like, ambiguous is a really nice way to put that but please keep going. You're doing great.

DAVID: So then there are some other you know, fun things in the book such as Carhenge, which is in Alliance, Nebraska. Now, I just... if folks don't know, that is some crazy farmer in the '70s created a replica and homage to Stonehenge by using 1970s cars in this abandoned field. And it's wonderful. It's America. I love it. I just had the blessing to go there with my son Sasha. About three weeks ago, we traveled to the Rosebud Reservation, and we stopped in Alliance and we visited Carhenge. I hadn't been there in some years. It's just one of, you know, these great crazy places in America that a lot of people don't know about.

Casa Bonita is a restaurant in Denver. If folks don't know, it is sort of a half amusement park and half restaurant. It has... it's giant. It has cliff divers that dive hundreds of feet within the restaurant. There's a cave, Black Bart's cave, there's all sorts of crazy stuff. And that's just a part of Denver. Three chapters of the novel take place in Denver. The rest of the book takes place on the Rosebud Reservation. Now, interestingly enough, Casa Bonita was about to go bankrupt during the pandemic. And two people bought the restaurant and the this would be Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park. So if you've seen South Park, there's an episode in there. Both of those guys are from Colorado and they went to the University of Colorado Boulder, which is where I did my college. And they love Casa Bonita. So they came in and they bought the restaurant and they spent $40 million renovating it. It just opened up three weeks ago. It's the hottest ticket in Denver because they're not yet open to the general public. You have to be invited in. And I... you know, Matt and Trey, if you're out there, I put Casa Bonita in the book. Please, let me in. I've been waiting to get in.

SARA: Let David come!

DANIEL: I got lucky to go to the Tulsa one. It was like Casa Bonita -- because I watched South Park. I was like I got to go to Tulsa one. And it had everything what's a cliff divers and they had like a magician and everything.

SARA: Wild.

DANIEL: And then I found out that like this restaurant my parents used to take me to in Oklahoma City like when we visited family down there, like, was also a Casa Bonita but like they changed, it was like the brother had his own. It was like called Pancho's or something. And they had the white flag and stuff. And it's kind of...

DAVID: Oh, interesting. Well, I gotta say one last thing about Casa Bonita. So in Denver, if you've grown up in Denver, the legend is that costuming is really great, but the food is terrible. Well, Matt and Trey, they hired a chef. And so apparently the food now has been completely revamped. It's apparently great and fantastic. And when I get in, I will report back. So anyway, I just had so much fun writing about some of these landmarks.

And you asked me, is there anything that I wish I could have written about? Yes, Wall Drug, which is well known to people in South Dakota, is if you drive on the highway in South Dakota, you see all these signs, "Wall Drug," you know, 15, you know, 150 miles or something. It's a cool kind of touristy thing that I love. I didn't get to put it in this book. But there is a sequel coming out called Wisdom Corner. And I am happy to share with you that if my editor allows this passage to stay in there, Wall Drug will appear in the next book, but we can return to the next book later. Anyway, thank you so much. I hit such a -- for that question. I had such a pleasure writing about the area, which I think the Plains are so often neglected in American literature. And so what a joy it was to celebrate this area.

SARA: Well, and I think, you know, we write a -- you'll read about this area, but it's always like, it's bleak. And you know, it's dusty, and all of these things, you know, because people will not... they'll say Kansas is ugly. It's flatter than a pancake. No one likes it. But I also, I feel like the beauty is hidden a little bit. You almost have to go find it a little bit more. You can't just see it while you're driving down the highway and that's okay. But anyway, so I love that you feel about it the same way that I feel about it, even if I'm more limited to Kansas.

DANIEL: I will say like, also I felt like the between Nebraska and Bandlands was like, I think Bruce Springsteen has a lot of songs about this area.

DAVID: Sure.

SARA: We'll put a playlist together on this book. Yeah. And also, if Trey Parker and Matt Stone listen to our podcast, we'll definitely shoot them your way. Our little library podcast.

DAVID: Wonderful.

SARA: Okay, let's get back to talking about the vigilante justice that Virgil takes upon himself. Can you talk about how maybe the environment of, both physical and political environment of the Rosebud Reservation factor into his chosen profession? And can we talk a little bit more specifically about how the Major Crimes Act of 1885 impacted this justice that he doles out and how it affects the reservation today?

DAVID: Yes, certainly. So for viewers and listeners that are not aware, let me give a little background. Native nations are independent sovereign nations. However, there have been a series of congressional laws and Supreme Court decisions that have limited the independence or sovereignty, as we call it, of Native American nations. And so our rights as sovereign nations, which it's, you know, we're meant to be sovereign. It's in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. But through a series of these decisions, our independence has been limited. And one of these areas in which our independence has been limited is that of criminal justice.

Now, I don't want to get too deeply into why the law was passed, but the Major Crimes Act of 1885 was passed, which takes away the rights of our Native nations to prosecute major felony crimes that occur on our lands involving our citizens. So if there is a major felony crime -- murder, rape, sexual assault, arson, aggravated assaults, you know, you name it -- we cannot prosecute those crimes. We have police officers, we have we have our own criminal justice system. But we must, you know, even if we have a suspect in custody, our tribal police, they must call up the FBI. So on the reservation, Native nations cannot prosecute these felony crimes, and the U.S. government is failing to prosecute the crimes. And so you have a real quality of life issue in that you have a crime rate on the reservation that makes it difficult to live a decent life. And that's why we have private vigilantes springing up. But it's just a real problem for people trying to just live live their lives if they don't know that maybe there'll be a rapist, you know, and we know that a bunch of people come to the reservation, you know, bad men, you know, because they know that it's unlikely they'll be caught, all right, because we have a problem with law enforcement. We have very few law enforcement officers on the reservation. And even if they are caught, it's unlikely that they will be prosecuted.

So there, it's a terrible statistic. But apparently, a Native woman living on the reservation has an 80 percent chance in her lifetime that she will be sexually assaulted or raped, which is outrageous. So the Major Crimes Act of 1885, along with some other laws, have made it a real problem to have any sort of decent standard of living on the reservation. And that's what I wanted to write about. So these vigilantes are real. I'll share with some good news. I'll end this little diatribe here with some good news. Based -- you know, my book reached a fair number of people. And it started sort of a dialogue. I also on these issues, I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in 2020. And I got a ton of calls and emails from tribal officials as well as U.S. Attorneys that didn't know about this, and even people in Congress contacted me. Well, here's the happy news, the Pine Ridge Reservation, which is the reservation right next to ours, the Oglala nation. They filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government demanding that additional police officers and FBI agents be given to the Lakota people on Pine Ridge, because there simply isn't... there, you know, there aren't enough police officers, either reservation, tribal, or federal, to police all the crimes that are happening. They filed a lawsuit, and they just won. Just about a month ago.

DANIEL: That's awesome. That's really cool.

DAVID: They just won. Now, the U.S. government has indicated they're going to appeal the decision. And so we don't know if this decision is going to stand or not. But if my book in any small way helped to contribute to this dialogue, and I hope that other Native nations out there will file similar lawsuits, because the U.S. government has a duty under the treaties to keep our people safe. You know, we're not asking for special treatment. We're just asking for enough funding so that we can hire police officers to stop rapists, murderers, arsonists, that's all we're asking for. Anyway, I will stop there.

DANIEL: That's really, that's really cool to see that people are like, the book is having an impact, especially on like, those kinds of issues and things. So yeah.

SARA: Well, and that's the best way to spare change really, is to start having those conversations because I would be willing to bet that a lot of people don't know that those things are happening. So anyway, thank you for that.

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SARA: Okay, we're back again. Let's get back to this interview.

DANIEL: All right. So I have a question about Winter Counts. So it's not just like a mystery suspense novel. It also like delves into social themes offering historical lessons about U.S. policy towards Natives, including events like the Wounded Knee massacre. Why do you believe it's important to incorporate these history lessons into your writing?

DAVID: You know, I felt it was really important to bring some background into Native history, culture, and politics because I wanted the book first and foremost, to be entertaining, right? I wanted to write a book that people would stay up all night reading, you know, turning the pages. I've gotten, I've gotten lots of emails from people that have done just that. I've got, I got one a few weeks ago, or a month or two ago, "I ruined a batch of cookies, because I couldn't tear myself away from the last chapter." You know, I love to hear that. So look, I wanted to write something that people would care about the characters and the plot and the story. But I also wanted the book to have something of an educational function.

In my day job, I am a tenured professor of Native American studies. And I've been teaching about these issues for years, as well as living them. And so I wanted to bring into the novel, some of these, you know, this background material, but not in a way that was too heavy handed or didactic. And so I really worked hard to make it entertaining, to make it organic, and hopefully make it fit within the scope of the novel. But I'm really glad that I did. Because, you know, I... I had somebody estimated that with library readers and such, you know, 200,000 to 300,000 people have read the book. And you know, and that that's great. So if I've had that many people read this novel, and some percentage of them have learned something about Native history, then hey, I, I've done my job.

SARA: Absolutely. And I was even doing some research into things that I was unfamiliar with in your book. And there's a lot more that's truthful and based in fact, like the hospital closing. I read about that, about how the hospital really was closed for a very long time because of all of these things. We won't spoil it for you. Read it. But I thought that was really... added to the novel because you didn't know, right? It seems very dramatic, but it was true.

DANIEL: Yeah, and I didn't know about the black -- like the lawsuit with the Black Hills, and it now sits in a fund. That was really interesting. So I have a question. So like, mysteries set on reservations is maybe something a lot of mystery fans might actually be familiar with, with like other franchises that have, but those franchises are written by white authors writing about crimes on Native lands. Have you ever heard anything from the like mystery fans that might be familiar with those works that kind of read yours and... at all, or?

DAVID: Oh, yes, yes, hundreds, hundreds. I, I hear from my fans all the time, and I respond, you know, to almost everyone. I get emails and such, I get really nice emails. I mean, maybe once I've gotten one or two emails from somebody that said, "Look, I disagree with you here, there." And, you know, that's fine, you know. But no, I've heard from my fans, and they they love the book, but but let me sort of address the broader issue that you're alluding to. So until Winter Counts was published, for 30 years, there had not been a crime novel published by what's called the big five publishing houses in New York, written by a Native author.

Now, there had been plenty of crime novels written by non-Native authors, Tony Hillerman being obviously the best known of all of them, you know. So many, many non-Native authors had set stories on or around Native reservations and involving Native characters. But literally, for almost three decades, there had not been a crime novel, mystery novel written by a Native author and published by what in the publishing world we call the big five. Now, the... so I was not too confident that this book would get published when I went out and tried to sell it way back in 2019. We didn't know what the reaction was going to be. Because I didn't know who was going to be interested in this novel about, you know, a little slice of reservation life and a reservation that few people have heard of. But the book has done so well. It was a national bestseller. It's apparently won more awards than any debut crime novel in history, so I've been told. You know, and, you know, people love it so much that really happy news here is there now has been something of a rush of Native authors to get published. I know of at least five Native American authors that have now either been signed or have published crime novels with big five presses.

DANIEL: That's so cool.

DAVID: And, yeah, and so if my book in some way showed that people will buy and enjoy crime novels written by Native authors, then, you know, that's great. And so I'm so thrilled about that. And let me say too that I'm friends with nearly everybody In the crime fiction community and Craig Johnson is one of my best friends in this community, in this world. And, and he loves the book. In fact, he blurbed Winter Counts and we've talked about it. And I love his Longmire books a lot. And Craig Johnson is a class act. So I'm just really gratified not only by the reaction from my readers and fans, but also from other authors.

SARA: That's awesome. Congratulations. I did not realize that it was so widespread. I mean, we really liked it. And I think -- I mean, we saw some of the people on the cover that had blurbed about it, which was awesome. Tommy Orange was on there, too. And then Craig Johnson, but yeah, that's awesome. Just congratulations.

DANIEL: Yeah, I actually, I like I know, like, representation matters. And I might have mentioned on the show I'm part Comanche. It makes me, I never read those books. Like everyone would recommend the Hillerman books to me, and I was like, never got into him. But like, I'm actually gonna, I'm waiting for the next one. Like I got into it. I think that's like, as people talk about representation and having like, your culture represented, like, it's like, now that there's a Native author doing this, I'm actually intrigued so yeah.

DAVID: Wonderful. Cool.

SARA: So let's talk a little bit about identity in this book, particularly Native identity, which is a large theme. We see how various characters relate to their indigenous heritage, like Virgil, Marie, even Lack Strongbow, who is the celebrity, indigenous celebrity chef who comes to town. Can you talk about what went into creating these various characters and how each of them related to both others and the world around them?

DAVID: Yeah, well, you know, talking about Native identity, you know, that was really probably the central theme of the book. When I first started writing the novel, I thought the theme or driving concept of the book was the failure of criminal justice enforcement on reservations. But you know, when I started revising it over and over, I saw that really, the theme of the book is identity. Virgil is, in our language, it's known as Iyeska, which means mixed, mixed race. You know, he's, he's part Lakota, he's part not Lakota, but part non-Native. And he struggles with this in the book. And so, you know, he, I don't want to give too much away for people who haven't read it. But in the beginning of the book, he obviously, he rejects his indigenous culture, his indigenous heritage, for reasons that you can read about in the book, and, you know, Virgil struggles, the hero of my book, Virgil Wounded Horse, he struggles with his identity. And I think this is something that nearly everybody can relate to.

Even if you're not Native, all of us kind of struggle with where we fit in, in the world, you know, whether it's your identity at work, or in school, or, you know, whatever. And so I think it really is a universal theme. So he really struggles with that. But all of the characters in the book are trying to figure out where they fit in the world. Marie is the love interest in the book. She's part Lakota and part non-Lakota. And she's struggling as well to figure out where she fits in. She wants to be a doctor, her parents are pressuring her. You mentioned Lack Strongbow, who's the celebrity chef, you know, he grew up on the west coast, he's trying to figure out does he fit in, in the middle of the country and reservation culture. So, you know, everybody is kind of struggling to reconcile their identity with, you know, the, the reality of their existence. And so I had a lot of fun writing these characters and trying to knit them all together.

SARA: Yeah, each of them kind of play, have a toe in all the... one culture and then trying to figure out where they fit in, in the broader scope of the world. So it was really well done. And it was interesting to think about, because each of them are very different in their experience of the world.

DANIEL: You mentioned Marie, can we talk about Marie for a second? So she's torn between attending medical school and becoming a medicine woman. How do indigenous communities balance upholding traditional customs in a modern setting?

DAVID: Well, you know, I hesitate to, to delve too deeply on this because I can only speak from my own experience, you know, only the Sicangu experience. And even that, I mean, there's such a multiplicity of experiences on any one reservation. There are nearly 600 Native nations out there in America alone. And so, you know, I don't pretend to speak for all Indians, that's for sure. You know, but I mean, I can tell you that just in my experience, okay, based on the Rosebud Reservation, we very much have our own ways of healing and we use traditional medicines. Some of our people, some of our holy people, we use traditional plant-based medicines and we have certain traditions and ceremonies. But at the same time, we certainly use modern medicine because, you know, there are obviously such benefits to engaging in, you know, the Western system of medicine.

And so it's kind of a struggle, I have noticed, to balance traditional ideas of indigenous wellness, with this other way of thinking. You know, the Western medicine model is... I mean, again, I'm a little out of my depth here, but I think it tends to compartmentalize people, like, you have a problem with your gastrointestinal or heart problem or a liver problem or something, whereas the Native way of looking at things is to view more as a totality. And so that is, you know, so the two approaches, I think, don't always fit in. And I think there are a lot of medical professionals who are Native that are trying to integrate the two. So that's probably as much as I know, and I'm certainly not the expert on this.

DANIEL: That's yeah, that's actually really interesting. I know that like, Indian Health Services does kind of have traditional healers that you can go to, they actually have one in Wichita. I think that's like, it's cool that when they when services like Indian Health Services can balance.

DAVID: Yeah.

DANIEL: Yeah.

SARA: Go ahead. No, please.

DANIEL: All right. So we talked about how Virgil pushes kind of against his spiritual side and his heritage, especially after things that happen in the book early on. By the end of the novel, everything kind of brings him back into the embrace of what he had turned away from. Why was it important for you to show Virgil returning to what he had turned away from for so long?

DAVID: Well, again, we're doing a bit of a spoiler here, but that's okay, you know. I mean, look, it's easy to guess that, you know, when a person is out of balance in the early chapters of the novel, as Virgil Wounded Horse is that, you know, obviously, by the end of the book, he's going to learn, have an epiphany of some sorts, but I felt that it was important to show that Virgil can heal himself by accepting his Lakota identity, by what he previously had rejected, by embracing it and understanding that he can use these indigenous ideas to heal himself and his community, you know, I felt that was just a really important lesson that I knew was going to stay in the book. You know, there was a little bit of a push and pull with my editors on, you know, whenever you publish your book, editors, you know, they want this in, they want that out. You know, and, you know, they pushed me on some things.

And I stood my ground on a number of things, for example, the Carhenge scene. There is a scene in there, where he, Carhenge, you've got, I think, the background there on your, in the background there on the video. You know, Virgil has sort of a spiritual experience at Carhenge. And my editor was like, you know, I'm not sure if this helps the story. But I kind of stood my ground on that. And I said, "Look, I think this is important. You know, it's going to set up something that happens later in the book," which I won't reveal for spoiler purposes here. So I did stand my ground, because I felt it was important to get that lesson in there. Now, I will say that in the next book -- there is a sequel, which I'm working on right now titled Wisdom Corner -- Virgil is going to be struggling with this issue in a different way. So I will leave that there for now.

DANIEL: I can't wait to read it.

SARA: Yeah. And I think, I'm glad that you left in the Carhenge because I really, you know, it's like kind of a silly thing that just exists. And he has such this, like, epiphany, I think is the right word there. But he just like has a spiritual like moment that I thought was really, really powerful. And I really liked how you put that into the book. And I won't give away the ending either, but I thought the ending was also very powerful. Like his, his spiritual, like... I don't know what I'm trying to say.

DANIEL: I think it's really interesting, especially when you like read books from a Native perspective, or like, watching Reservation Dogs, for example, like how magical realism is playing. It's like, that's the reality that like a lot of community, especially non-European communities that are like, not just natives, but all over the world, it's like their approach to reality is not what like a Western European scientist, like science based would call like, skeptical. It's like in like, it's not like, I just think that's really cool that you incorporated that and it wasn't even like you... it just like a naturally occurring thing for that to happen and that was community, like in the communities like that.

DAVID: Let me follow up on that just a bit. I'm getting a little English literature professor here, which --

SARA: I love it, we love it.

DAVID: I am not a literature professor, just to be clear here. But I did, part of the reason why I kept the Carhenge scene in there as well as scenes later in the book is I did feel that it was important for me to try and develop a uniquely indigenous style of crime writing and so I wanted to incorporate elements of magical realism and such because most crime books are strictly realistic. There's no surrealism, you know, but I thought that there's room for a uniquely Native style of mystery writing. Now, I want to give credit where it's due: my forebears in this would be my good friend, Stephen Graham Jones, who has a book, All the Beautiful Sinners, that he really has a lot of that in there, and also the unjustly underrated Louis Owens who has been dead since 1994, who is a crime writer in some of his books and had some of this as well. So but I felt that it was important for me to try to resurrect or create my own unique style of mystery writing with uniquely indigenous stylistic flourishes, we'll say that.

SARA: No, it worked. I liked it a lot. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with David Weiden.

VOICEOVER: Did you know when you make a donation to the Wichita Public Library Foundation that your money is invested in your library? Recently, the Foundation received a donation from the Lattner Foundation that funded 60 Wi-Fi hotspots. Anyone in Wichita can check one of these out and have free internet access at their home. For more information on how you can support the Wichita Public Library Foundation, visit supportwichitalibraries.org.

SARA: And we're back with Read. Return. Repeat. I'm Sara Dixon.

DANIEL: I'm Daniel Pewewardy.

SARA: And we are with David Weiden. And David, let's talk about the book title, Winter Counts, and how it connects to the overall theme. First of all, can you go ahead and explain what a Winter Counts is, Winter Counts calendar is, and then talk about how it shows up in the story? What its significance is in the context of this book and in the Lakota Nation?

DAVID: Sure. So a winter count was the traditional calendar system of the Lakota people. And it operated in a very different way than the traditional calendar that we have today. You know, July X, you know, 15th, or whatever, you know, 2023. The way traditionally, for thousands of years Lakota people did it is they would choose one event that represented the most significant thing that happened in the year. So one event, and they would do a little pictogram and they would draw that on, you know, a buffalo hide or, you know, whatever they could. And so that would be like the year of whatever the event was, maybe the year of the wonderful buffalo hunts or the year of this or that. And so that was the calendar system. So it denoted years by a specific individual event, which I loved and is, you know, very... you know, it's just a beautiful concept. And so in the book Virgil reminisces about his dead sister, and he remembers drawing Winter Counts when he was a kid. And so I wanted to bring in that, that concept of the traditional Lakota calendar system, but obviously the title of the book has a double meaning, winter counts, meaning winter matters.

Okay, winter matters. And that's very true in South Dakota. So we're quite a bit further north than you are in Kansas. And you know, I have lived in Kansas and it gets very cold there. But South Dakota, it gets dangerously cold, dangerously, and the reservation, winter is a tough time on the reservation because most houses there do not have central heating. The way that you heat a home for most houses is either a propane system that you have to get a tank of propane or a fair amount of houses just have a fireplace. My own auntie who has since passed on to the spirit world, you know, this 92-year-old woman had to go out and gather firewood and come in and light it. And you know, if she didn't do that, she's gonna freeze to death. And we have had people freeze to death on our reservation which is outrageous in, you know, this wonderfully wealthy country that we have that people are freezing to death because they can't afford $125 tank of propane or firewood. So I wanted the title to have a different... you know, to have a couple of different meanings. And so I had to fight to keep this title as well. I've mentioned editors as well, and he wanted to call it something else but I knew this was the right title and that one I really had to dig in my heels. So winter counts, our calendar system, but also refers to the difficulties that Native people face in the winter up north.

SARA: I kind of want to know what your editor wanted the title to be, but it's okay if you don't want to tell.

DAVID: I'll tell, I'll tell. "Buffalo Nation."

SARA: No. Nope, it doesn't hit as hard. Nope, I don't like it.

DAVID: Yeah, absolutely.

DANIEL: Yeah. So can you actually, can you share some insights in your novel writing process? I was reading somewhere that said that you do an extensive like prep work before jumping into a novel, which is evident in the book, but I was just wondering if you can, like elaborate for writers out there.

DAVID: Sure. So I'll give a, you know, a brief overview of it. But for writers out there, you know, that are curious as to what my process is -- I published an article, I think a year ago, I was interviewed for the wonderful site called Crime Reads. And I was interviewed by Eli Cranor, who just won the Edgar Award for best, best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America. The Edgar Award is our highest award. I was nominated for it myself, although I did not win that particular award. But Eli interviewed me, and I talk at length about my process. I do a lot of research ahead of time when I'm writing a novel. I create an outline, there's a specific sort of outline that I use called a beat sheet. And so I create a beat sheet. But I also think about the themes that I want to hit, the images, the symbols. You know, I think about everything, the slang that I'm going to use, and I spend, I do a lot of work on the front end. So then I can do hopefully a little less revising on the back end. So that's just my process, everybody is different.

Now I'm, I'm fortunate enough, I am a professor of Native American studies. But I also teach in two Master of Fine Arts programs in creative writing. And I just got back from Vienna five days ago where I taught for two weeks to emerging novelists. And so I really go into detail with them, you know, how to do the research as well as other techniques within the writers craft, how to write strong dialog, at cetera, et cetera. And I also teach at a number of... at a number of conferences around the country. I think in January, I'm teaching with my friend Rebecca Makkai, you may know her. She has a great new novel out.

SARA: Oh yeah.

DAVID: Yeah, Rebecca Makkai and some other folks, we're teaching in Key West in January. So if people are interested, you have plenty of opportunities to hear me expand to length on the writing process, but do track down that Crime Reads article, anybody that's out there that is interested in how I do it.

SARA: Yeah, we'll absolutely include that in the show notes.

DANIEL: Yes.

DAVID: Sure.

SARA: So there's a wonderful quote in your novel about how there's no real word for goodbye in the Lakota language because we're forever connected, so to say goodbye would mean that the circle has been broken. And that we've found that to be just very, very powerful. When Virgil is ruminating on this, do you think he really believes these words? Was it something he had to learn? I don't know, what can we all learn from this, this kind of lesson?

DAVID: You know, that's a really interesting question, because I thought you were gonna go a little different direction, you know. So it's true, there is no formal word for goodbye in the Lakota language. Now we have a substitute that's kind of crept in -- tókša, meaning like later, see you later or something -- that is kind of used as a contemporary substitute, you know, tókša, but there's not a formal word for goodbye because, again, Native -- or, you know, again, I can only speak for Lakota people, you know, we have very much believed in the circularity of life, and to say goodbye interrupts that circle, or that was the thought. You know, does Virgil believe it, when he reminisces on this, he muses on it? I think that he doesn't have the complete epiphany until the end of the book, where he really understands in a deep, powerful way that bringing this Native worldview into his life allows him to become whole. So I don't know that he believed it earlier in the book when I introduced that concept, but by the end of the book, I think he's, he's completely sold. Now again, in the sequel, there are gonna be all sorts of new complications. But I will, I will keep that quiet for now.

SARA: Well, we can't wait. But I did, I liked how -- because I feel like if I'm remembering correctly, it was a lesson that his mother had taught him. And you know, he's lost all of these people in his life. And for somebody that's such a hard person -- being a vigilante, I mean, you kind of have to be, right? He speaks with his fists. But he had these like relationships that really, really just helped develop who he is as a person and gives him this other side. And so I don't know, I think... I think I disagree with you about Virgil. I think that he probably really believed it, or at least he wanted to, right?

DAVID: And I love to hear that because, you know, these characters take on such life in people's heads. I did, this might have been two years ago when the book had just come out. But I did a... I do a lot of book clubs and readers groups just because I love my fans, I love my readers. And one woman asked me she's like, was that police officer, Dennis, was he in on it? Was he in on this? I'm like, "No!"

SARA: We wondered that too.

DAVID: And she says -- I'm like, no, no, no, he wasn't in on it. She's like, "No, no, I think he was. I think he was." And I had to say to her, it's like, you understand I made him up, right? He doesn't actually exist. But I love that so much. Now, here's a story I've told a couple times before, hilariously, there are a couple of these high school and college cheating sites. I don't know what you call them, like, what, SparkNotes or whatever, you know?

DANIEL: Yeah.

DAVID: You know, I don't know what they call them. Back in the day, what were they called, CliffsNotes, you know? But there are a couple of them out there that have done a full unit on Winter Counts. So you can, if you don't want to read the book, you can get like an analysis of the themes, the symbolism, the characters, everything, you know, and I was like, wow, okay. And then one of them had a test -- a quiz, a multiple choice quiz, you could take on Winter Counts. I'm like, well sign me up. So I swear to you, every word here is true. So I took the quiz. I think it was 15 questions on Winter Counts. I took the quiz and I got an A minus. I missed two. I missed two questions on my own book. I swear to you, I got a 93 or something on the book. And I was just so thrilled about this, that I could not get an A plus on the book that I actually wrote. I swear to you, it's true.

SARA: That's so crazy.

DAVID: So yeah, yeah. Anyway, so I love when you said, "No, I disagree with you on Virgil," because I just love how these characters have taken on their own lives.

DANIEL: So I have a question about Virgil. Do you think he'll eat, is he still gonna eat frybread? Like, did he make the full conversion? That's what I -- all the mention of food in the book, we didn't talk about it, but just like I like, I loved because like I know kind of a little bit about the controversy about like frybread being a post-colonial food as compared to traditional and stuff. And it was really interesting to see something about Lakota cuisine and things.

DAVID: You know, so far in the new book, frybread has not come up. It has not yet come up. Virgil -- but that wasn't intentional. It just it just hasn't happened yet. So I haven't really in my head figured out yet if Virgil is going to be anti-frybread or not. So like now you're, now you're making me think I need to run back to the new book and like maybe make some quick changes here, you know, something, so there you go.

DANIEL: And I liked that about his character, how he wasn't 100 percent resistant, like that subplot of him be like, kind of resistant to Lack, but then like kind of embracing.

SARA: He tried all the food and then it was good. And he was like, I can't argue with it being good.

DAVID: Well, you know, the reservation, I was just there three weeks ago, I think I told you my younger son did, he did a fundraiser. My younger son does Rubik's cubes. he competes in these tournaments. He was ranked 25th in the world for a while, you know. And so he did a fundraiser and we traveled up the rez, and he taught a bunch of the young kids there how to solve a Rubik's cube. So I hadn't been on the rez in a couple of years because of travel and COVID and everything. And it just strikes me, it struck me how bereft we are of places to eat and hang out on our reservation. The Rosebud Reservation is about the size of Delaware and we have exactly three restaurants: the buffet on the casino, there's a Subway and this is big news on the rez, a Taco John's opened up, drive thru and that's like really, really big deal there. Now there is a, there was a coffee shop called Buffalo Brew that actually is in not in Winter Counts but in a short story I wrote. It burned down a year ago. And you know, that was like the one place the teenagers had to hang out and just talk and be kids. It burned down. So I put it on my Twitter and then the actress Jana or Jana Schmieding -- she's in Rutherford Falls, if you know, it's a show that just got canceled -- she was also in Reservation Dogs. I think she's a clerk at one of the medical clinics. So she picked it up, my tweet, and we were able to raise about I don't know, five or six thousand dollars.

DANIEL: Oh, that's awesome.

DAVID: However, I was just up there and it has not yet been rebuilt, which is a bummer. So anway, talking about food, it's such a struggle just to get any sort of food on the reservation, much less healthy or tasty food. You know, your options are, you know, Subway or Taco John's or, you know, fried chicken strips at the grocery store. So it's really, it's a struggle. I'll just leave it at that.

DANIEL: You said, yeah, Chester Fried I think was the gas station chicken and like that's what all the gas stations in Oklahoma have to and I was like, yeah, that's... I've heard people say that before.

DAVID: I love the Chester Fried Chicken. So I thank you for mentioning this because I went up there with my son and I you know, my 16-year-old son, and I'm like, "You got to try the Chester Fried Chicken. It's fantastic. I put in my book." So we had some and it was cold and hard and bad. And I'm like, oh, man, you know. And so I had built it up in my young son's mind so much and then to have it be such an utter disappointment, you know, so, you know, I think I just caught them on an off day or something. So anyway, but I love the Chester Fried Chicken.

DANIEL: Yeah, and then I'll stop talking about the food but you mentioned Runza.

SARA: Actually, I knew that one, I knew that reference. Yes. Because we had Runza, I lived in Lawrence for a while and we had a Runza.

DANIEL: Wichita tries to claim bierocks and it's like a big feud between Kansas and Nebraska who invented bierocks.

DAVID: We had them in Hays, Kansas when I lived there. Bierocks are a Kansas thing I thought right, although Volga Germans that came, right, invented bierocks, I thought? I don't know.

DANIEL: Yeah, I don't know. Like, I grew up with bureaucracy because Lawton, where I'm from, also is, it's an army town. So there was German, they put them in Oklahoma there. So like, I've been actually trying to figure that out, like where bierocks comes from for a minute. So that was cool.

DAVID: But it's funny you mentioned the Runza because it's such a weird, specific little chain. So if anybody is watching this podcast that's not in, you know, the middle of the country here, Runza is I think it's just in what, Nebraska and Kansas? Or --

SARA: But it's like north Kansas too, because it doesn't come down to Wichita, we don't have any.

DAVID: And I have never -- and in it, I kind of, in the book I insulted Runza. And I got, I called them like the loose meat sandwich, they're loose meat sandwiches, and I Virgil says, "We call on the loose bowel sandwiches." And, and I got two emails. So that was the only angry emails I got from people just like fuming. "How dare you insult Runza!" And I mean, just fuming, fuming. And I'm like, listen, it's just a book. I'm just having fun. It was funny. You know, I actually --

SARA: You're not the first person to make the joke about Runza, runs. I'm just saying.

DAVID: I know, right? Right, it's obvious!

DANIEL: I have a question about are there any like good resources or organizations you can mention for people that might read the book and want to learn more about like Native culture and --

SARA: -- but specifically those, like the social justice stuff, right? I mean, I think that you bring up a lot of that stuff in your book. Sorry, I'm cutting into your question a little bit.

DANIEL: Yeah, I was just thinking the name of the author of that one book you mentioned.

SARA: Oh, I looked him up. Yeah, Vine Deloria?

DAVID: Oh, yeah.

SARA: I was unfamiliar so I looked him up.

DAVID: Yeah. So yes, there are many social justice organizations and other organizations. So my website lists them. If you go to the book club tab -- my website is davidweiden.com. So one word, davidweiden.com. Again, my full name is David Heska Wanbli Weiden. I write under my Lakota name as well. "Heska Wanbli" means mountain eagle, roughly translated. I was given that name by a medicine man, holy man at ceremony. And so I write under that, but my... it was too long for a website name. And so my website title is just davidweiden.com. And if anybody's interested, go to the book club tab and then scroll down. And I list a lot of them. But I'll tell you some right now. The Lakota People's Law Project is a great site, that they do great work for the Lakota people and they have lots of stuff on their site, about these issues. I also like and I support the One Spirit group that primarily helps Pine Ridge, which is Lakota people just to the west of us. But they really, they really help a lot of people there. And there's another site called Sicangu Community Development Corporation. I think I've got that site up there. They do really great stuff as well.

So folks that are interested, I can vouch for all of these organizations that I have on my website. You know, they're not one of these... they're not shady nonprofits that just exists to make executives rich. All of the money goes to the people and we really need to help -- the Rosebud people especially, we tend to get overshadowed by the Pine Ridge folks, because they're better known. They've, you know, they've had Crazy Horse as their great leader, you know, Red Cloud, the Wounded Knee monument is there. And they have hundreds or maybe 100 charitable organizations that come in and help them. We have two. And so we, we're the second poorest county. The county in which we are located, we're the second poorest in the entire United States, with Pine Ridge being number one. And so we really need someone to help. So folks should go there if they're interested.

SARA: Thank you. We'll include all those in our show notes, for sure. And then we'll link to your website as well so that if anyone wants to read up more about that.

DAVID: Sure.

SARA: Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for sticking with us through all of the technological hookups. Before we go, though, is there anything else you want to like let us know? You've said you are, you're already working on our second Virgil Wounded Horse novel. Anything else you've got coming up?

DAVID: Sure, sure. So the sequel will be called Wisdom Corner. And that's probably... it takes a long time to actually create a book between book designers and cover designs and all that. That's a year away. But I should say that I have a number of short stories out there that include Virgil. One of them is --

DANIEL: Oh, cool.

DAVID: Yeah, yeah. So one of them, I won't grab it now. But so you may or may not know, folks may or may not know, there's a group called The Best American Short Stories. And then there's the best American mystery and suspense stories, best American travel writing. So my book -- my short story is in that book, so I've got a Virgil Wounded Horse story in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories. And so that's a lot of fun. So I, so people who want to know what's Virgil has been up to, it takes place about six months after Winter Counts ends. And I've gotten... so that's a great place to start. So I've got a short story there. I've got a couple other short stories in other volumes, go to my website. Most of them have Virgil Wounded Horse. I've got a new character that I'm creating, Griff Jermaine, who's a Native American attorney, down on his luck attorney in Denver. I published a story with him in a book called, a collection called Denver Noir.

I have a new story coming out called "Sundays." Trigger warning: it's violent and has really difficult subject matter. That volume is coming out September 1, I think. It's called Never Whistle at Night. And it it has short stories by like my friend Tommy Orange, Rebecca Roanhorse, Morgan Talty. They told us to write something dark. Mine was so dark, they said we may have to include a trigger warning. In a book of dark fiction, mine was apparently the darkest of all of them. So I do need to warn you about that. So that is not, that's a standalone story. It has nothing to do with Virgil or any of my other characters. That is coming out and I'm editing a new volume called Native Noir. There's a book, a publishing company in New York called Akashic, Akashic. And they have put 90 volumes out usually tied to a city, like New York City Noir, Los Angeles Noir, St. Louis Noir, where they get literary writers and crime writers to write dark crime stories. Well, they approached me and said, "Do you want to create a volume of Native authored crime stories?" I said, I sure do. And so we have -- so I'm editing this. I'm just waiting on two stories. But it's going to have stories from Tommy Orange. All, all of you know probably the best known -- and I'll have one in there as well -- all the best known Native American writers. So that's called Native Noir and that's that's coming out as well in about a year.

SARA: Awesome. So much.

DANIEL: Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm excited. I'm a big horror fan. So like, I have it, Don't Whistle at Night is in my queue already. So I really can't wait to read that.

DAVID: Excellent, excellent. Very good.

SARA: I'll wait till Daniel reads it and then I'll decide if it's something that I can open my brain up to.

DANIEL: Yeah, I had to tell like, it's Stephen Graham or --

SARA: Stephen Graham Jones?

DANIEL: Yeah, because she's -- Sara's vegan. I had it when I was reading The Only Good Indians, I was like, skip it, skip it. There was too much animal stuff.

SARA: And I appreciate those kinds of warnings. So yeah.

DAVID: My story has nothing to do with veganism or anti-veganism.

SARA: Great, so we're good.

Okay, well, thank you so much, David. This was a fascinating, I'm so glad that we get to, you know, read your book and then talk about it in this like, dive into it a little bit deeper. See where you are coming from. I just really love doing these interviews. So thank you so much.

DANIEL: Thank you so much, and thanks again. It was a great interview. Thank you.

DAVID: Thank you. Thank you, guys. I appreciate the invite and to all everybody watching, readers and supporters, thank you. You don't know how much it means to be. Thank both of you. Thank you, Wichita library. It's been my pleasure and honor.

SARA: And Trey Parker and Matt Stone, if you're watching this, please let David come to Casa Bonita, please.

DANIEL: I'm tagging them in this on Twitter.

SARA: All right.

JENNY, VOICEOVER: Here are some reading recommendations for category 10, abook set in the Great Plains, and other ReadICT categories from our community of readers in the ReadICT Facebook group, and callers to our book review hotline. If you'd like to leave your own book review to be featured on a future episode of this podcast, call our book review hotline at (316) 261-8507. Leaving a review is easy. After the voice prompt, record your name, location if you are outside Wichita. what ReadICT category your book recommendation is for, title and author of the book, and a brief reason why you recommend it to other readers. If you're looking to connect with other like-minded readers online, be sure to join our Facebook group. After logging into Facebook, search for the group #ReadICT challenge and click join. You can also find more reading recommendations for this and other categories by visiting wichitalibrary.org/readict.

Should It Be Told? by Agnes Downey-McPeak. I had the opportunity to read a unique pick for category 10, a book set in the Great Plains, Should It Be Told? by Agnes Downey-McPeak, my great grandmother. She self-published her memoirs in 1984. She was born on her family's farm in Wabaunsee County near Eskridge in 1898. The book is a non-chronological collection of stories, mostly from her childhood. She spends a lot of time discussing the operations of the farm and the various scandals and tragedies of her neighbors.

A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold. This is a heartbreaking book by the mom of Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters at Columbine High School. I'd read it and put it down for a while and then got back to it. It's a heavy topic, but I learned about this tragic event from an entirely different perspective.

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. I didn't know Woman of Light was set in Denver in southeastern Colorado, but since I am in Colorado, it was a serendipitous find. It is about the people on the bottom: Indians, Hispanics, Greeks. It covers five generations but at the center is the sister and brother Luz and Diego. As their story needs background, stories of the earlier generations is inserted. Diego is a snake handler, a man with physical power that fails to protect him. Luz is the woman of light who reads tea leaves, glimpses visions, an inheritance from her ancient relative, the sleepy prophet of Cardona Pueblo. Most of the story is set in Denver in the 1920s and 1930s when the Ku Klux Klan and the power of segregation kept Luz, Diego, and their extended family in their place. The author has researched Denver history and imposed it on the streets and buildings of Denver that are still here. It's a good read, even if you haven't been to Denver. My only gripe: she changed Buffalo Bill to John Wesley.

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews. This is a monologue of an out of place teenage girl in a strict Mennonite community in Canada. She sees through the hypocrisy of the mouth, her uncle and the pastor/leader and the people that lead silent lives. Her mother has left, her sister has left. Noma and her father, a teacher, are left to fend for themselves as best they can. There's really no arc to this book. And that's because there's no arc to Noma's life. Each day is the same. Noma invents more and more outrageous acts to indicate her outsider status in the town. Toews is an amazing writer. By focusing on characters whose lives are so constricted, she reveals something about the restraints that limit many people.

IAN, VOICEOVER: Please Join Us by Catherine McKenzie. This book was quick and intense. I had a little trouble with the switches between now and the past, but I got it pretty quickly. The secret society was an interesting idea. Women networking in ways that men do but women tend not to. Content warning for some violence, graphic details, and references to sexual assault.

Finding Me by Viola Davis. Just finished the audiobook of Finding Me, Viola Davis's memoir. I highly recommend it. A well deserved Grammy for her narrative performance. As she struggles to survive and thrive despite the losses inherent in a childhood of extreme poverty and a profession and society that rejects who she is, this ultimately inspiring book would have worked for category 9, a book about death or grief.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, I listened to my section for number 11, a book about a secret or closed society. The audio version enhanced the dystopian atmosphere for me. Believe it or not, at my age -- 64 -- this is my first reading of Bradbury's novel, rather than the excerpts and readings included in high school and college texts. I was so moved by the end of the book that I drove 50 miles in to Watermark Books to pick up a copy of the 60th anniversary edition so I can enjoy all the commentaries at the end.

The Terminal List by Jack Carr. Listening to The Terminal List by Jack Carr narrated by the inimitable Ray Porter. I don't know if it fits any category, but why did I wait so long to start this series?

CALLER 1: I'm John Hammond located over by Rockwell library. The title I am recommending is That's the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson. It's an interconnected narrative between 19th century Texas and 22nd century future Texas post some unnamed disaster. Newspaper clippings, maps, sketches, a letter that says do not open. It's a novel and it's art. It's S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst meets House of Leaves. Definitely recommend.

CALLER 2: Nathan from Wichita. I read Fables, book one by Bill Willingham. It's an amazing book that breaks down a lot of the characters you know and they take an unusual twist with most of them. Each book's written in a different style, and it keeps your interest going with it. Slow but interesting story.

CALLER 3: Traci From Derby, Kansas. The title is Game On: Tempting 28 by Janet Evanovich. It's a humorous mystery fiction, another great installment of the Stephanie Plum series. In this book, Diesel is back to help catch a notorious computer hacker. And the usual mayhem ensues with car bombs, mortuary visits, and Lulu creating havoc. I always enjoy these books because they're fast reads and they make me laugh.

CALLER 4: My name is Staci and the book I am recommending is Louisiana Longshot, a Miss Fortune Mystery by Jana DeLeon. It was a fun light read with a witty heroine and a pair of the founding members of the Sinful Ladies Society. This book had action, adventure, and humorous and was just easy to get through and very enjoyable. Thank you.

CALLER 5: My name is Cille. I'm calling from Wichita, Kansas. The book that I would like to recommend is The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes. The Deep depicts an underwater society built by the water breathing descendants of pregnant slaves thrown overboard from slave ships. It's a really unique and interesting take on mermaids. And I think anyone who, who enjoys some thought provoking literature would appreciate it.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Wow, what a great episode.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah, I really loved the interview. That was great.

SARA, VOICEOVER: He was just such a nice guy. And honestly, I think it kind of made up for your jokes at the beginning of this episode.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Listen, three of those were ChatGPT's jokes, I only had one.

SARA, VOICEOVER: You decided that we should read them.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Well, I gotta say I loved the interview. And Winter Counts is great. And I think I finally found a mystery book that I can get into, and I'm looking forward to the next one that comes up.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Yeah, should be really, really good. I'm also gonna pick it up and read it. So yeah, let's get on with these credits.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: A list of the books discussed in today's episode can be found in the accompanying show notes. To request any of the books heard about in today's episode, visit wichitalibrary.org or call us at (316) 261-8500.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Thank you to David Heska Wanbli Weiden for joining us for today's recording. We'd also like to thank those that shared recommendations for category 10 and all the rest of the books for the ReadICT Reading Challenge.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: This has been a production of the Wichita Public Library and a big thanks goes out to our production crew and podcast team.

SARA, VOICEOVER: To participate in the ReadICT Reading Challenge, visit wichitalibrary.org/readict. You can stay connected with other ReadICT participants on the ReadICT challenge Facebook page, find out what's trending near you, post book reviews, look for local and virtual events, and share book humor with like-minded folks. To join the group, search #ReadICT challenge on Facebook and click join.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And don't forget to log your books in the reading tracker app, Beanstack. Each month you log into a book in the challenge, you're eligible to win fun prizes. If you need any assistance signing up or logging books, give us a call, reach us on chat, or stop by your nearest branch.

SARA, VOICEOVER: You can follow this podcast through the Spotify app or stream episodes on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. If you like what you heard today, be sure to subscribe and share with all your friends.

Bye!

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Bye.