Marilyn's Musings

              There are times I wish I didn’t have this need to make sure people learn something from my fiction books. But growing up, books were how I learned about the world. People and places that I didn’t hear about in school or see that much on television. I believe all books whether they are non-fiction of fiction should take the reader to a place they’ve never been or show them a place they’ve been in a different way.  Because of that need to teach, I always try to bring something I didn’t know about into my books so I learn about it and then add it to the story. My Shandra Higheagle Mystery is such a series. I had to learn about finding clay and making it “pure” so it could be used in making pottery. I’ve learned different pottery techniques from magazines and online. I’ve had to research Idaho county law enforcement and the state law enforcement. And most of all, I’ve had to learn about the Colville Indian Reservation i...

I’ve always been fascinated by Indian* culture. Not from a touristy point of view, mind you, but more from a strong, unyielding pull that comes from deep inside me and seems to grow stronger with every year. I’m not sure why this is happening, but I do know I have some native blood flowing in my veins. My grandmother told me that one of her French Canadian ancestors married a native woman. I’ve been proud of that fact all my life, but went along blindly accepting the fact without asking more questions until it was too late. My grandmother and father both died in the same year—1997—and there’s no one else to query about which tribe my great, great, great grandmother may have belonged to, or where she lived in Canada. I do know that my grandmother was born in a little town named Beau Rivage, near Quebec, and that it no longer exists because of an intentional flooding done to create a lake, or some such thing. Some folks have suggested our tribe was the Metis, but I...