As part of the King County Library’s annual Lake Forest Park/Shoreline/Richmond Beach Reads program, Third Place Books welcomes celebrated Tacoma author Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe for a presentation of her memoir, Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, now available in paperback. Red Paint was the winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award.
Red Paint will be 20% off in our stores during the months of June and July. Extra copies are available at the Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and Richmond Beach Libraries. The event is co-sponsored by the City of Lake Forest Park’s Library Advisory Committee; Friends of the Shoreline, Richmond Beach and Lake Forest Park Libraries; and Third Place Books.
No registration required. This author talk is free! You can sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book.
An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home
Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has always longed for a sense of home. When she was a child, her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha.
With little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother—a linguist who helped preserve her Indigenous language of Lushootseed—Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people.
Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own.
Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.
"When Sasha LaPointe isn’t singing in punk bands, she’s writing about her life as an Indigenous person of Upper Skagit and Nooksack lineage, which has culminated beautifully in her debut memoir . . . A gripping read that sheds fresh light on what it means to be both punk and Indigenous in America."
—Jason Heller, A NPR Best Book of the Year
"Absorbing . . . a worthy tribute to Coast Salish women."
—TIME
"Sasha’s compelling personal story, the story of her maternal ancestors and the lands they have inhabited are inextricably linked in this memoir. This is essential reading for those of us who now live on what was once, completely, the territory of Coast Salish people."
—The Seattle Times
"LaPointe recounts the interconnected stories of her life and the lives of some of her ancestors as Coast Salish women living in different time periods on their ancestral lands. These simultaneous threads capture resilience, trauma, love, healing, and connection . . . Her work is definitely something to be watched."
—Sarah Neilson, Shondaland
Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk and the poetry collection Rose Quartz. She is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribes. Native to the Pacific Northwest, she draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city. She holds a double MFA in creative nonfiction and poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Yellow Medicine Review, Hunger Mountain, and elsewhere. She lives in Tacoma, Washington. (Photo credit: Blaine Slingerland)
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