Lois Beardslee: Words Like Thunder

The Freshwater Reporter’s Valerie Chandler has a great feature on the latest work from Leelanau Native artist Lois Beardslee that begins:

Living in quiet Maple City, Michigan is multiple award-winning Native American author Lois Beardslee. A Lacondon/Ojibwe teacher, artist, illustrator and former cherry farmer, Beardslee will speak about socioeconomic perspectives as an Anishinaabe author at 7 p.m., April 13, in Milliken Auditorium at Dennos Museum Center on the Northwestern Michigan College campus in Traverse City.

“I plan to show images of my artwork, to show how I’ve been able to use traditional art forms, like the (birch) bark cut-outs, in contemporary venues,” Beardslee said. “Because the Grand Traverse region grew so quickly in the first decades of the 21st century, local Indigenous artwork was buried in the art forms and culture of a changing cultural norm.”

She will read from a variety of her works, including her most recent book, “Words Like Thunder: New and Used Anishinaabe Prayers” (Wayne State University Press, 2020), which won a 2021 Michigan Notable Book Award and a silver medal in the 2021 Midwest Independent Book Awards. With added distinction, she’s the first Native American to be awarded the Michigan Notable Book Award.

Read lots more about Lois & her latest work in the Freshwater Reporter, and if you want to go back in time a ways, check out this 1996 feature on Lois in our Northern Michigan Journal by Jim Rink.