"I used to object to being called an Indian writer, and would always say I was a writer who happened to be an Indian, and who happened to write about Indians." -- James Welch
James Welch (1940–August 4, 2003), was an award-winning U.S. author and poet. He received national literary awards for Fools Crow. In addition, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas in 1997.
"Before, Indian people had been so defeated, they were always looking for outsiders, for the government, to somehow come in and fix things. But now, they seem to realize that they're the only ones who can save themselves.""I am definitely a storyteller, but probably not a traditional Storyteller.""I do believe in the viability of Indian spiritualism.""I think ethnic and regional labels are insulting to writers and really put restrictions on them. People don't think your work is quite as universal.""I wander around, get the lay of the land and try to imagine what kind of people would have lived there in that historical period. What would they eat? What kind of clothing would they wear? How did they shelter themselves? How did they get around?""I wrote a lot in study hall to while away the hours.""In a lot of Indian societies, spirituality has been lost, I think it's still the best way of looking at the world for Indians - better than any organized religion in this country.""My poems were just kind of all over the place. They had no focus, no location, nothing. Kind of a series of images that could have been set anywhere. A lot of the poems were just exercises for myself.""Nobody would take checks from Indians, nobody would give them any credit, and nobody would let them drink in the bars. There was a rudeness, a brusqueness, with which the Indians were treated constantly. At a very young age, that had entered my consciousness.""Our literature is in great shape.""Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write, an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also, in a way, gave me permission to write about northern Montana.""The economic piece is still missing, since it's so hard to attract industry to reservations, but spiritually and educationally, they're doing just fine. Each tribe has a community college now, and they teach the language, they teach the traditions.""The title of the poems was The Only Bar in Dixon. We sent it out to The New Yorker on a fluke, and they took them and printed all three in the same issue.""The townspeople outside the reservations had a very superior attitude toward Indians, which was kind of funny, because they weren't very wealthy; they were on the fringes of society themselves.""To receive this award from an organization I admire so much makes me totally happy and grateful."
James Welch was born in Browning, Montana in 1940. His father was a member of the Blackfeet tribe and his mother a member of the Gros Ventre tribe; both also had Irish ancestry. As a child, Welch attended schools on the Blackfoot and Fort Belknap reservations.
Welch went to the University of Montana, where he studied under the author Richard Hugo and began his writing career. Welch taught at the University of Washington and at Cornell, as well as serving on the Parole Board of the Montana Prisons Systems and on the Board of Directors of the Newberry Library D'Arcy McNickle Center.
Welch was at the University of Montana when his writing career began in earnest, leading to the creation of works that would establish his place in the Native American Renaissance literary movement.
Welch and Paul Stekler co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning American Experience documentary, Last Stand at Little Bighorn, shown on PBS. Together they also wrote the history Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians (1994).
When Winter in the Blood was reprinted in 2007, it included an introduction by Louise Erdrich, who wrote: It "is a central and inspiring text to a generation of western regional and Native American writers, including me."
Welch died at age 62 in his home in Missoula, Montana in 2003.
