Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms

 Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache author of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comics. 

Based on a recommendation from a colleague, I read her books Elatsoe and A Snake Falls to Earth. One of the things that I loved about A Snake Falls to Earth is that the book is not driven by a will-they-or-won't-they romantic subplot. I found it refreshing. It's a wholesome story about friendship, community, and books. There is so much kindness in the book. And the main character is so tender hearted. I also loved the intergenerational connections/family responsibility elements of the story. I relied on one of Darcie Little Badger's short stories in order to conclude my dissertation (now available through the ERIC database). 

I was very surprised to learn that her books have appeared on book ban lists in the US. Here is a site which contains a number of Indigenous books banned in the US if you would like to support authors of banned books by purchasing their books. 

Anyhow, Darcie is one of the editors of this new anthology, Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms. 

I was listening to a podcast for the launch of the book, and in the podcast Darcie talked about how the people who put her books on a book ban list did so because of the asexual characters in the book, and the people who banned her books did not even read them. In the podcast she also talks about her recent experience where she was slated to speak at a post-secondary institution, but then shortly before the event they gave her a list of banned words/concepts that she could not use in her presentation, and she cancelled the event. She posted the list and her cancellation on social media, and the media picked it up. The newspaper articles are behind a paywall, but this article from Inside Higher Ed is free. 

The banned words/concepts are: 

• equity, diversity & inclusion 
• anti-racism 
• bias 
• Critical Race Theory 
• implicit bias 
• oppression 
• intersectionality 
• prohibited discriminatory practices 
• racial privilege 
• promoting stereotypes based on personal identity characteristics

In the podcast, co-editors of the collection also reflect on the list of words, and also the general political climate right now. I accessed it for free. 

I provide all of this background as context. The publisher's description of this book is this: 

Rooted in visions of Indigenous futurisms, Beyond the Glittering World proclaims and celebrates a rising generation of storytellers.The collection brings together twenty-two emerging and established women, two-spirit people, and people of marginalized genders who immerse readers in poems, stories, and worlds that challenge and delight. From a museum heist 177 years in the making, to lyrical explorations of love and loss, to a tale where language itself becomes the force that saves the land, this boundary-breaking, genre-bending anthology illuminates the power of Indigenous voices.

In the context of book bans and banned word lists, the act of imagining a different future is a critical and important act. I really commend the editors and authors for doing this work within a political context where there is active structural hostility towards this work. They model how to respond to oppression with creativity and hope. 

The book begins with a foreward by Natalie Diaz. She reflects on the Mojave language and how it informs her understanding of the future, and her relationship to the future. She says, "My responsibility as a human, is to not sit and wait for it but instead to meet is, through my makings and labors of sleep or dream, or running wild in the night." (Diaz, 2025, p.1). She explains that the title of the book comes from Native stories such as, "the Mojave glittering or sparkling world is a time when the world was still wet, after a flood or deluge, or after the original waters we came from had receded." (Diaz, 2025, p.II). She explains that the glittering world is where we live. "In this glittering world we are also taught to dream. We have become those dreams. And we have yet to become those dreams." (Diaz, 2025, p.II). And she comments on how the authors in this anthology honour the idea of the glittering world through their work.

I think that the glittering world is a beautiful concept. I have heard different flood stories from different places, but the glittering world is new to me. I will think of the glittering world when it rains (as it does often in Vancouver). I also love that the concept entails the impetus to dream.

The book contains an introduction written by the editors. They review the history of Indigenous anthologies and celebrate some of their favourite Indigenous authors who came before them. Regarding how their own cultures informed the work of editing the book they state, "Our traditional conceptions of gender and sexuality take on a subversive role as they challenge oppressive patriarchal structures. Women, Two-Spirit people and people of marginalized genders can be incredible leaders and story tellers; in the vein of futurisms, this has been, is, and will always be true." (Denetsosie, Drake & Little Badger, 2025, p.VI). And they explain that in this anthology, "each piece in its own way, answers the question: What lies beyond this Glittering World?" (Denetsosie, Drake & Little Badger, 2025, p.VI).

I love the strengths based stance that the editors take towards Indigenous stories, and also the way that they celebrate the act of storytelling as important work. 

The book includes many authors who are Indigenous to the southwestern United States. It also includes authors who are Indigenous to other regions of the United States, Mexico, Samoa, and Canada. The authors who are Indigenous to Canada are jaye simpson and Arielle Twist. 

The book is compact (204 pages) and features over twenty contributors, so the works are short. Some of the poems are only one to two pages long. I like short pieces. I think it's interesting to see what people can do in a small space. I read this just before the holidays. I did not take too many notes and I was not in an analytic mode. I just kind of existed inside of the book and it was nice. 

One story which stood out to me was Sky Woman Rising: A Memoir by Moniquill Blackgoose. In the story, humans are trying to leave earth. They need to live in space for awhile in order to let earth recover. But the scientists can't get it right. Indigenous people drew lessons from the story of Sky Woman in order to inform how to build their space biome, and they are successful. What I love about this story is that it presents Indigenous knowledge and science as complementary and overlapping. I often get annoyed when people make charts comparing Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. Generally I think it's not a compelling persuasive strategy because it's an overly broad approach which everyone can find something to disagree with. Anyhow, sometimes in those comparisons, people will put science in the non-Indigenous column, as though Indigenous people did not have our own systems of knowledge and inquiry. I dislike categorizing science as being a non-Indigenous thing because I think it has the potential to lead to Indigenous people being marginalized in science and it also runs the risk that we will marginalize ourselves by avoiding science. What I love about this story is that Indigenous Knowledge literally helps save the world, and it does so by informing a scientific problem which western science on its own could not solve. Indigenous Knowledge, encoded in stories, has an important role in the present and the future. 

I'm currently in a period in my life where I have gone through a period of grieving my aunt, my uncles, and my cousin. As such, the story Sandstone ballad by Danielle Shandiin Emerson really moved me. In the story, the mother dies. But the one of her children finds a statue which looks like her, and it is kind of alive. The story navigates the unease of this mother statue with the longing that comes with grief. It's not horror. It's something else. 

The Oklahoma Ocean by Chelsea T. Hicks was one of my favourite stories. At twenty-seven pages it's one of the longer works. I have no rationale for liking it other than the fact that it was easy to immerse myself in the story. Two friends journey to the Oklahoma Ocean (fracking collapsed aquifers leading to a salinated body of water in Oklahoma) in order to meet a third friend. Everything is uncertain. 

Overall, I would highly recommend this book. I will probably read it again soon. 

Works Cited 

Denetsosie, S.S., Drake, K. & Little Badger, D. Introduction. In (S.S. Denetsosie, K. Drake & D. Little Badger, Eds) Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms (p.III-IV). Salt Lake City, Utah: Torrey House. 

Diaz, N. (2025). Foreward. In (S.S. Denetsosie, K. Drake & D. Little Badger, Eds) Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms (p.I-II). Salt Lake City, Utah: Torrey House. 

***Note: this blog is a sister blog to https://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/

Slash/Back - An alien invasion story and a celebration of Indigenous girlhood

Slash/Back is an alien invasion film written by Nyla Innuksuk (Inuk) and Ryan Cavan, and directed by Nyla Innuksuk (2022). It begins with Maika as a small girl in a small boat. Her father is teaching her to shoot. Six years later, Maika is at home with her father and he goes to ask her for help, but she declines to help and rushes out of the house to see her friends. The friends, a group of Inuit teenaged girls, are hanging around town and they see Maika’s dad standing outside of a store selling meat. Maika is embarrassed by her dad. The girls decide to take his boat for a joyride.

They dock in an isolated area. One of the girls tells a story: 

Uki: You know the Kattuk boy that went missing last spring?

Leena: Yeah.

Uki: Well, Brenda was talking to Billy Mike, and Billy Mike was talking to a fisherman from Iqaluit, and he said that he saw the boy playing by the water. And then, like, a fog rolls in. And out comes a grey head, with long black hair. And you know what happens next?

Leena: What?

Uki: He snatches the boy and drags him into the water. 

Leena: Qalupalik.

Maika: Get out of here with that silly Inuk shit.

While on the land, they encounter a strange bear which they shoot. They return to the village. As all of the adults in the village prepare to go to a dance, the girls secretly plan to go to a house party. While at the house party, Maika expresses disdain for Inuit visual culture. Meanwhile, one of the girls returns to the area where they shot the bear and learns that the strange bear was not really a bear, it was an alien in disguise and there are other aliens which kill animals and then wear their skins in order to disguise their alien nature. She rushes back to the village to tell the other girls but they think she is making up silly stories, as she is known for telling Inuit stories. But then an alien attacks the party. 

The girls outfit themselves with modern and traditional hunting weapons. “Nobody fucks with the girls from Pang,” they state, as they bring out a felt marker pen to adorn themselves with traditional face markings. The girls have a series of skirmishes with the aliens in various locations. They follow one of the aliens to Maika’s house where her dad is attacked by an alien in the kitchen. Maika has a quick flashback moment from six years ago where her father showed her a blade, and told her that it was her great-grandfather’s blade. Her great-grandfather was the greatest hunter in Pang, and someday the blade would be hers. As the father is pinned down by the alien, Maika uses her great-grandfather’s blade to attack the alien and saves her father. The girls successfully fight aliens to the point that aliens leave earth. One month later Maika and her father are running a traditional food stand together and are very happy. 

I enjoyed every minute of this movie. The aspect of it that I appreciate the most is its representation of Indigenous girlhood. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, residential schools imposed colonial gender roles onto Indigenous people, and these gender roles negatively impacted the role that women traditionally played in Indigenous families and communities (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015, p. 147). My grandmother did not go to residential school. Her childhood was on the land. She got married young. She was a full contributor to her family through hunting and fishing. When I saw this movie which features female hunters who were capable and determined, I felt proud of the role of women in my family and our history. The idea that women are capable and fierce is one of the gifts that my ancestors have given me. 

The most powerful moment for me was when Maika’s dad was trapped, unable to help himself, and Maika took her grandfather’s hunting weapon and used it to save her dad. He taught her how to hunt, and she used that knowledge to save him. It was a transformative moment of connection. Earlier in the movie she had expressed shame and embarrassment about her culture. She wished to distance herself from it. Nonetheless, it was there when she needed it. She exercised it as a way to save herself, her family, and her community. She contributed to the world and demonstrated leadership through culture. And this transformed her, bringing her closer to her father. Early in the movie, when her father was selling meat in front of the store, she was embarrassed by him. But later in the movie, when they have a food stand together in front of the store, she is proud and happy. 

Sometimes trying to hide from one’s identity can seem like a logical choice for survival. Here’s the mental shortcut that her character may have taken: “My family is struggling financially. Perhaps the cause of our struggles is our Indigenous identity. Perhaps if I distance myself from being Indigenous, my life will get easier.” But then, she is put into a position where her identity, and specifically the cultural knowledge her dad has taught her, is a resource. This moves her from a place of shame to pride. This arc is not unique to Slash/Back. Literary scholar Mandy Suhr Sytsma says Indigenous young adult texts

do tend to be strongly focalized through individual young Native protagonists who mature as they move from rebellion against, to reconciliation with their Indigenous communities, these protagonists experience an increase rather than a decrease of personal agency as a result of that reconciliation. Furthermore, their rebellion against colonial ideologies do not diminish but instead intensifies as the narratives draw to a close. (2019, p. xxvii)

Within Slash/Back, the alien invasion is the catalyst for this maturing. It provides an opportunity for the girls to exercise leadership and responsibility, and in doing so, facilitates a sense of accomplishment. And it also provides the group with an experience where they are able to contribute to the well-being of their community through their hunting knowledge, and as such, transforms their sense of belonging within the community. Maika’s transformation from shame to pride is a reminder to be kind, because you never know what kind of trials someone has gone through in order to arrive at a place where they claim their Indigenous identity with pride.  

Works Cited 

Innuksuk, N., & Cavan, R. (2022). Slash/back [Film]. Mixtape VR, Red Marrow Media, Scythia Films & Stellar Citizens. 

Suhr-Sytsma, M. (2019). Self-determined stories: The Indigenous reinvention of young adult literature. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press. 

Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (2015). The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Volume 5. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Truth and Reconciliation Commission. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Volume_5_Legacy_English_Web.pdf

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This is an adapted excerpt from my dissertation, Singing into the Machine, p.92-96

This blog is a sister blog to https://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/