Anna Redsand

My serialized essay collection, Fissure: A Life Between Cultures, launched with its first installment on Monday, January 8, 2024 on this website. Fissure is a memoir in twelve essays, five of which have been published in literary journals, one in an anthology. One of the essays, "Naturalization," was notable in Best American Essays 2014. Serialization starts with the Author's Note
 
The collection explores my lived experience of bicultural belonging and identity, the role of language in identity, the effects of colonization in post-colonial Dinétah (Navajo Country), and more. Stories and reflection look into my settler heritage as the child of evangelical missionaries in the Navajo Nation, continuing through my later work in Diné bilingual-bicultural education, probing how colonization has been part of systemic racism in the US and the debt I may owe to the Indigenous culture that continues to play a part in my life. 
 
Segments post on Mondays and Fridays under the "Fissure" tab in the Menu. There is  a Table of Contents tab to help you keep the entries in order in case you miss any or to get you started if you join late. There will always be brief (a sentence or two) newsletter notification of each new installment if you subscribe.

Chapter IX, Installment 3 of Fissure: A Life Between Cultures, "The Importance of Clear," has posted to my website. You can read, comment and share at https://www.annaredsand. com/blog/posts/44406.

 

Although there are four more essays in Fissure, I will not be posting the final three. Instead, I am seeking a publisher for the entire collection. I will post the first essay of Part IV, PASSAGE––a flash essay entitled "Racial Injustice Benefited Me," first published in the Gallup Independent. Part IV brings resolution to many of the unresolved searches described in Parts I and II, so I hope when I score a publisher, you will want to read the collection in its entirety.

 

Thank you so much to all of you who have been with me on this journey and especially to you who have shared your thoughts, reflections, and questions in the comments. They have meant so much to me and have also helped me think more deeply about some of the essays. If you pray, send good mojo, light candles, send good energy––anything in the way of sending goodness––doing so on behalf of finding a publisher will be much appreciated. You might then think of the book's new name: Crevice: A Life Between Worlds. (When folks hear fissure, they often think fisher––not so much!)

 

The second installment of Chapter IX of Fissure: A Life Between Cultures, "The Importance of Clear" has posted to my website. You can read, comment, and share at https://www.annaredsand. com/blog/posts/44384.

 

Chapter IX, Installment 1of Fissure: A Life Between Cultures, "The Importance of Clear" has posted to my website. In "The Importance of Clear" I discover through the lens of language that I may possess a lasting identity of my own. You can read, comment and share at https://www.annaredsand.com/blog/posts/44361.

"Tongues," first published in Fertile: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose from the High Desert and Mountains of the Four Corners Region, explores human and animal existence through multiple meanings in multiple languages––denotative, connotative, and idiomatic––of the word "tongue." You can read, comment, and share at https://www.annaredsand.com/blog/posts/44345