Darcie Little Badger (formerly Darcie Erin Ryan; born 1987) is an American novelist, short story writer, and Earth scientist. Her writings are specialized in speculative fiction, especially horror, science fiction, and fantasy. She is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas.[1] She develops her stories with Apache characters and themes. She has also added her voice to Indigenous Futurism, a movement among Native artists and authors to write science fiction from their historical and cultural perspectives. Her works also feature characters who reconfirm the presence and importance of LGBTQ community members.
Early life and education
Darcie Little Badger was born Darcie Erin Ryan in 1987 to Patrick Ryan, an English professor, and Hermelinda Walking Woman, the webmaster of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas.[2][3] At age seven she wrote her first book, which was submitted for publication with her father's help and politely rejected.[4][5] Throughout her childhood Little Badger moved due to her father's job, but considered Texas to be her home.[5]
After graduating from Pleasant Grove High School in Texarkana, Texas, Little Badger adopted her current surname, as per Lipan tradition.[5] She attended Princeton University in New Jersey, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Geosciences after being rejected twice from the school's creative writing program.[4][5] Little Badger graduated cum laude in 2010[6] and was honored by her department with the Arthur F. Buddington Award for Overall Excellence as an undergraduate student.[2]
After graduating from Texas A&M, Little Badger took a job as an editor of scientific papers.[4][5] She quit this job after selling her first novel, Elatsoe (2020), wanting to divert all her energy into writing.[4]
Little Badger's short fiction has appeared in a range of publications, including Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Mythic Delirium, and The Dark Magazine, among others.[9][10][11][12] Notably, Little Badger enriches her short stories with Apache history and lore. For example, two Apache sisters reunite in "Whalebone Parrot"[10] (The Dark Magazine, 2017), a Victorianhorror story set in the late 19th century on an island in the Atlantic. During the conflict between their tribe and the U.S. Army, the women were orphaned and grew up together in a residential "Indian school". Thus, as Little Badger notes, her story is rooted in Lipan Apache history, a history that "few remember". Similarly, in "Owl vs. the Neighborhood Watch"[9] (Strange Horizons, 2017), she revives Native legend when she places Owl, a shapeshiftingsupernatural harbinger of evil, in a story set in contemporary Appalachia.
Novels
Little Badger began writing her debut novel, Elatsoe,[13] in 2017.[5] She sold the manuscript in late 2018.[5] It was published in August 2020 by Levine Querido, and made the Indibound Young Adult bestseller list in its first week.[14] The story is set in modern-day Texas; the main character Ellie is a seventeen-year-old asexual Lipan Apache teen. Ellie is accompanied by the ghost of her pet dog Kirby; she used her grandmothers' traditional techniques to bring him back to life. Kirby and Ellie are joined by Ellie's friend and classmate Jay as they work to solve the murder of her cousin. At the same time, they confront an enclave of vampires plaguing people near Willowbee, a mysterious town in South Texas.[15][16][17]
Little Badger began writing her second novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, in early 2020.[5] It was released in November 2021, also through Levine Querido.[4] The story focuses on Nina, a Lipan Apache girl trying to learn about her recently deceased grandmother, who meets a cottonmouth snake named Oli. The setting shifts between near-future Texas and a fantasy dimension, from which Oli originates.[18]Climate change plays a pivotal role in the story's plot.[5]
Indigenous Futurism
Indigenous Futurism is a growing movement in the arts and literature in which Native writers create science fiction and fantasy with characters and themes drawn from indigenous cultures.[19][20] With much of her science fiction, Little Badger has contributed to this movement.[21][22] In Strangelands, for example, Little Badger introduces an Apachecomic booksuperhero. In her short story "Né łe!"[23] the main characters are a Navajointerplanetary ship's captain and a Lipan Apacheveterinarian accompanying 40 chihuahuas on their way to forever homes on Mars.
Little Badger was one of the plaintiffs in civil action against the U.S. Department of Interior where the plaintiffs sought to use eagle feathers in their ceremonies without fear of prosecution, protection which after 2012 was only extended to members of federally recognized tribes by the U.S. Department of Interior.[25]
In a settlement between the plaintiffs and the Interior Department, the Interior Department accepted the American Indian status of the plaintiffs who were not members of a federally recognized tribe and granted them lifetime permits to "possess, carry, use, wear, give, loan, or exchange among other Indians, without compensation, all federally protected birds, as well as their parts or feathers" for their "Indian religious use".[29][30]
On November 30, 2021, Little Badger was one of her Tribe’s representatives who traveled to Presidio, Texas, to attend and participate as a speaker in a Lipan traditional ceremony celebrating the city of Presidio and Presidio County’s transfer of a historical Lipan cemetery back to the Tribe. The celebration, rooted in Lipan Apache traditional songs, prayers, and the Lipan language, focused on the local Presidio community’s return of many sentinel stones that had been taken from Lipan gravesites throughout the years. During the ceremony, Little Badger used her knowledge as a geoscientist to express her Lipan people’s "endurance and strength" through their connection to the land and rocks around the burial site.[31][32]
^Nixon, Lindsay (2020). "Chapter Eighteen: Visual Cultures of Indigenous Futurism". In King (ed.). Otherwise Worlds: Against Settler Colonialism and Anti-Blakness. Durham and London: Duke University Press. pp. 332–342. ISBN978-1-478-00838-5.
^"2022 Best Fiction for Young Adults". Young Adult Library Services Association Association. American Library Association. February 4, 2022. Retrieved February 19, 2022.
^"2021 Finalist". Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
