Kathleen Vellenga reads from her novel "In the Midst of Bounty"

Attitash and Elisabeth’s rare friendship endures in Kathleen Vellenga’s second novel featuring the Wampanoag and Pilgrim young women.

As more English come to North America in 1622, the demand for the bounty of land and sea swells, bringing both opportunity and greed. Treachery threatens the peace treaty between their people, and rebels capture the Wampanoag leader. Attitash is caught in the crossfire and wounded during the chaos of a rescue attempt by the Pilgrims. Tensions increase when arrows are delivered to Governor Bradford--signaling war from the enemy Narragansett. The Wampanoag and the Pilgrim are locked in a treaty of mutual defense  which requires they join in defending their peoples. The young friends cannot enjoy their new families as the very survival of both Plimoth and the Wampanoag are linked to their bond.

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After graduating from Macalester College, Kathleen Vellenga taught young children and mentored teen mothers at a community-based maternal/infant clinic, while she and her husband raised three of their own. She was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1981.  In 1991, she received an award from the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and three other state ethnic councils for her legislative efforts to support the needs of children and their families. Kathleen left the Legislature in 1994 to become the executive director of the Saint Paul Children’s Initiative, a new early childhood collaborative.  While considerable historical research is the basis for both her first book Strangers in Our Midst and its sequel, Vellenga drew upon her personal relationships for the emotional heart of her novels.  She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.