Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcie Rendon.
Hi Marcie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
From the time I learned to read and write, I have been creating stories, poems, and plays. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I decided to actively pursue writing as a career. I took a 12-week journalism class at the University of Minnesota that was designed for Native Americans. My mentor in that program was Cherokee author Art Coulson. Around the same time, I received a Loft Inroads Writers of Color Award to be mentored by Anishinaabe writer, Jim Northrup. Buffy Sedlachek, the playwright, was another mentor through the Playwright Center.
With her guidance, my first play, Bring the Children Home, was produced by Child’s Play Theater at Pillsbury House.
All the while I was writing poetry, plays, and news articles, I was also working on crime novels and participating in a ‘meet and eat’ women’s writing group. It was with their encouragement that my first crime novel, Murder on the Red River was published. All along my writing journey I have had the privilege of being mentored by other incredible writers who encouraged me and saw skill and talent worth pursuing. I have tried to be a similar resource to others as a way of ‘paying forward/paying back’.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My first novel, Murder on the Red River, it was five years of rejection by agents and publishers.
I told my friend, Debbie Reese, Nambi Pueblo, that I was giving up and she suggested I send my manuscript to Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, Texas. Cinco Puntos published the first two books. I have since acquired a literary agent, Jacqui Lipton and Soho Press is now the publisher of my Cash Blackbear crime novel series.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am one of the first Native Americans to write and be published in the crime novel genre. I write poetry, plays, and short stories.
In 2020 I was the first Native American female to receive the Mcknight Distinguished Artist Award in the state of Minnesota. “Marcie brings a strong and necessary voice to so many genres,” said McKnight Foundation interim president Pamela Wheelock. “She has created a tremendous body of work, including poetry, plays, lyrics, and award-winning crime novels, all while raising up other Native voices in our community. Her commitment to making art in the community embodies what a distinguished artist means to Minnesota and to McKnight.”
My more recent work with poetry and plays is a focus on the issue of #MMIW – missing and murdered Indian women – and calling attention, through my work regarding that issue. My play, Say Their Names, had a staged reading at the St. Paul History Theater in November of 2022 and we hope to
I have achieved many things while being a single parent, raising my own daughters and grandchildren. I am most proud of my family.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Some of my favorite collaborations have been with folks creating performance pieces/plays under the guise of my not-for-real theater company Raving Native Theater Productions.
A small group of us used to create ‘theater in the house productions’ and we also collaboratively created Fringe Festival shows like Free Frybread. More recently, during covid, my grandchildren and I created and performed an 8-minute piece for Patrick’s Cabaret on zoom. I have worked with composer Brent Michael Davids on theatrical pieces and some of his musical work. Pre-covid I collaborated with local Native artists to host a Raving Native Date Night once a month at a local venue. Writing novels is a solitary venture, whereas theater work can be great fun, experimental and an opportunity for a group of people to step outside of normal comfort zones.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marcierendon.com/
- Instagram: @marcierendon
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarcieRendonMN
- Twitter: @MarcieRendon
