172 Comments

I so want to believe the writer dropped his role to become a straightforward transcriber/channeler, that you didn't change a word of the conversation encountered. Please tell me this is real! Whether or not you do so, whether or not you heard it before or while writing it, this encounter and friendship IS REAL, the kind of reality that makes me now able to go out into the world. THANK YOU.

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Osiyo!

I just read two of your online stories and loved them both. But your books and movie are the BEST.

Reading "The Business of Fancy Dancing" was like an alcoholic’s first drink. I was headed to Alexieholism. I read "Reservation Blues" and things got crazy. An alexieholic with DTs, I was jonesing for more when I found "Part-time -Indian." I’m reading it now and plan to re-watch “Smoke Signals” while looking for more books. Your dialogue is so precise and accurate it feels like home.

"Smoke Signals." may have saved my life a few years ago.

Please never stop writing.

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Thank you, Janis! I'll be writing poems on my final days on earth (32 years from now, I hope!).

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Osiyo!

I just read two of your online stories and loved them both. But your books and movie are the BEST.

Reading "The Business of Fancy Dancing" was like an alcoholic’s first drink. I was headed to Alexieholism. I read "Reservation Blues" and things got crazy. An alexieholic with DTs, I was jonesing for more when I found "Part-time -Indian." I’m reading it now and plan to re-watch “Smoke Signals” while looking for more books. Your dialogue is so precise and accurate it feels like home.

"Smoke Signals." may have saved my life a few years ago.

Please never stop writing.

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Wow, thanks for the very kind words.

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This feels like such a conversation to happen in Target. I wonder what you would overhear where they were the infamous blue shirts.

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There's a huge difference between the overheard conversations occurring in a Target axillary Starbucks and anywhere within a Wal-Mart.

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Hahahahha.

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Are you speaking of Wal Mart shirts?

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Yes!

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Oh my god, that was enjoyable. What a great catch. Good on ya for noticing that special interaction. Sherman, you have an artist's eye, musician's ear, and poet's heart.

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Thank you, Chris!

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Viva la Raza, man!

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Thanks!

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I love this so much. Something I always appreciate about your work and that you show here is intimacy between men and men of Color. We just don't see this represented enough. Thanks for sharing this. Appreciate you!

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Thank you, Marcos!

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My favorite thing I have read today! Thank you! Being a bibliophile, I will now read everything you have ever written.

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Thank you, that's a lot to read!

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Oh, thank you for this. It has so much life in it.

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Thank you, Arjan.

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Great dialogue is an endlessly fascinating art. AI hasn't replaced all the tools in a writer's toolbelt yet!

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I felt like I was there. Fantastic.

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Thank you, Leigh.

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I love the insight about Target Starbucks being a writer-free zone. It's also my deep desire that one day my books reach as many people as yours have so considerations about laying low will be part of my routine.

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wonderful story, thanks!

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SO much happier than some of the stories I heard about brown-skinned people after 9/11. One of my longtime soccer mates was from Tunisia. When we played in Walla Walla we'd often go to a Mexican restaurant where servers would speak to him in Spanish. He was a very bright guy & fluent in English, Arabic, & French. But not Spanish. He always got a kick out of it.

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Yes, they're always happening and we're sometimes lucky enough to hear one.

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I love serendipitous conversations like these. They always feel like gifts.

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They are gifts.

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