Famous author Tommy Orange will be speaking at Oklahoma City University.
Tommy Orange, a famous author and Pulitzer Prize finalist, will be giving a webinar to Oklahoma City University students at 6 p.m. on April 1 via Zoom. The webinar, “Writing As Resistance: A Conversation With Tommy Orange,” will dive into his personal life story, the plot of his novel There There, as well as a conversation about Indigenous people and their struggles.
Orange is from Oakland, California and is a member of both the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Orange draws inspiration from his own upbringing while trying to fill a gap that exists currently in the book market, stories about urban Native Americans.
Orange’s debut fiction novel There There details the lives of various urban Native American citizens and the struggles they face. The book addresses struggles including substance abuse, mental illness and abusive relationships. The novel was released in 2018 and had massive success due to its honest portrayal of urban Native American citizens. Orange became a Pulitzer finalist due to this novel.
Initially scheduled for spring 2020, the seminar was unable to happen due OCU’s closure move to online courses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic did not stop Rob Roensch, creative writing professor, from choosing There There for his class to read and dissect this semester.
“It’s an award-winning novel, and people have been talking about it all over the country, and so when I found out he was coming to OCU, I thought it’d be a good idea,” Roensch said.
As a creative writing professor, Roensch said he thinks Orange demonstrates phenomenal writing due to the characters being portrayed in a memorable way. Roensch said he feels it’s important to speak up about the issues portrayed in There There.
“I think that it tells a great story about urban Native Americans and is a story that needs to be told,” Roensch said.
Gladys Green, psychology freshman, said she thinks having Orange on campus will be a great opportunity to be educated on some of the issues that Indigenous people face.
“I think it’s important, especially for our community, because we have to be constantly updated about these issues that the Indigenous communities face. It’s great to have someone from that community speak on those issues, and I’m just really excited that we’re doing things like this on campus to educate people on this and to have authors who have different backgrounds and are from different cultures and communities,” Green said.
Orange is also hosting a Q&A session where 25 individuals will be able to ask Orange questions regarding the book and the issues discussed about Indigenous people.
Briana Carrethers, nursing freshman, said she thinks people participating in the Q&A should dive into questions to really get the opportunity to educate themselves and to learn new perspectives.
“For me, personally, I would ask him how to better embrace Indigenous culture in such a white-washed America,” Carrethers said. “I think other students should take this opportunity to learn and to grow, and to learn more about his specific tribe to see what they can do, whether Indigenous or not, to further contribute to Indigenous people getting their land back and getting their voices heard.”
Students can visit http://okcu.link/orange to register for the event.
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