Kate Stewart: Today I’m here with author Jay Jones, who has his first book coming out, and the title of it is A Bilagáana Boy Among the Navajo. So welcome, Jay.

Jay Jones: Thanks, Kate.

Kate Stewart: Before we go any further, I’m going to give a full disclosure that I helped Jay with writing the book. He came to me when he had a draft and needed some help with revising it and getting it ready to publish. So, I’m very familiar with this book. I know it well. I’ve read it many times.

Let’s get started. And let’s see, the first question I wanted to ask you is, just so our listeners know, what’s the general gist of your story?

Jay Jones: Well, the title, as you mentioned, is A Bilagáana Boy Among the Navajo, or I guess an appropriate subtitle is, How Did a White Kid Come to Live on the Navajo Reservation? Because Bilagáana means white person in the Navajo language.

My memoir chronicles my four years living on the reservation, the Navajo Reservation, beginning in the late 1960s, when I arrived there at 7, almost 8 years old. My mom and stepfather worked for the BIA, or Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is how I came to live there.

Kate Stewart: Right. So that’s, and how many years were you there total?

Jay Jones: About right at four years.

Kate Stewart: Yeah. So, I think it’s interesting that your book it really focuses in on those four years. It’s a slice-of-life kind of memoir. I wanted to ask you, why did you feel the need to write this story, to make it public, and to go into such depth about that time in in your life?

Jay Jones: Well, I knew I had a unique story, and for the last 30 years I kept telling myself, I’ll write a book about what I went through, and it was just a matter of time before I finally decided to move forward. Another was that I figured no one cared or would want to hear about my life or events on the reservation, and that probably stemmed from my insecurity and guilt talking to me about how I was treated as a kid by my parents, and I never really shared anything with anyone.

So, I guess part of it, too, I wanted to also tell readers out there that despite dysfunctional families and situations that you have no control over, you can still overcome them. Stay strong to yourself and keep being persistent to what you want in anything.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, it’s a really great message. So, when you decided to write it, and you just sat down at your computer, how did you approach that? Did you have a method for telling this story?

Jay Jones: Right. Yeah, that’s a that’s a really good question. And I tell people, you know, I always never really considered myself a writer and had no idea how to how to begin thinking about writing.

But somewhere in the early stages I was doing some Google searches and came across an article on memoir writing that said, “Just write down 50 stories you want to share in your memoir.”

And I thought, Okay, that’s easy. I knew many stories that I could easily recall, and over the course of about two hours, I wrote about 46 stories, not didn’t quite make 50, but 46 stories, just one sentence of each thing that I wanted to cover on a yellow pad. I just wrote out one sentence. It only took about two hours, and I didn’t quite come up with the 50. But it was a good enough start.

I guess the next step was just that I began writing out descriptive details in a word document about each story in chronological order. The order wasn’t exact, but the timeframe was close enough, and I just kept writing it this way, and as I did, more and more details kept coming to me.

Kate Stewart: And I guess you did a little bit of research, too. Did you look up things about your time there that you hadn’t remembered clearly?

Jay Jones: There were a number of places, different locations in Window Rock and throughout the reservation and in Gallup, which was the nearest town we did most of our shopping and errands, doctor’s appointments and stuff in. But yes, I relied on Google to help me with a lot of that. And of course, you know, newspapers’ archives like the Navajo Times, they just solidified the stories that I recalled, and I was able to pick up more information just by doing research here and there on what I remember, and incorporated it into the stories.

Kate Stewart: I know a lot of this story is, I would say, can be a little bit hard to read, maybe painful. I’m sure it was painful for you to write, because I guess we would imagine a typical white kid showing up on a reservation and connecting with people, learning from them, having this wonderful positive story.

But your story isn’t always positive. I know there are incidents where you were bullied, and you were also going through abuse stuff at home by your stepfather. So, how did you write about those difficult things? How did you decide to approach them?

Jay Jones: Yeah, I was. I guess I was just honest about them and what happened. You know, the entire story, the entire memoir is completely true. I mean, I knew I could change people’s names in the memoir, but I wanted the reader to know the full effect of what it was like living there. I knew as a kid much of the bullying came from how Navajos were treated by the white man in the past, and I was in a place and time to just to have to deal with some of those repercussions. The Navajo are fine people, great people. I have strong regard for them, and what they have overcome in the suppression of what the white man has done to them. But overall, I just did my best to endure living among them, and you know, just wanted to be honest about what happened living there, you know, during my time as a kid.

Kate Stewart: Yeah. Can you talk about some of the really great experiences that you had there that you enjoyed?

Jay Jones: Oh, there were quite a few, without giving too much away, I guess I’d have to say the many trips I took. There’s a character in the book called Grandma Begay, my next-door neighbor or neighbor who lived across the street. His grandparents still lived just like they did 100, 150 years ago, out in a hogan, way out in the sticks, out in the boonies, and I went to their location several times. I only documented three times in the book only because there’s something bizarre happened on those three occurrences, but there were other times where I went there, and it was pretty much uneventful. But Grandma Begay was just the mellowest, easygoing person you’d want to be around. She was just very receptive and comfortable with me as a white boy, and I would say that that was something I enjoyed writing about and look back on.

Along with I learned to ride a horse from Dean Jackson and participated in a rodeo in Winslow. Arizona. That was really something I enjoyed, writing about or experiencing, but just being a kid hanging out on the reservation, too, just riding my mini-bike or sledding during the winter.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, yeah, some of those are really…

Jay Jones: There’s some fun stories.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, they’re fun to read. Did you ever, when you were going through and writing, did you ever have writer’s block or difficulty getting the stories down? I know some people get discouraged and think, oh, I’m never going to finish this, and they stop for periods of time. Did you ever go through that?

Jay Jones: There were many times, but I was in no hurry to get it finished, and really didn’t get serious about writing it until maybe 2018 when I retired. Although I had 46 stories to share, writing them really proved challenging. You know, I wrote out everything I could recall about the events, and knew I’d come back at a later time and rewrite it.

But if I was on a roll in my writing, and the thoughts were coming easy. I just kept going, because, you know, writer’s block is going to come, you’re going to sit down one day, and it’s just some stuff just won’t happen.

But the most important part, really, is just to write and write and just get it all down. You know, I didn’t focus on the grammar or punctuation, as you know.

Kate Stewart: Right.

Jay Jones: I mean, I just knew that it could be fixed later and after many rewrites. I planned to work with an editor that would work with me to make it more of a flowing story that readers would like, and thanks to you, it turned out that way. It turned out good.

Kate Stewart: It was fun to read from the beginning, but it was great to see how you improved it over time.

Jay Jones: Yeah.

Kate Stewart: So, I was wondering, too. I know a lot of people when they’re writing in a certain genre like memoir in your case, they look to other books to kind of see what other people have done on similar topics, or just similar styles. Were there any that you looked at as kind of a model?

Jay Jones: Not no, not really. Not memoirs.

Kate Stewart: No, you just…

Jay Jones: But I mean, since I’ve written this, I’ve become more interested in them, and you know I’ve been inspired and enjoyed reading one.I just finished a couple months ago was called Cloudwatcher by Nancy Atkinson. Nancy’s story’s theme, is kind of similar to mine even though she was younger. She was a white girl that lived on the Navajo Reservation in the 1950s, when her father ran a trading post and a tourist store on Route 66. It’s a really good story, and I like that.

But overall, I guess I like nonfiction. And you know, big into psychology, self-help, motivation, inspirational stuff. Right now, I’m reading probably one that a lot of people have read is Solito by Javier Zamora. Another good one, where he was a kid about my age, 9, 10 years old, who came from El Salvador to the United States illegally. But it’s kind of an interesting memoir as well.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, that sounds interesting. I should note that down. Were you ever concerned about people reading it and finding these things out about you, or, I guess there probably weren’t too many people who are still around who are extensively mentioned in your book. Do you think was that ever a concern that they’d be offended or upset about by something you wrote?

Jay Jones: I really wasn’t concerned about the people I wrote about in the book, because most of them… those that are in the book. I tried to find them, and they’re long gone, and this took place so many years ago. Many of the characters are all deceased now. But I wasn’t that concerned about the people that knew me. But there, but really about being honest about people that I know today, what they would think. Because I bared myself and my insecurities in the memoir. And now, as the book is released, I wondered today, I wonder what people will think as my friends and neighbors are asking, “Oh, Jay, I heard you wrote a book,” and it’s like, “Yeah,” I said, and then I tell them I hope you might read it and enjoy my adventure, and knowing that hopefully, they’ll learn something new about me, too.

But yeah, not the characters of the past, not worried about, but those today, you know, I just kind of wonder, well, what are they going think? You know you just don’t. You don’t know. I know I’ll probably get some criticism about something in the book. But I’m not taking anything personally and won’t lose any sleep over what people might think about it.

You know, today I have the self-confidence and security that I just didn’t have before. So you know, it is what it is.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, well, I think everybody, every person who’s written a book worries about what people are going to think.

Jay Jones: Oh, yeah. No question.

Kate Stewart: It’s it is a common feeling. I’m curious how did the process of writing a memoir, do you think it changed you as a person? Or do you think it changed how you looked back on your life in kind of a different way?

Jay Jones: Yes, when I left my teen years, I knew I had a pretty abnormal childhood, and what I experienced could have broken many, many boys, you know. I went through a lot and somehow managed to come out of it. But I really wanted to get on living with my life, and was so focused on doing so, I never really felt sorry for myself. I just went on trying to make a life for myself. I always think back, I could have easily probably become a criminal or a big-time drug user, just based on suppressing my inner pain and guilt of the crap that occurred. But I just kept my self-talk positive, and I just kept overcoming the challenges and the problems that I faced on a daily basis, and just tried to rid myself of the insecurities laid on me by my parents and some of the Navajo there, and it probably wasn’t, Kate, until my forties that I that the ice began cracking, and I needed to try to forgive everyone. That’s kind of how I look back on it, how things transpired. I guess writing the memoir really helped to solidify that, and just forgive all of those of the past. You can’t belabor it, and just to just move on, you got to do that.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, that’s interesting. I think for a lot of people. It’s kind of a therapeutic process to write a memoir.

Jay Jones: I agree.

Kate Stewart: If there’s something pretty traumatic in it, a lot of people tend to come out of it kind of healed afterwards after just telling it and getting it out there in the open.

Jay Jones: Yeah, exactly.

Kate Stewart: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about you know how the steps of your decisions and how you decided to get your book published.

Jay Jones: Yeah, that’s that was a real challenge, really interesting. Like everyone that writes a book. I really wanted a traditional publishing deal knowing that my story was as good as anything the big publishers could put out, and I was, you know, I knew if they read the transcript, they would, it would probably go. It would fly. But you know, over a six-month period, I queried around 140 literary agents, and maybe 25 publishers that accept manuscripts from authors or author submissions. And I received 0 responses. I mean, I was like dumbfounded. I mean not one, not one wanted to see the manuscript. So, I was surprised. And then I realized, well, memoirs like mine are, even though it’s a good story. It’s a tough sell for writers and literary agents are mainly interested in celebrity or famous people.

Kate Stewart: Right? Yeah, yeah, it’s really tough to get a memoir published when you’re not super famous. It’s a hard thing. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading or writing. I think there is kind of a market out there for the memoirs of ordinary people who kind of live through really interesting, extraordinary things.

Jay Jones: Right, right. Yeah. In the end, I decided to self-publish. I don’t have the knowledge or experience to self-publish, and I didn’t really want to learn it. So, I hired a one-stop shop publisher and someone that could work with the e-book and print version and format it and do the cover design and the metadata optimization. And the big thing for me is, I wanted global distribution, so it’d be available anywhere in the world.

I went to these one-stop publisher companies, and you know, that’s a do it your all kind of thing you have to. You know, you have to pay them. They don’t work for free. But they did the whole thing for me, and then, the end result, I’m very happy with the outcome.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, yeah, it looks fantastic. I’m holding a copy of it right now, and I love the cover, and the layout looks fantastic, and I know it’s a great story. I’m just so happy to see the finished copy, you know. I’m just so happy to see a finished copy.

Jay Jones: Right? Yeah, I took that picture on one of my trips there.

Jay Jones: It turned out pretty good. And one of the other things, too, is, you know, in the publishing process, I wanted to get some editorial reviews right away and I went to one of the really most popular editorial reviews called Readers Favorite and was able to get four 5-star reviews from them, and I stuck their logo on my book cover. Hopefully that’ll inspire some people to know it’s that it’s worth looking at.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, for sure. You mentioned that you went back, I guess you’ve gone back a few times in recent years to go see Window Rock and that area. What was that like to go back? I know you wrote about it a little bit at the beginning.

Jay Jones: Yeah, it’s well, it’s not the same, you know. I don’t know. To me, it just everything seemed a little bit more depressing. It’s kind of run down. Everything is still there. I don’t know how to describe it. It just is kind of drawing a blank right now, but it was good to see the sandstone formations, which are very attractive, and Window Rock. But the Navajo are still struggling. Their poverty is immense there and alcoholism is still prevalent, not as severe as it was what I saw in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. But you know, you can’t help but feel for them. But there’s so much beauty, and if you just drive around there, and so many incredible sights to go see from Monument Valley to Canyon de Chelly and Window Rock and Shiprock, and all the other places. It’s just cool to be there.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, yeah, it’s an amazing place for sure. So, I wanted to ask if you, hopefully, there are people out there listening who are working on their own memoirs or thinking about it, and I wanted to ask if you had any advice for them now that you’ve gone through the whole process.

Jay Jones: Yeah, don’t wait as long as I did, you know.

Kate Stewart: Yeah.

Jay Jones: I would say, get started. Don’t listen to other people if they try to detract you. People will say, “Oh, you can’t do that. You don’t know what you’re doing, or you don’t know how long it’ll take.” If your inner self-talk is saying, you can’t do it too. Don’t listen to it, you know. Just if you have a good story and something that you want to share, you know. Begin like I did by writing down just 50 events that you want to document. It just takes to write out one sentence, it just took a couple hours to write down 46 for me, you know about things I wanted to talk about or cover if necessary. You may need to research the details and dig out old photos or scrapbooks to rekindle memories like I did. Talk to people if they’re still around, you know, and what they remember. Work with a coach like you. I know with the book coaches nowadays, they can help motivate and inspire people a lot more, and then just keep writing and rewrite and fine tune. Get the editorial help and figure out how you want to publish it. You may not have an end date in mind, but it gets closer as you get finished, as you get towards the end. But just keep persisting at it, and it’ll all evolve. But you know, don’t wait to get started, I think is the main key.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, yeah, I think that 50 stories method is really interesting. I think that is a good way to just get the juices flowing to see what you have.

Jay Jones: Yeah, I just wrote the 50. They weren’t in any order. I just wrote them out. I want to talk about this thing I did or that thing, and I just wrote them out. And then, after completed, then I decided, okay, I’ll start trying to get it in an in order that that they occurred. It wasn’t precise, but it’s it was like I said, close enough.

Kate Stewart: Okay. I know you have some events coming up to do talks and readings. Could you talk about those?

Jay Jones: Yeah, I’ve got I’ll be doing locally here in the Tucson area. Well, first of all, I encourage our readers out there if you’d like, you can go to my website, I have the entire first chapter of the book on my website. My website is my name Jay Jones, J-A-Y Jones author, all run together, .com. So jayjonesauthor.com. You can read the first chapter, and there’s a lot of other good information there.

But locally, here in the Tucson area at the Barnes and Noble store, I’ll be doing a book signing on Saturday, May 10, from noon to 3 and that’s the Barnes and Noble on La Cholla, and at the Barnes and Noble store on Broadway in on June 14th That’s from noon to 3. So May 10th at the westside Barnes and Noble, and then the other one is on the eastside Barnes and Noble on Broadway on June 14th. I’ll be there to sign copies and talk more about my story and that kind of thing.

Kate Stewart: That sounds really fun. Hopefully people will be able to come out and see it. Well, is there anything else you want to leave us with before we wrap up?

Jay Jones: No, I just like I want to thank you for you know the time and energy you put in my project. And I certainly couldn’t have done it without your help, I mean especially the flow of the story turned out turned out better than I probably would have done on my own, or I’d probably have to spend another six months to a year to get it going good. But I think you did a phenomenal job, and I thank you for that. And hopefully our readers will get some inspiration from it. Like I said, part of the reason I wrote it was just that if one per persists and overcomes any kind of obstacles, you know, it can happen it. Things like this will come forth to fruition.

Kate Stewart: Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, thank you for being here. I just want to encourage anybody, if you’re interested in Navajo history or memoirs or books about the Southwest, I think this is a phenomenal book. So, thanks for being here and talking with us.

Jay Jones: Thank you, Kate.

Kate Stewart: Okay, great.

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