In an attempt to make my initial post memorable, the best I could come up with was starting the title with the word "First." I like the idea of first being first. Like the first word of the Bible being "Bereshiyth" (the transliterated Hebrew) or "In the beginning" (the traditional English translation.) First is first. Beginning is beginning. That kind of thing. It somehow casts the whole idea of progress in a circle rather than a straight line. Self-description describing self. A great place to start: at the first, in the beginning.
For example, my first novel, The Flaming O Motel, which begins a trilogy, uses that circle-motif: O. The title of my projected second novel has it, too: O2 (Circle Squared). [The '2' should be superscript, but I haven't figured out how to do that in bloggish yet. If I knew how to HTML, I could probably get it right, but since I don't, I'll leave it for later.] And in the third novel of the series -- kaleidOscope -- the circle will reappear. (FYI, the word 'kaleidoscope' comes from the Greek for 'beautiful-shape vision.')
By way of credentials for what I write, I graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with an M.A. in American Indian Studies where my graduate committee was kind enough to allow me to do my thesis as a collection of short stories. Several of my close friends were from the Tohono O'odham tribe, so although I don't feel that I have the moral authority to report for Tribal Americans, my views of Tribal Americans do have some legitimacy.
As for my credentials for how I write, short stories of mine have appeared in literary magazines such as The Madison Review, Crosscurrents, and Negative Capability. I have attended Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont, and Ploughshares' International Fiction Writing Seminar at Kasteel Well in the Netherlands. I received a Professional Development Grant from the state of Arizona, and won the first Copper Award presented by the Society of Southwest Authors.
Okay. I think that's enough for the first step.
