anne • sikking

Festival of Angels and Song of Granada were always intended as the first two novels in a trilogy, Novels of the Spirit... but after Song of Granada I seemed to lose my way...no third book materialised.

In January 2023 one of my sons took me on a sort of pilgrimage to Bishop, California. We stayed on the Paiute Reservation, struck out in deep snow and biting cold for the snow, mountains, boulders, and incised gorges. Later we bathed in thermal springs in our knickers.

Having been torn from my birthplace as a toddler, searching for and finding many homes over many years, I was surprised by the impact Bishop made on me. Clearly this was not MY rez. My grandfather's birthplace was the Cheyenne rez of Oklahoma. My grandmother's people had been force marched from East to the West on the now infamous Trail of Tears. Yet I felt a visceral connection to what is known as 'the Owens Valley'... 

The third and final novel of the trilogy, Novels of the Spirit, takes place in this landscape, and is now underway.