Seasoning the Blade

When Ella sets out in search of a cure for her mother's cancer, she finds not only the bone-chilling cold of Nova Scotia's winter, but also feels the painful bite of a trapper's legtrap. Found unconscious by Stands Like a Tree, a Micmac, she is carried to her friend Minnie's house. When her friend Stands Like a Tree is eventually forced to leave the place of his birth, the Mohawks closing in on him, she sadly watches him paddle to his new lands. A year later, on the same shore she determines her future, but that future will not come without sacrifice.

Dianna Henning holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has published in many literary magazines. She taught creative writing for California Poets in the Schools, through theWilliam James Association's Prison Arts Program and through several California Arts Council grants, and was a co-recipient of a '08 California Humanities Stories Grant. Dianna has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her most recent book, The Broken Bone Tongue 2009, was published by Black Buzzard Press, Austin TX. Dianna's work has appeared in, in part: Crazyhorse, The Lullwater Review, Poetry International, Fugue, Swink, The Asheville Poetry Review, South Dakota Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review and The Seattle Review. She lives in Lassen County, California, with her husband Kam and malamute Sakari—here she finds inspiration in the vast stretches of land, the ponderosa trees and abundant wild life. The sheer beauty of the place never fails to amaze her.