Craig Kee Strete is a Native American science fiction writer. He is noted for his use of American Indian themes and has had multiple Nebula Award nominations. He earned his B.A.from Wright State University and his M.F.A. at UC Irvine.
His play Paint Your Face On A Drowning In The River (produced May 16, 1984 by East/West Players in LA CA was the 1984 Dramatists Guild/CBS New Plays Program first place winner.
The Game of Cat and Eagle novel
A Native American soldier goes to Vietnam on a special mission to win the war — with an eagle...
If All Else Fails
With an Intro by Jorge Luis Borges.
"The pages reek with despair at the loss of Native American culture .... The narrator of the "All My Statues" is reminded of his "grandfather who died humming all the songs he had kept silent because there was no one left to sing them" (11). In "To See the City" the dead try to escape the concrete prisons of the cities that desecrate the holy places: "Buried animal and ground people were trying to reach out through the cracks in sidewalks. The ground people moved restlessly under the concrete" (36). The television, an embodiment of the white man's control of mass culture, declares the Native American is a figment of the past, not of the present: "We make decisions for you. Take you hand of the silver screen. You are interfering with the projectionist. Yes, we listen, we tell you, you are a book, and having been written, you cannot cancel a line of it" (46).
"Filled with gorgeous lines, evocative images..." —Science Fiction Ruminations
The World in Grandfather's Hands
Eleven-year-old Jimmy is angry, lonely, and homesick. Since Mother moved them from the pueblo where they lived at one with the land, to Grandfather Whitefeather's house in the city after Father's death, Jimmy has been hemmed in by tall buildings, concrete, noisy neighbors, and unfriendly people. The worst part is that there doesn't seem to be a good reason for being here.
"Try to carry the pueblo with you everywhere you go," Grandfather advises. He explains strange things like automatic doors and keeping safe at night, and helps Jimmy find good things like ice cream and the smell of a freshly cut lawn. But Jimmy doesn't understand—or really want to know—how Grandfather can live here, or why Mother thinks it important for Jimmy to live here too. Why should he learn about the world outside the pueblo, when he's sure it will never be home?
In sensitive and eloquent language, Craig Kee Strete captures the desert's beauty and the city's bustling chaos, Jimmy's struggle to live in both worlds, and the hope he finds in Grandfather Whitefeather's gentle wisdom, Mother's courage, and the dreams that sustain them all.
"Hope which gives courage to look at the night and see things. And the power of dreams which brings day from night."
When Grandfather Journeys Into Winter
The story of the bond between an Indian boy and his grandfather--by turns wry and melodramatic, at once fervent and prosy. At the start, a bantering camaraderie is established between Little Thunder and old Tayhua--which, however, is heavy with irony at the expense of the white man (whose "religious symbols" allegedly include the dollar sign and the TV antenna) and heavily dependent, as well, on an adult play of words. —Kirkus
Dark Journey
by Jim Morrison and Craig Strete
"I have seen the future and I won't go," says Morrison, staring at the sky as if he saw the words up there somewhere. And the day explodes, rocketting into a long shamanistic shared journey. Words tumble out as we write furiously, thrown together accidentally by the summer. Putting it all down on paper. Poems meant never to be heard except in the dark side of our lives. Stories of the yet to happen, fantasies that bleed and offer no comfort. The future has been to the barricades too many times. The future has been up against the wall so many times that the handwriting on the wall is now on the future. It is on us. We see our own deaths and the deaths of those around us.
A Knife In The Mind novel
The Tragedy Of MAKONA, Shaman Of Kawdor.
Dreams That Burn in the Night
A collection of Strete's great work, including ones described as "quite brilliant" from a "major talent" by Kirkus Reviews. Also includes collaborations with Jim Morrison (of the Doors) and Michael Bishop.
"On the Way Home, about American Indians (Strete is one) returning after a stint in the army, is grittily unsettling. There's the achingly sad tale of an Indian sorcerer/guardian who invokes aliens from the stars to lift the burden of the white man's oppression. Also: a short, wry, powerful evocation of Old Woman Mountain. As before, then, the Indian stories are stronger than the more standard sf or fantasy. But a raw, satirical edge enlivens the best of the more orthodox pieces: a hilarious stranded astronaut yarn; a future where clothing is obscene; a ghost in a police computer; the dreams rocks dream over the eons. ... Strete, then, is still blazing away in all directions—and scoring an uncomfortable number of hits: strong work from a gifted writer." —Kirkus Reviews
Death Chants
Craig Strete, one of the few Native American SF authors, picked up three Nebula Award nominations for short SF, two of which are included in this collection of his excellent work.
"The pages reek with despair at the loss of Native American culture .... The narrator of the "All My Statues" is reminded of his "grandfather who died humming all the songs he had kept silent because there was no one left to sing them" (11). In "To See the City" the dead try to escape the concrete prisons of the cities that desecrate the holy places: "Buried animal and ground people were trying to reach out through the cracks in sidewalks. The ground people moved restlessly under the concrete" (36). The television, an embodiment of the white man's control of mass culture, declares the Native American is a figment of the past, not of the present: "We make decisions for you. Take you hand of the silver screen. You are interfering with the projectionist. Yes, we listen, we tell you, you are a book, and having been written, you cannot cancel a line of it" (46).
"Filled with gorgeous lines, evocative images..." —Science Fiction Ruminations
Burn Down the Night novel
An autobiographical novel about the author's drug/sex/oh-wow-heavy '60s friendship with Jim Morrison of The Doors.
"You and me, they are really going to dig us when we're dead. You can't hope to arrive without exile."
—JIM MORRISON
"Burn Down the Night, and light up an era with the neon, mind-splitting sound of rock, the fast and furious sex, the drugs, pills and needles, joints and sugar cubes—life blood and lifeline of a generation that was."
—FANTASTIC FICTION
The Angry Dead
A Native American girl visits family... in a house haunted by ghosts.
The Bleeding Man and Other Science Fiction Stories stories intro by Virginia Hamilton.
The heritage of the author is clearly reflected in this unique collection of stories. They range from the representative science fiction of "Into Every Rain, a Little Life Must Fall" in which "wombcops" plugged into computer consoles monitor city streets, to the phantasmagoric, prophetic quality of the title story. There is a wry humor and folk wisdom in "A Sunday Visit with Great-Grandfather", and the influence of Indian lore and legend is powerfully evident in "White Brothers from the Place Where No Man Walks".
My Gun Is Not So Quick
A Private Eye — whose gun is not so quick because he's drowning himself in drink — tries to help a beautiful woman, whose husband has disappeared and may be trying to kill her
The Star Killer
by Sovereign Falconer (pen name Craig Strete)
"Ted, this is Sam Watson in Legal. We are a little bit troubled by an ad you are running in this week's BACKSTAGE."
"Complaints from the Screen Actor's Guild?"
"Complaints from a number of actors themselves. As individuals. At least six, no seven so far," offered Watson.
"What sort of complaints? The ad's only been out three days."
"Apparently, the ad directs them to read samples of the script on a web page for a movie called FINAL CUT. The actors who've read the samples are the ones who are calling."
"Why?"
"At first, we thought it was a joke. So we logged onto the web site to see what all the fuss was about. There was a brief description of the film's premise. The log line is it's a homicidal film director who kills all the actors who audition for him. The actors who called us were complaining that the script sounded too real!"
"You've got to be kidding!"
"Hey, we're legal. We don't know how to tell jokes over here."
TO MAKE DEATH LOVE US (with R. Wright Campbell)
by Sovereign Falconer
STRETE FOOD
THE BOUNCING BRIDE novel
THE MAMMOTH PROJECT by Craig Strete and Terry Izumi
THE DINOSAUR PROJECT by Craig Strete and Terry Izumi
NOBODY RIDES FOREVER
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NEW RELEASES
THE DIRE WOLF PROJECT by CRAIG STRETE and TERRY IZUMI.
ALL GROWN UP UNDER A BIG MOON SKY collection of children’s books which include 2 books that were published in Holland. UNCLE COYOTE AND THE BUFFALO PIZZA and LITTLE RAVEN AND THE NORTH WIND GIANT.
MOOSE AND RACCOON
BLOOD TELLS ME ABOUT THE NIGHT
THE NIGHT BROTHER 2 horror novels by Craig Strete and R. Wright Campbell.
THE BLOOD OF OTHERS novel version of THE BLEEDING MAN.
Grootvaders Reisdoel, In de Knipscheer, 1980.
Met de Pijn die het Liefheeft en Haat, In de Knipscheer, 1983.
PLAYS
Paint Your Face on a Drowning in the River, produced in Los Angeles, 1984.
Author of plays Dark Walkers, Love Affair, Knowing Who's Dead, In the Belly of the Death Mother and Horse of a Different Technicolor. Radio plays Saturday Night at the White Woman Watching Hole and The Bleeding Man for ZBS Productions and NPR Radio.
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