Darcie Little Badger
Born1987 (age 36–37)
OccupationAuthor
NationalityAmerican
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Texas A&M University (PhD)
Notable worksElatsoe (2020)
A Snake Falls to Earth (2021)

Darcie Little Badger (born 1987) is an American author and Earth scientist.

As an author, Little Badger specializes 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 Futurisms, a movement among Native artists and authors to write science fiction from their historical and cultural perspectives. At the same time, some of her works feature characters who reconfirm the presence and importance of LGBTQ+ community members.

Early life and education

Darcie Little Badger was born Darcie Erin Ryan 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]

She subsequently enrolled in the doctoral program in oceanography at Texas A&M University, College Station, where she earned a Ph.D. She wrote her dissertation on the genomics of Karenia brevis, a species of plankton that causes toxic red tide in the Gulf of Mexico. For her research, she received a Ford Dissertation Fellowship [7] and TAMU's Chapman Award for Graduate Student Research, both under the name Darcie Ryan.[8]

Scientific career

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, wanting to divert all her energy into writing.[4]

Writing career

Short fiction and Apache influence

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 Victorian horror 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 shape-shifting supernatural 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 publisher 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 Apache comic book superhero. In her short story "Né łe!"[23] the main characters are a Navajo interplanetary ship's captain and a Lipan Apache veterinarian accompanying 40 chihuahuas on their way to forever homes on Mars.

Community organizing

Little Badger serves as a delegate for the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas to the National Congress of American Indians.[24] She also serves as a science advisor to the tribe.[4]

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 2014, the litigants won the case with a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.[26][27] The 5th Circ. acknowledged the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas as an American Indian Tribe with a long history in Texas.[28]

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 her 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]

Personal life

Little Badger is asexual.[17] In 2021, she was living in San Marcos, Texas.[4]

Published works

Novels

Short fiction

Year Title Publication ISBN
2014 "First Ride of the Day" —— (2014). "First Ride of the Day". Vignettes from the End of the World. Apokrupha.
"Siren Son" —— (May 2014). "Siren Song". Dark Eclipse (34).((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
"Nkásht íí" —— (Dec 15, 2014). "Nkásht íí". Strange Horizons.((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
2015 "The Sea Under Texas" —— (2015). "The Sea Under Texas". Quantum Fairy Tales (11).
"The Girl Turns West" —— (Summer 2015). "The Sea Under Texas". Mirror Dance (30).((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
"When Whales Fall" —— (Autumn 2015). "When Whales Fall". The Colored Lens.
2016 "Né łe!" —— (2016). "Né Łe!". Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time. ISBN 978-0993997075
"Black, Their Regalia" —— (Dec 2016). "Black, Their Regalia". Fantasy Magazine (60).((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
"Their Laughing Gal" —— (2016). "Spirit's Tincture". Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time.
2017 "Skinwalker, Fast-Talker" —— (2017). "Skinwalker, Fast-Talker". No Shit, There I Was. ISBN 978-1939840394
"Owl vs. The Neighborhood Watch" —— (Jul 10, 2017). "Owl vs. the Neighborhood Watch". Strange Horizons.((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
"The Whalebone Parrot" —— (Oct 2017). "The Whalebone Parrot". The Dark (29).((cite journal)): CS1 maint: date and year (link)
2019 "Kelsey and the Burdened Breath" —— (2019). "Kelsey and the Burdened Breath". New Suns. Solaris. ISBN 978-1781085783
"Robo-Liopleurodon!" —— (2019). "Robo-Liopleurodon". The New Voices of Science Fiction. Tachyon.
"Homecoming" —— (2019). "Homecoming". Take the Mic: Fictional Stories. Scholastic Publishing. ISBN 978-1338343700
"Grace" —— (2019). "Grace". Take the Mic: Fictional Stories. Scholastic Publishing. ISBN 978-1338343700
"Story for a Bottle" —— (2019). "Story for a Bottle". Love After the End. Bedside Press. ISBN 978-1988715247
2020 "Unlike Most Tides" —— (2020). "Unlike Most Tides". Drabblecast (425).
"Venom and Bite" —— (2020). "Venom and Bite". Glitter + Ashes. Neon Hemlock Press.
"The Orphan of Greenridge (Water)" —— (2020). Adams, John Joseph; Howey, Hugh; Yant, Christine (eds.). "The Orphan of Greenridge (Water)". The Dystopia Triptych #1. Self-published. ISBN 978-1796549591
"How to Use Your Visor Evacuation Helper to Escape an Active Warzone (Fire)" —— (2020). Adams, John Joseph; Howey, Hugh; Yant, Christine (eds.). "How to Use Your Visor (Fire)". The Dystopia Triptych #1. Self-published. ISBN 978-1796549522
"Making Faces (Earth)" —— (2020). Adams, John Joseph; Howey, Hugh; Yant, Christine (eds.). "Making Faces (Earth)". The Dystopia Triptych #1. Self-published. ISBN 978-1796549652
2022 "The Dancers" —— (2022). "The Dancers". Jim Henson's the Storyteller: Shapeshifters #2. Boom! Studios.
2023 "The Scientist's Horror Story" (2023). The Scientist's Horror Story". Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology ISBN 9780593468463

Nonfiction

Awards and honors

For Elatsoe

For A Snake Falls to Earth

References

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  2. ^ a b Salas, Maria (August 16, 2022). "Aggie Author Blends Science Background With Passion For Writing". Texas A&M Today. Texas A&M University. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  3. ^ Walking Woman, Hermelinda. "webmaster". Lipan Apache Tribe: Tribal Council Contact. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
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