Sara Marie Ortiz is a young Acoma Pueblo memoirist, poet, scholar, aspiring filmmaker, youth trainer, and Indigenous Peoples advocate. She is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts (2006) with her BFA in Creative Writing and graduated in June 2009 with her MFA in Creative Writing, with a concentration in creative nonfiction, from Antioch University Los Angeles. A dedicated youth advocate and mentor, from 2009 to 2010, Ms. Ortiz served as the co-coach of the Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team (showcased in both HBO's Brave New Voices and in the New York Times). She is currently serving as Personal Assistant to Cheyenne-Arapaho filmmaker Chris Eyre. Among other recent achievements, Ms. Ortiz has been accepted to a number of law programs, among them Penn State University’s Dickinson School of Law, and was chosen as one of only two delegates from the United States, attending the inaugural session of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva, Switzerland (2008). Most recently Ms. Ortiz, was selected to attend the Macondo Foundation’s Annual Writers Workshop in San Antonio, Texas (2009 & 2010), the Geneva Institute on Indigenous Peoples Law (2009) & recently attended & facilitated sessions at the Man Up Global Leadership Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa (Summer, 2010). Ms. Ortiz is a member of the American Indian Professionals Association, is a graduate of the American Indian Law Center’s Pre-law Summer Institute (2008), is a former fellow and current alum of the American Indian Graduate Center, and is credentialed to participate in UN Sessions pertaining to Indigenous human rights, lives, and communities, through her NGO The Indigenous World Association. She has hosted, moderated, curated, lectured and presented her work widely throughout the U.S., is the recipient of awards for her scholarship, poetry, and nonfiction, among them the Truman Capote literary fellowship (2003), the Brigham Young Morning Star Creative Writing Award (2010), and is a lifetime Catching the Dream scholarship award recipient. Also an aspiring filmmaker, Ms. Ortiz’s proposal for a documentary on sexual violence against Native women in the U.S. was selected as a finalist in the New Mexico Governor’s Cup Film Competition (2007), she was recently selected as a finalist in the application process at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film program, and she is currently at work on two film projects, one—a narrative film about a young Native mother and widow of an Iraqi veteran—and another, a documentary on the life and legacy of Ms. Ortiz’s father, poet, author, professor, Pushcart Prize winner, and literary luminary Simon J. Ortiz, co-produced by Chris Eyre. Ms. Ortiz’s publications include works of creative nonfiction and poetry, among them “Creation Story” published in Sovereign Bones: New Native American Writing (Nation Books), and “Letter to My America” published in Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out. Her most recent publications include works of poetry and prose in The Kenyon Review, The Yellow Medicine Review, the newest issue of Sentence, the premiere literary journal of the prose poem, and New Poets of the American West. Upcoming publications include new creative work included in a collection of new writing translated into Hungarian by poet & translator Gabor Yukics; a new printing of Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry; a special issue of The Florida Review; and a collection of poetry by Indigenous and Mestiza women called Turtle Island to Abya Yala, slated for publication in mid to late 2010.