Books by Suellen Alfred

Like our own capillaries, tiny branches reach into the vacant space around them. Light - air - water - even snow sustain them. Their movements unobserved, they inch, surreptitious, into the air,curve toward the window, stare in at us as if to say, "How sadly self-contained you are."

When we started swapping stories with each other, we realized our stories are poignant enough, interesting enough, and funny enough to share with others. That is how this book got started and ultimately came to fruition. Oddly, we are really very different in many aspects of our lives. Suellen grew up in East Tennessee where she grew to love the mountains. Joyce grew up in West Tennessee where she loved the flat land and the Mississippi River. And now here we are living in Middle Tennessee where we have discovered the one thing we have in common is a keen sense of humor, and the grace to know a good story when we find one.

When we hear "Listen to this," most of us are all ears. It is a good way to capture the attention of folks to whom we want to tell a story. That phrase holds the promise of hearing something interesting, or informative, or funny. As for the words "mostly true" as a part of the book's title, we suspect that is the case with every story that is told. On the question of truth, the words of Susan Estrich ring true: ". . truth is a construct, infected with the biases of the teller. " A story, true or not, comes from a particular point of view from a teller who may concentrate on parts of the story that another teller might leave out. As Bryce Stevens has said, "In the telling, we discover ourselves. And in the listening, we learn that none of us is alone." We hope that will be the case for the people who read this book and hear our stories