For writer Maurice Kenny, his Native American heritage is a strong influence on his work.
“If you have Native blood, then anything you write would be about Native Americans, because first you are a human, then you are a race, then you are an artist,” Kenny said. “Even my books about Anglos still come from a Native American perspective.”
The award-winning novelist will discuss his two new books Thursday at the Union.
Kenny has published two books with the Michigan State University Press: “In the Time of the Present,” a book of poetry released in July, and “Tortured Skins and Other Fictions,” released in March.
Kenny will also talk about two other books he has just written.
“I have a new book of fiction, ‘Monahcita,’ who was the alleged wife of George Custer, and another book on Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist. These books are hot off the press of my mind,” Kenny said.
Kenny, who is a member of the Mohawk tribe, said all his books are about Native Americans.
Although most of Kenny’s characters are Native American, he doesn’t always give them a tribal affiliation.
“I want my reader to think bigger than one nation,” he said. “I want to open doors into a wider horizon.”
The creative writing professor at the State University of New York at Potsdam, also will have a book reading and signing at 7:30 p.m. today at Schuler Books & The Chapbook Cafe, 2075 W. Grand River Ave. in Okemos.
“It is good to have him here because he is a Native American poet, and we don’t get that opportunity much on campus,” said Pat LeBeau, an American Thought and Language associate professor and director of the American Indian Studies Program. “Non-Native American students would be exposed to something other than a stereotype of warrior imagery that we find in comic books and movies.”
Kenny has published 34 books, some of which took years to research and write.
“I tell my students a good writer is a good listener, I listen for voices,” Kenny said. “The stone tells the sculptor what it wants to be, the voice tells the writer what it wants to be.”
The reading and signing reception is from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday in the Union Ohio State Room. For more information, call the MSU Press at 355-9543.
