Debbie Hicks

I'm a storyteller who "carries words" from times in places where the Old South met the Original South; stories born by melding and conflicts between Indigenous peoples and colonizing immigrants, truly southern stories lived in spirit and flesh. As a writer and performer for WagonBurner, the Native American radio theater directed by Leanne Howe, my characters often spoke from the lives of people who I knew as neighbors living in small, Indian settlements in rural Alabama. Theater written from oral literatures, oral histories, papers tossed into courthouse basements or jumbled for sale with recipe books by a roadside flea market vendor.

My scholarship retains a focus on the American Indian south during segregation, seperate Native communities along the gulf coast. As a shell-shaker, a stompdancer, I'm intrigued by the relationship between revivals of danced spirituality traditional to southeastern Native American cultures & Indian identity.

Participants in Charlotte's Tree re-fashion often discarded materials into holiday art items & ornaments, a re-cycling project by which socially marginalized or disadvantaged persons participate in community life while celebrating holidays. Artists & organizations along the central gulf coast re/circulate human, material and creative resources through ArtShares, a collaboration affirming art as a meaningful exchange to nurture healthy lives and grow vibrant community life.