Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness into Light

Summary of Book

In this powerful family saga, author Tim Tingle tells the story of his family’s move from Oklahoma Choctaw country to Pasadena, TX. Spanning 50 years, Saltypie describes the problems encountered by his Choctaw grandmother—from her orphan days at an Indian boarding school to hardships encountered in her new home on the Gulf Coast.

Author Biography

Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle makes his living telling stories and teaching folklore at schools, universities and festivals nationally. The Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers selected Tim as "Contemporary Storyteller of the Year" for 2001. Tim Tingle lives in Canyon Lake, Texas, near San Antonio. Choctaw artist Karen Clarkson lives in San Leandro, California with her husband Bill and their two dogs. A trip to Paris when she was ten inspired her to study the old masters but she feels she came into her own as an artist when she started creating portraits of Native Americans.

Illustrator Biography

Choctaw artist and tribal member Karen Clarkson lives in San Leandro, California with her husband Bill and their two dogs. A trip to Paris when she was ten inspired her to study the old masters but she feels she came into her own as an artist when she started creating portraits of Native Americans. She first started learning about art by drawing pictures of all her relatives. In this way she felt as if she knew many of her ancestors even though she had never met them. Saltypie is her first book. Karen’s paternal grandmother Margaret Louis Nail (Maggie) was born in 1909 in Rush Springs, Oklahoma. When she was a young girl, she married a white man, who died in the Texas oil field where he was working. My father was only two years old at that time. Times were hard in the 1920’s and even harder for an Indian woman with a little boy. Maggie was soon forced to give her little boy up to her husband’s sister to raise since she could not make ends meet. Maggie died before Karen ever met her.