FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
David Meyers, EdD Revisits Michigan’s Odawa History in We Are Not Dead: A History of the Odawa People in Michigan
A deeply researched historical narrative brings memory, land, migration, culture, and survival into powerful focus for modern readers.
MICHIGAN, Sep 3, 2026 -–David Meyers, EdD, announces the release of the 2026 Revised Edition of We Are Not Dead: A History of the Odawa People in Michigan, a compelling historical work based on true events that invites readers to look again at the land beneath their feet and ask a difficult, necessary question: Who was here before us?
History is often reduced to dates, documents, and distant facts. We Are Not Dead brings the past close enough to feel. The book follows the story of the Odawa people in Michigan through a narrative shaped by memory, place, research, and reverence. It does not treat history as something buried. It treats history as something still speaking.
At the center of the book is Neg-wa-gon, an older Odawa narrator looking back on the experiences of his people, their movement through Michigan, their relationship with the land, and the pressures brought by modernization, settlement, treaties, religion, education, trade, and cultural change. Through his voice, readers are taken into a world of rivers, forests, villages, family traditions, spiritual memory, difficult choices, and survival.
Meyers’ work stands apart because it is not written from casual interest. It grew from a personal encounter with Michigan’s landscape and its forgotten markers. Two granite boulders, one marking Native trading routes near the Flat and Grand Rivers and another marking the site of a schoolhouse built for tribal people in Oceana County, led the author into years of research. That search took him through books, libraries, museums, maps, unpublished records, historical places, old ruins, cemeteries, and the living geography of Odawa memory.
As a psychologist, he brings a deep interest in culture, identity, memory, and human behavior. As an Episcopal priest, he brings a moral seriousness to the dignity of people whose stories were too often pushed aside.
For readers of Michigan history, Native American history, historical fiction based on real events, or books that help recover overlooked voices, We Are Not Dead offers an unforgettable reading experience. It is not only a book about what happened. It is a book about what remains. The title itself becomes the message: a people may be displaced, misrepresented, or written around, but they are not erased.
With scenes that move from the Grand River to Oceana County, from village life to migration, from sacred traditions to schools, treaties, trading posts, and changing settlements, the book gives readers a fuller understanding of how history lives inside place. Every road, riverbank, cemetery, and marker becomes part of a larger story.
We Are Not Dead: A History of the Odawa People in Michigan is a necessary read for anyone who wants to understand Michigan beyond the surface. It is for readers who believe history should be remembered with care, told with respect, and read before it disappears from public memory.
The 2026 Revised Edition of We Are Not Dead: A History of the Odawa People in Michigan by David Meyers, EdD, is available now. Readers can purchase the book online through their preferred book retailer.
About the Author
David Meyers, EdD, is a lifelong resident of the Michigan places in which We Are Not Dead occurs. His long connection to the land, his family’s camp near Native communities in Oceana County, and his years of research helped shape this historical narrative. A psychologist and Episcopal priest, Meyers writes with deep interest in Indigenous culture, memory, dignity, and the responsibility of preserving stories that still matter.