Faith’s Blog

Holiday Flash Sale!!

November 24, 2020 by Faith Phillips

A holiday book set from ReadBooksBy.Faith

Holiday flash sale! From now thru December 18th ReadBooksBy.Faith offers a signed & wrapped complete book set for $55. That’s four books, including our latest release “2020 Visions”! The book set covers all the bases: a fiction supernatural thriller, a true crime novel, a hilarious collection of true mishaps, and the memoirs of a new teacher and her students negotiating the year 2020.

Order now and we guarantee your gift-wrapped present will arrive just in time for giving. Buy local unless you live far away and then go ahead and buy far away! 🙂 Order details included below #okienoir #2020visions #cherokeewriters

Place your order for a signed box set right here for $55.00, includes shipping!

https://paypal.me/FaithPhillips?locale.x=en_US

2020 Visions

Dispatch from a Red Zone

November 1, 2020 by Faith Phillips

The intercom sounded overhead. Students recited the pledge of allegiance and remained standing afterward, heads bowed in a moment of silence. This community is a religious one; we are a Christian majority. We are also unabashed in our rural identity. Another notable fact is that Adair County is the only minority-majority county in the State of Oklahoma. Our population largely descends from Trail of Tears survivors. As a proud borough in the Cherokee Nation, our suspicion of the federal government and its motivation lingers.

School staff members gathered beneath stately pine trees at the beginning of August. There, masked in a socially distanced circle, many of us prayed together. We were one of the few Oklahoma schools to open in person on the first scheduled day. The school board made that decision, prompted by an overwhelming majority of political will from the community.

My faith wavered that day. I stood just outside the circle, unnerved by the real plausibility of exposure. My husband, a diabetic and a heart patient, is at high risk for complications from Covid 19. Almost a year ago I said a vow to honor and keep him, in sickness and in health. I meant what I said. Some of our most highly skilled, veteran teachers are high risk, too. They show up anyway.

My other confession is that I never believed there was a chance, not a single chance in hell, that we would make it past the first three weeks of school in the midst of this pandemic. I anticipated a massive outbreak in the beginning. That did not happen. I was wrong. For that, I owe some people an apology, including my colleagues and the administration.

One of the arguments against coming back to school was that it was ridiculous to expect high schoolers to wear masks every day. Guess what? They did it. These students, when presented with an optional quarantine, did not choose to exercise that option. They want to be here. They need to be here. They will do whatever it takes to have a routine, to experience some semblance of normalcy in a time when there just is no such thing. Two of my advanced creative writing students recently appeared on a statewide news program for an interview about their political views. One part of the poll asked about their hope for the future. These two students happen to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum but they engaged each other with civility and respect. They recognize the dignity inherent in one another. The journalists remarked that the students conducted themselves with much greater decorum than the presidential candidates during recent debates. What a statement. Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself.

I prayed in July that school would not resume in person until a vaccine was available. It was a selfish prayer because I knew without a doubt if school officials voted to return, I would report back and finish my obligation to the school and the students. There was no way I would bail on these people, my people, when the deal went down. The school feels very much like a microcosm of society right now. Some of us believe wholeheartedly that a mandatory mask policy is the only way to sustain this remarkable feat and then safely return home to our families at the end of the day. Many others remain equally convicted that masks are a blatant political infringement upon fundamental freedoms. They wear their masks and show up anyway. Unspoken tensions exist. We don’t discuss politics in the hall. It feels a bit like whistling past the graveyard. Yet we come together day after day for the students and do what has been asked of us.

My reverend explained it like this, “ask yourself one question. Are you willing to die for your students?” It’s that simple. Every person I work with made that decision, although many would never frame the issue in such dramatic terms. Whether or not we agree politically, that is the one place where we stand united. I would stand shoulder to shoulder with these people to defend our community. But what do you do when the invader is already on the inside?

Am’re Ford, a teacher in a metropolitan area on the other side of Oklahoma, wrote this last week:

“Things I’m juggling as a teacher rn:

Teaching content

A pandemic

My mental health

Students mental health

Coworkers mental health

Canvas not working like it’s post to

6th graders who are adjusting to middle school and online learning

Hella missing assignments

Adults concerned about aforementioned missing assignments

Remembering there’s a pandemic and that I need to extend grace

Planning content to teach

Incentive program

Making orchestra fun

Students that still don’t have materials

Prolly 4 other things that I can’t remember becaws all the things

It ain’t a pity post but some folx don’t realize all the stuff we be doing”

Mr. Ford nailed it up there on the wall for all to see; everything in one post. Back here at home we are about to enter week thirteen of in-person instruction and it appears the viral surge is upon us. Many people in our community have comorbidities. We’ve lost elders. Is it survival of the fittest now? Are we ok with applying that concept to our fellows? On the other hand, are we ok with sending students home, knowing full well that some will receive neither adequate nutrition nor instruction? Our people are extremely resilient. Yet in a community that is already at war with poverty, addiction, crime, and associated health issues, an education is one of the only sure tickets to rise above it all.

Another colleague of mine is a rare gem of a human being. He is one of about 2,000 living Cherokee speakers. His life is dedicated to teaching the language to our students, the population of which is 82% indigenous. I knew at the beginning of the year he would be especially susceptible. I confided my anxiety about him early on. About a month ago, my nightmare came true. He was walking across the parking lot and I was leaving for the day. He said, “Ms. Phillips, I had a sniffle so I went for a test. Now they want me to quarantine.”

Not long afterward he wrote to say his test came back positive. I feared the worst and prayed for the best. He suffered at length with Covid and later explained that in the most frightening moments of the virus, he sensed a dark presence in his home and hallucinated, alone. Everyone who lives through Covid has a different experience. Already, as we enter the fall, some of us in the community have not made it out alive.

The word “fear” gets tossed around like a hot potato just lately. We’ve used it as a weapon against each other. I’ve been guilty of saying “no fear” to insinuate that I operate my life without ever experiencing the chains of that basic human emotion. But that was a facade. I do feel fear. Fear for my colleagues, fear for my family, fear for my students. I read somewhere that courage is feeling fear, knowing something is more important than fear, and taking action anyway. I hope that’s true. I desire so much to be a courageous woman.

It feels trite to say it out loud, yet the question remains, have we passed the point of no return? For the sake of these students, we must say no. Won’t we unify for each other? The ultimate test should be this: will we be able to look each other in the eye when all this is over? Did we love and look out for each other? Did we fulfill the promise?

Yesterday I heard the most difficult question of my short tenure as a teacher:

“Ms. Phillips, is this the end of the world?”

My student was dead serious, in search of comfort and assurance. It’s past time now to step up, show leadership, provide real hope, and bandage the wounds of our fellows. The election happens in two days. Our young people are looking to us in this moment. I don’t feel safe at school right now. I don’t believe we should be there. But we are there and we will continue to be until we get sick or officials say it is time to go home. I’m grateful I don’t have to make the call and I pray for the ones burdened with that heavy decision. It’s time for empathy now. It’s time for hella grace. We are all in this together and the time is now.

It’s ARRIVED and It’s LIVE

September 8, 2020 by Faith Phillips

I’m fresh off a live broadcast with the girls of KUSH AM this morning to promote our new book, “2020 Visions”! This is how it works with book writing. You spend two years of your life writing the book. Then you spend two months of your life promoting it. Rinse. Repeat. I’ve been away from here for a short period of time but you’ll forgive me as I was busy getting this book finalized and in publishable form. Let me tell you, this book is beautiful. As a writer, I always, ALWAYS, feel insecure when I release a book. It never gets any easier, as I’d hoped. I felt the same about this one. Then when the proof came in the mail and I held it in my hands the emotion of it all hit me. I opened it and read through and realized this may be the best book I’ve ever written. This may be my greatest work. I can’t wait for you to get it in your hands.

It is still very early, but we have spectacular reviews rolling in. We want to share a few with you here, just in case you’re still on the fence about ordering your own copy. I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you and the world that proceeds from these books place Chromebooks directly in the hands of every Stilwell High School student. #ChromeDreams coming true! Spread the word!

“I sat down to read – Well, I could NOT put it down! Just finished. Loved reading what the students wrote, loved your commentary, loved the way you put it together! Thanks, Faith for a great read!” ~Wanda E.

“To say I’m impressed is an understatement. I marked some of my favorite quotes throughout the book. I love the way the relationship between you and your kids developed and fostered a genuine love and respect for one another! Thank you for investing in the lives of our children!! They are our greatest resource.” ~Ramona K.

I’m in love with what the Award-winning poet, Bill McCloud, had to say about his 2020 Visions experience: “The students write honestly about their feelings as they chronicle times of heartbreak, relationships with friends and family, and their expectations from life. Much of their writing concerns attempts to deal with self-acceptance, and I’m also amazed at how much tragedy so many of these young people have already experienced in their short time on earth.” ~Bill McCloud, author of The Smell of the Light: Vietnam, 1968-1969 and What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam?

Chrome Dreams students discussing their research on KUSH AM in February.

Read McCloud’s entire review here:

“Acclaimed Oklahoma writer, Faith Phillips (Now I Lay Me Down, Ezekiel’s Wheels, It’s Not That Hard To…), has just published her hotly-anticipated new non-fiction book, 2020 Visions. Written over the past year with her senior class students at Stilwell High School in rural Adair County, Oklahoma, it tells an amazing story.

Faith finds herself agreeing to teach literature at the high-school she had graduated from just a little over twenty years earlier. The school’s student population is 80% indigenous, primarily Cherokee. The town of Stilwell is known as “The Strawberry Capital of the World,” but is also known in Oklahoma to be found in the poorest area of the state.

The book is anchored by her journal entries that she made on a regular basis, most of them going up at the time on her personal Facebook page. That gives us the benefit of knowing what she’s thinking on a day by day basis instead of a situation where she’s just looking back at the end of the school year. But the heart and soul of the book comes from the regular journal entries from her students that appear on nearly every page. She publishes their writings with their permission, though she keeps their individual identities concealed.

The students write honestly about their feelings as they chronicle times of heartbreak, relationships with friends and family, and their expectations from life. Much of their writing concerns attempts to deal with self-acceptance, and I’m also amazed at how much tragedy so many of these young people have already experienced in their short time on earth.

Noticing the lack of technology available to the students she starts a campaign to get a class-set of Chromebooks to be used by all the seniors. She sets up a GoFundMe page on the internet with the goal of receiving $6,700. She gives the fund-raising project to get laptops in the classroom the title CHROME DREAMS. The total is met within a few days.

Faith often tends to broaden her students’ awareness of literature as they respond to the work of Tupac and Tracy Chapman. She brings in notable songwriters such as Doc John Eddie Fell and Kalyn Fay Barnoski to perform for her students and to talk to them about their craft.

Then the students decide to enter an NPR Podcast contest. And there’s the building of a homecoming float, and the debut of the high-school women’s wrestling program.

And then the virus!

This is a heartwarming story, told in Faith-style. Yeah, I know Faith. I observed this story play out by reading her almost daily posts on Facebook. That’s why I knew when it happened that she was bit by a venomous copperhead snake less than a week before the school year was to start. She had even told me she wanted me to speak to her class about my poetry, but that didn’t happen because the school-year was cut short due to the Covid virus.

It’s an uplifting story of the affect Faith Phillips had on students, teachers, and staff at Stilwell High School and, more importantly, the affect each one of them had on her. Faith says what happened to her that fateful, inspiring year was, “Teaching. Teaching is what happened.”

Proceeds from the sale of this book go to help Stilwell High School reach the goal of a Chromebook for every single student! Purchase here …http://readbooksby.faith/

We have a few remarks from teachers here, too. I was a little nervous how they’d react but once again, nothing but praise!

“I am so enjoying the book. It brings back so many memories of when I first began teaching. I’ve laughed as I read and my heart will grow heavy when I would read some of the students writings. It reminds me of why I love teaching so much. The past 40 years have just passed by so quickly. But my memory is a sharp in remembering as if it was the first week of school all over again.” ~Frances

I’ll let you get back to your day now but we have much more exciting news on the horizon, including the transformation of three #okienoir books into screenplays. Imagine that, will ya? Okie Noir on the big screen. I can just see it, even now … #2020Visions

See you soon. We are still all in this together and the time is still NOW. Get down with it.

Purchase the books here: Signed copies available through http://readbooksby.faith/ or unsigned on Amazon for a dollar more:

https://www.amazon.com/2020-Visions-Memoir-Faith-Phillips/dp/B08DDGXH3F

Finally, if you’re just sick and tired of the internets and all you want to do is send a check directly to the school, you can do so: Stilwell Public Schools c/o Chrome Dreams 1801 W Locust Stilwell, OK 74960. Make sure you designate your donation to Chrome Dreams and include your shipping address. I will personally ship an autographed book.

2020 Visions: A Blockbuster (But Not Altogether Unpredicatable) Announcement

May 12, 2020 by Faith Phillips

From Oklahoma best-selling author Faith Phillips and the Senior class of Stilwell High School comes the groundbreaking book, 2020 Visions. It is the first published account of the Class of 2020 in the time of Covid-19.
Ms. Phillips begins the account of this extraordinary ordeal by sharing personal journal entries about an unlikely decision to teach English IV for one year in Adair County, where the students and school struggle to negotiate a 45% child poverty rate.

The students journal their own doubts as they move through their final year with a dubious, untested new teacher. The class transformation from the beginning of the year to Spring Break 2020 is a remarkable and triumphant story, worthy of a book on its own. The list of accomplishments the students make together in a very short period of time is nothing short of exceptional and historic, from raising funds to get their own set of class Chromebooks, to publishing a podcast selected for national recognition by National Public Radio. Then Covid-19 arrived. With the arrival of unprecedented change and mournful loss the students continue to journal their experience with jaw-dropping honesty and powerful visions of the future.

Visions 2020 is the first comprehensive chronicle to share the struggle, grief and tenacity of the Class of 2020. Full of refreshing honesty, spirituality, advice, and hope, it makes the perfect graduation gift for 2020 graduates and their parents. What’s more, the first $15,000 in book royalties (after recoup of up-front publishing costs including original cover art, editing, printing, etc.) will provide Chromebooks for SHS Junior, Sophomore and Freshman classes. By pursuing this continuation of the initial Senior #Chromedreams project, 2020 Visions will ensure that every student who passes through Stilwell High School has daily access to the same tools students in larger Oklahoma school districts already enjoy.
Reserve your copy now for this historic record of tragedy, joy, and triumph in the year that will forever be remembered as the year of “the chosen ones”: the Class of 2020. Order your hard copy of 2020 Visions at the link below for $25.00. Digital copies will not be made available until Fall 2020.
Please note that reserving your copy now reserves your spot to receive a book from the first hardcopy shipment in July 2020.

Reserve your copy here for $25. https://www.paypal.me/FaithPhillips

An early review of 2020 Visions:

“Two stars up! If you like rolling in red dirt and howling at the moon, this book is for you! A must read for anyone under the age of 95! This is Grapes of Wrath meets Freedom Writers on The Road. Yeehaw!” -Mrs. McGraw (a note in the interest of integrity: Mrs. McGraw is the author’s English Department colleague and receives a favorable portrayal in the book.)

2020 Visions: Leaders & Letters To Ourselves

May 1, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Thursday, April 30

“As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading in tot he unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty …

Even from your scant description, I know that I could not bear the routine and humdrum life that you are forced to lead. I don’t think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depth of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax.”

~Into the Wild, Chapter 9

It seems as though people are really searching for leaders, someone to step up and unify the citizenry.

Journal: Do you see yourself as a leader? How could you work as a leader in the Stilwell community? If you do not consider yourself a leader that’s perfectly fine but you will choose the leaders in the very near future. Explain to me what you are looking for in a leader.

Friday, May 1

“As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry them, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such words joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and the mean. We think we can change our clothes only. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind. Who knows what sort of seventeen-year locust will next come out of the ground? The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine. The life in us is like the water in the river…”

~Conclusion, Thoreau

Ten years from now all this will be a faded memory; a story to tell your children.

Journal: Write a letter to your 28 year-old self explaining what we have been through. What is your 28 year old self doing? Where are you living and what are you doing from day to day? Give yourself some advice. What do you want to remember ten years from now?

2020 Visions: Virtue, Fantasy & Isolation

April 28, 2020 by Faith Phillips

On the radio with the Seniors at KUSH 1500 AM with Molly Payne and Joyce Abrams, “The Voice of Oklahoma”

Monday, April 27

“I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers. The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, the literary amuse himself with the few books on my table, or the curious, by opening my closet door, see what was left of my dinner, and what prospect I had of a supper. Yet, though many people of every class came this way to the pond, I suffered no serious inconvenience from these sources, and I never missed anything but one small book, a volume of Homer…

You who governs public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a commen man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.”

Thoreau, The Village

We tend to get busy living life and become self-absorbed. But life has a way of making you stop sometimes, right in your tracks, and notice someone.

Journal: Write an essay on someone in your life (someone you know or even perhaps a stranger you’ve noticed in town, anyone, really) for whom your life is worth pausing for a moment. Who is this person? What makes them so compelling to you? What do they need that you could provide for them?

Tuesday, April 28

“‘For instance,’ Stoppel continues, ‘Carl didn’t want to fly into the bush alone. His big dream, originally, was to go off into the woods with some beautiful woman. He was hot for at least a couple of different girls who worked with us, and he spent a lot of time and energy trying to talk Sue or Barbara or whoever into accompanying him — which in itself was pretty much pure fantasyland. There was no way it was going to happen. I mean, at the pipeline camp where we worked, Pump Station 7, there were probably forty guys for every woman. But Carl was a dreamin kind of dude, and right up until he flew into the Brooks Range, he kept hoping and hoping and hoping that one of these girls would change her mind and decide to go with him. Carl was the sort of guy who would have unrealistic expectations that someone would eventually figure out he was in trouble and cover for him. Even as he was on the verge of starving, he probably still imagined that Big Sue was going to fly in at the last minute with a planeload of food and have this wild romance with him.’”

Into the Wild, Chapter 8

I’ve been in communication with many of you since we have been out of school. Someone suggested that we take a float trip or organize a get-together at the lake after the social isolation restrictions are lifted.

Journal: Describe the perfect meal you would want to have at our celebration. Tell me everything you want, from the appetizers, to the main courses, to the sides and the dessert. No limits. What do you want?

Wednesday, April 29

“White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If thery were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kuhinoor. They are too pure to have market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the farmer’s door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! Ye disgrace earth.”

~Thoreau, The Ponds

My grandmother has been in isolation since the pandemic started (I think we are going on six weeks now, but I lose count). She has a sliding glass door to the outside but it is locked by the maintenance crew so we can’t hug her or touch her in any way. We just go outside her glass door and wave and kiss her on the glass and bring her flowers to look at. It is a really, really hard thing to do for us. I can’t even imagine what it is like for her. She is locked in a room and has been for many weeks.
Journal: Do you have a loved one whom you cannot reach because of this situation? If so, how are you dealing with it? If not, tell me how you would occupy your time if you had to be alone in a room by yourself for several months.