Nick Estes, 2022 One Book South Dakota, Livestream

In wrapping up the 2022 One Book South Dakota program, on September 23, 2022, Nick Estes, Ph.D., (Kul Wicasa/Lower Brule) gave the Friday night address at Festival of Books. His book, Our History is the Future, was the #NativeReads 2019 selection and the One Book South Dakota for 2022. Watch online via the South Dakota Humanities Council’s Facebook Livestream. You shouldn’t need Facebook to be able to watch.

For more information about, ‘Our History is the Future,’ please visit the #NativeReads page as the lead selection for this project in 2019.

Estes One Book South Dakota kick-off in Sisseton

Nick Estes’s One Book South Dakota KICK-OFF begins in Sisseton

Wednesday, July 20, Sisseton 5:30 p.m. – Sisseton Wahpeton College (Rooftop of Vocational Education Building, or SWC Library in case of inclement weather), 12572 BIA Road 700. For more information, contact coordinator Delphine Hagel, 605-742-1104

Thursday, July 21, Aberdeen 7 p.m. – K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library, 215 Southeast 4th Ave. For more information, contact coordinator Cara Perrion, 605-626-7097

You’re invited! Part of the mission of the Oak Lake Writers’ Society is to support the efforts of our members before, during, and after the writing process. Please attend if possible.

Photo courtesy of South Dakota Humanities Council

Nick Estes (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe), Ph.D., is a scholar of American Indian studies currently teaching in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, activist for social justice, co-founder of Red Nation and Red Media, and member of the Oak Lake Writers’ Society, also serving as an OLWS Board Member.

Thank you to the South Dakota Humanities Council for recognizing the outstanding work of this tribal writer and working with OLWS to spread the word and provide materials.

For more information about One Book South Dakota and Nick’s tour, please visit the South Dakota Humanities Council blog.

Celebrating #NativeReads, Our History episode (and what's next)

The Red Nation Podcast · #NativeReads ep. 11: Our History is the Future w/ Nick Estes

This week, Dr. Sarah Hernandez interviews Dr. Nick Estes as this final episode wraps up the popular podcast series featuring the ten 2020 selections of #NativeReads Books for Indigenous Communities.

The #NativeReads podcasts have been downloaded over 60,000 times.

Hold on, though, you haven’t heard the last of #NativeReads.

When the #NativeReads campaign began back in early 2019 led by Dr. Sarah Hernandez, nobody could have guessed at the global pandemic about to overtake the globe, including Indian Country.

The stories in the ten books chosen for #NativeReads, including the #NativeReads One Book selection, “Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance,” by OLWS Board Member Dr. Nick Estes (Lower Brule), gifted everyone the determination to continue with the project, even as conferences and other opportunities to share our work disappeared.

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Hernandez (Rosebud) and Dr. Nick Estes on this successful podcast series. Congratulations are also due to the first #NativeReads committee members (Lanniko Lee, Gabrielle Tateskanskan, Patti Bordeaux Nelson, Joel Waters and Tasiyagnunpa Barondeau), representing the Oak Lake Writers Society and its dedication to Oceti Sakowin Oyate writing and the Dakota Literary Tradition. These members continued to collaborate to help adapt the project due to the pandemic and to plan for the future of #NativeReads. And we can’t forget the funder who catalyzed this project, First Nations Development Institute. Wopila tanka.

What’s next?

While the 2020 offering of #NativeReads wraps up, the Oak Lake Writers Society will be reorganizing our website to better communicate the merits of each book and allow for continued curation of important resources for each title. Our work will also be feature in educational conferences going forward.

Dr. Sarah Hernandez also has a new book coming out regarding the Dakota Literary Tradition and how our women have been integral to its development. This is just an ongoing example of the ageless nature of these particular titles.

Also, the work of #NativeReads continues, both as a podcast directed by Red Media and The Red Nation with the Dine Writers, plus a new initiative in the works, again featuring the collaboration of the Oak Lake Writers Society and the scholarship of Dr. Sarah Hernandez, assistant professor of Literary Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Wopila tanka to Sarah Hernandez for her leadership and to Nick Estes for his support. Hernandez is the first executive director of the Oak Lake Writers Society and now serves as Literature and Legacy Officer of the OLWS Board of Directors. Estes also serves on the OLWS Board of Directors.

OLWS Officers move forward

When changes happen within long-standing organizations, often the memory and spirit of that organization changes at a fundamental level.

But it does not have to be that way.

The Oak Lake Writers’ Society began with a single notion that tribal writers needed a group that would provide peer support, review and a place to be D/N/Lakota. The two early authors of that idea were professors at SDSU (at the time), Lowell Amiotte and Charles Woodard.

On the second day, Amiotte stopped into the recent meeting of Oak Lake and visited with a few of us, hoping to see his good friend Woodard (who was unable to attend this year). While there he reminded several of us, including two of OLWS current group of officers, of that early mission.

OLWS President Mabel Picotte, OLWS Secretary Nick Estes, OLWS Treasurer Tasiyagnunpa Livermont Barondeau, and OLWS Director Sarah Hernandez, met with Elizabeth Cook-Lynn the previous day for an important business meeting. Chris Bordeaux also attended.

OLWS Officers and Director have had the benefit of spending their undergraduate years influenced by the work of the Oak Lake Writers’ Society. Pictured left to right: OLWS Secretary Nick Estes (Lower Brule), OLWS Director Sarah Hernandez (Sicangu), OLWS Treasurer Tasiyagnunpa Livermont Barondeau (Oglala), and OLWS President Mabel Picotte (Yankton).

In that previous day’s business meeting, Cook-Lynn, an early founder with Amiotte and Woodard, continued as she has for years, gifting her time and energy as OLWS co-mentor of each summer retreat and gathering. As we have met with transition as an organization towards self-determination as a fully functioning non-profit, Liz keeps the officers and director reminded that not only are we a writers’ group, but we are also the only tribal writers’ group to engage in the writing, reading and critiquing necessary for tribal sovereignty and self-determination in our communities.

At breakfast the first day, Cook-Lynn, Picotte, Hernandez and Barondeau discussed many things regarding American Indian Studies, including the necessity for responsibility to be taken by tribal members to act like D/N/Lakota people. We agreed that as issues and obstacles come and go, the accountability to the group also sets apart Oak Lake Writers as a true society. Not that we are guilty of group think, but the power of seeing one another yearly, facing up to other tribal writer peers, whether of the academy or not, is powerful.

OLWS always ruled itself by consensus with coordination of the retreat handled by Woodard. As these things shift, and many of our original charter members reorganized and elected younger, newer members as officers and hired a director (unpaid), moving forward in a good way is of utmost concern. We also recognize the need to act and achieve results that our fellow members and board (of primarily elders) expect from us.

While budgets, finances, and non-profit goals were also discussed (OLWS members may expect an email from Estes with minutes), suffice it to say our leadership team kept first things first throughout: to know who we are, where we come from, and to whom we answer to.