Join Heyday for another installment of Heyday Presents*,* an ongoing conversation series presented in collaboration with Clio's Books.

Terria Smith's book I Love You So Many charts the intersection of travel and Indigeneity, telling Terria's journey from the Torres Martinez Reservation to the Cuban seaside and beyond. I Love You So Many is an ode to adventure and an account of what it means to leave one's comfort zone—and what can happen on the other side. She will be joined in conversation by fellow author Chris La Tray, whose 2024 book Becoming Little Shell (Milkweed Editions) recounts Chris' exploration of his family's past and his Native heritage, kept secret from him for years.

About the Speakers

Terria Smith is a tribal member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and a proud original Californian. She is the editor of News from Native California magazine and director of the Berkeley Roundhouse, Heyday’s California Indian publishing program. Smith is also the editor of the 2023 anthology Know We Are Here: Voices of Native California Resistance. She received her undergraduate degree at Cal Poly Humboldt (formerly Humboldt State University) and earned her master’s degree at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She lives on her ancestral homelands in the Coachella Valley with her puppy Havana.

Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North, and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, he is also the author of One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large, which won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award, as well as Descended from a Travel-Worn Satchel, a collection of haiku and haibun poetry. La Tray is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023–2025 and a former bookseller at Fact & Fiction. He writes the weekly newsletter “An Irritable Métis” and lives near Frenchtown, Montana.

About Heyday Presents

This series is part of our Heyday Presents program. Heyday Presents features Heyday authors in conversation with notable luminaries and thought leaders. Heyday Members receive free VIP access to Heyday Presents program and a curation of our top new releases, among a host of other perks. Learn more about Heyday's Membership and becoming a member of Clio's Books as well.