Attendees of the Creative Writing Workshop “Choctaw Culture and History Preservation” were Audrey Jacob, Carolyn Hall, Dianna Street, Lynda Kay Sawyer, Candace Dees, instructor, Choctaw author, editor and storyteller, Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Shonnie Hall, Colin Kelley, Rebecca Good, and Shelia Kirven.
Teaching a Lesson in Telling the Choctaw Story
Durant, Okla.– Choctaw author, editor and storyteller, Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, recently held a day-long Creative Writing Workshop entitled Choctaw Culture and History Preservation at the Choctaw Nation Community Center in Poteau. Choctaw writers of various skill levels were invited to register for the free workshop and attendees came from all across the Choctaw Nation. The workshop delved into subjects including research, capturing culture and history, and the publication process.
Sawyer advised workshop attendees on the value of gathering information through family stories, journals, letters, memoirs, and interviews to get started in the writing process. She said that literally millions of records are still out there in the world that have not been digitized and that many times one has to actually go to where the documents are located to do fact finding.
Visiting local museums, libraries, universities, national parks, historical societies, and tribal offices and asking what documents are vaulted and may not be online is an important tool to remember. Consulting with the experts is still a great way to get your facts. Also, reading newspapers, catalogs, magazines, and literature of the time period is a great tool to use in your writing, she noted. By getting a feel of what was going on in the era that you write in helps tremendously.
She reminded the group, “Do your own research and do as much as you can to be accurate.” She went over the importance of making sure that the writer documents his or her sources and gives credit where it is due, making sure to “guard against assumptions.” She reminded the group that just because you think you know something to be true, exercise due diligence and do your homework to make absolutely sure before you write it down.
Emphasizing the importance of getting works published for preservation reasons, Sawyer noted, sometimes can be as easy as publishing an annual family Christmas letter and distributing it among family and friends. She stressed getting the stories on paper and getting them out for others to read and enjoy.
Workshop attendees were each given a copy of “Touch My Tears,” a compilation of Trail of Tears stories that Sawyer had previously edited and published.
Feedback from those attending the workshop was very positive:
“Everything was great. I would love more of these in our area. I especially enjoyed hearing everyone’s writing.”
“Enjoyed the lessons and opportunity! Yakoke.”
“All good info. Well worth the day.”
“This will help me get a jump start on my new adventures. Thank you for offering this opportunity to the Choctaw people. This was exactly what I have been looking for. Please offer more soon.”
Sawyer said, “With a small group of Choctaw writers and storytellers, we were able to cover a broad spectrum of how to preserve Choctaw culture and history through the written word. From an illustrator to a master storyteller, we saw connections made and bonds form. I hope each one in the workshop can take what they learned and apply it to their projects.”
Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer is an award-winning author and Choctaw storyteller of traditional and fictional tales based on the lives of her people. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has honored her as a literary artist through their Artist Leadership Program for her work in preserving Trail of Tears stories. In 2015, First Peoples Fund awarded her an Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship. She writes from her hometown in East Texas, partnering with her mom, Lynda Kay Sawyer, in continued research for future novels. Learn more about their work in preserving Choctaw history at ChoctawSpirit.com.