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NONFICTION
David Edward Walker’s newest book, ‘Coyote’s Swing: A Memoir & Critique of Mental Hygiene in Native America,’ was published in 2023 by Washington State University Press.
Steven Newcomb (Shawnee-Lenape), author of ‘Pagans in the Promised Land,’ says ‘Coyote’s Swing is a tour de force. It is an extraordinary work of heart, spirit, incisive intelligence, and unflinching truth telling. I highly recommend it.”
Mary Watkins, co-author of ‘Toward Psychologies of Liberation’ notes, “ Walker knows that the end of overt genocide is not the end of a perpetrating society’s ongoing violence against a people. Societal institutions, like psychiatry and psychology, conserve much of the pejorative labeling, disempowerment, and self-serving historical amnesia that paved the way for genocide. Psychology and psychiatry have a long and shameful history of collusion with colonialism and neo-colonialism. Rather than help a society understand and cease its genocidal thinking and action, many mental health practitioners erase the historical and present-day context of oppression by medicalizing the after-effects of violence. Cultural traumas are turned into individualized psychiatric diagnoses, which are presumed to call for psychopharmacological intervention rather than societal transformation and accountability. This beautifully written and researched book enables readers to understand and witness this tragic state of affairs, while pointing to the social and theoretical transformations that are sorely overdue.”
FICTION
'Tessa's Dance,' Volume I in the Medicine Valley Series, is the first of David Edward Walker's novels, and garnered a Bronze Medal from the 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards for Multicultural/Young Adult Fiction.
'Signal Peak', Volume II in the series won a Bronze Medal in Foreword Reviews 2013 IndieFab Book of the Year Awards for multicultural fiction. Signal Peak was also a Finalist in the 2014 Nancy Pearl Literary Awards sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.
Indian Country Today praised both Medicine Valley novels for dealing “with all the issues of tragedy, psychological healing, and cultural and language revitalization that are necessary in the wake of centuries of genocidal efforts to destroy our Nations and Peoples.”
BIO
David grew up in the Detroit area and worked as a cab driver, record store manager, and order clerk in a flavor factory (known internationally for its vanilla flavor) before earning his doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Detroit. He’s been a licensed psychologist as well as a professor, psychotherapist, and consultant for over thirty years. He worked for over two decades with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation in central Washington. David is a Missouri Cherokee descendent and traces his heritage through Barlow, Gibson, and Alexander families.
A scholar, passionate speaker, and formidable critic of biocentric mental health ideology, David’s series of articles for Indian Country Today on mental health practice as an oppressive force in Native America are well regarded and controversial. You can read these and other articles and listen to interviews at his website - www.davidedwardwalker.com
David is also a poet and singer-songwriter who toured during the 1990s under the pseudonym 'David Folks,' releasing two CDs, 'Roadside Park' and 'Refusing to View', and garnering college airplay across the U.S. He shared the stage with Rodney Crowell, Richie Havens, and Richard Shindell among many others. According to the ‘Music Hound Guide to Folk Music’ David’s songs ’draw his audience into a warm space of feeling and introspection, which he supports with elegant moral ambition.’
You can listen to David's music through links at his website, on YouTube (search ‘the real david edward walker’), or go directly to his bandcamp page at davidedwardwalker.bandcamp.com
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