Matthew L.M. Fletcher, “Stick Houses” (Michigan State University Press, 2025)
By Bob Needham
Michigan Law
Professor Matthew L.M. Fletcher, ’97, has been writing fiction off and on since graduating from law school. Although a few of his stories have been published in literary journals over the years, most have not received broader distribution — until now.
Fletcher has collected 14 stories in a new book called “Stick Houses” (Michigan State University Press, 2025). An expert on federal Indian law, tribal law, and Anishinaabe philosophy,
Fletcher writes in the book’s preface that the stories are “inspired by the family’s experiences and my own experiences.”
Fletcher — the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law and co-director of the Program in Race, Law, and History — recently answered five questions about the book:
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1. What is the significance of the book’s title, “Stick Houses”?
My mother uses that phrase as shorthand for a house made out of wood that is not a log-cabin type of house. We’re from the Grand Rapids [Michigan] area, and I remember her telling me the story of how she had been talking to some academics about some pictures that she had from the early 20th century.
They wanted to see the house where my grandmother grew up. It looks like a regular old house. It was rustic, but it wasn’t a wigwam or a log cabin or anything like that. During my grandmother’s childhood, Indians lived in that house. This was decades ago, but the researchers just couldn’t believe it. They treated my mother like she was lying to them.
So that’s where it comes from. The idea is that Indians are real people. It’s been a long time since somebody asked me if I can vote or if I’m an American citizen or what I do for Thanksgiving. But it’s the same kind of question. To quote the Indigenous punk band Dead Pioneers, I’m having an “American experience.”
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2. What led you to first take up writing fiction?
I always have had a creative bent. After I went through college and law school, I had decided to take some time and went to live in Ireland—I basically took a gap year. I wanted to see if there was a way to do something with my creative streak, and one thing I knew how to do was write. So that’s what I did.
I wrote pretty regularly for five or six years, until I became a law professor. While I was a practicing attorney, I would write whenever I had a chance. Once I became a law professor, the goal was tenure and a lot of that stopped. After it was clear I was going to get tenure, I started picking it back up a little more. My earliest law review articles were actually short stories with footnotes. One was called “Stick Houses in Peshawbestown.”
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3. How does your approach to fiction differ from your approach to legal writing or academic writing?
Not as much as you would think. The great thing about legal writing is that it’s about economy of words. It’s really easy to go into purple prose territory for somebody like me. After I got out of college, I could write all day, but out of 10 pages only about a paragraph would be substantive and useful. So law school helped me really ratchet that back, and that kind of discipline is really helpful.
I don’t have one particular way of writing as an academic. Sometimes I’ll start with just a bunch of random musings, and other times I have it fully formed in my head. With fiction writing, I’ll usually just start writing and see where it goes. Academic writing, including brief writing, often involves telling a story, so there’s a bit of crossover there.
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4. You mention that most of the situations in the stories are inspired by real life. Is that also true of the characters?
I don’t really like to write about real people too much, but there are definitely composites. I don’t want somebody to read it and think, “Oh, that’s me.” I’ve done that before and shown it to people, and it kind of freaks them out.
I will say, though, that the character of the old lady in “The Village by the Sea,” the story from hundreds of years ago, about the guys landing on the beach—that old lady is my grandmother. I told my mom that’s totally her.
I also took a weird moment from law school where I glimpsed someone I knew from my high school for just a half second and made up an entire story from that nub. It’s in the book. It’s called “Thinking About What I’ve Done.”
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5. Are there one or two of the stories that you consider a favorite or you’re the most proud of?
I think the newer stuff is better. I hadn’t really looked at some of the older stories in a long time, and I had to cut some things.
“The Sons of Leopold” is about the aftermath of a crime in Anishinaabe Indian country and the passing of judgment in a traditional ceremony, but one that occurs in the near future. The twist is that the “Indians” in the story are not really Indians at all; they’ve modified their DNA to become Indians. That one is my favorite. I feel like that’s a nub of a novel that I have wanted to write for quite a while, and I just haven’t done it. But I have the nub. I’m ready.
Another one that I really like is “Badder Road,” the one about Beercan, with the moth that explodes. That is also the nub of a longer story, but I haven’t done anything with either of those. Every Indian reservation I’ve been to has a guy whose nickname is Beercan. Reservation homes insulated with newspapers and cardboard, with no running water or electricity. That’s a thing, sadly, even now.
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