A life-long intuitive embrace of imagination's intrinsic and motivational power has fueled my writing of numerous narratives, novels, short stories, and award-winning poetry harboring my personal and societal survival methodology themes. Birthed from my mother's 9 decades-old childhood memory, shared with me 30 years before her passing in 2012, "Bad Water" gestated into both a poignant story of loss and an introspective epiphany for the living. An "after-midnight vigil" remembrance of a disappeared sibling — whose “soul voice” refused to be quieted or forgotten. The dead’s calling bears a "culture-hex" burning through the childhood fog of forgetfulness, offering “story” as a powerful “sound-language" for "Sawubona" or ancestral remembrance. As storytellers, we weave truth into dreams and utilize forgotten voices to transport healing modalities - a form of ancestral "Good Medicine" for all our relations. As an award-winning master storyteller and master teaching artist, my oral, written and digitally-recorded archived life works bear witness to the importance and efficacy of storytellers as memory-bearers who carry on tales of struggle and hope beyond societal censors of despair.
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