Contributors
At age 14, A.A. Carr, a Full-blood American Indian - Diné and Laguna Pueblo - began writing and making super 8mm clay-animated films about Navajo and Hopi lifestyles. Thereafter, he began a career of documentary filmmaking centering on Native American life and traditions. One of these entitled A LAGUNA WOMAN was nominated for an Academy Award in the student category. In 1994, he published his first novel - EYE KILLERS - with the University of Oklahoma Press in their American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series.
He has since been working on a trilogy of novels exploring the impact of the lingering trauma of colonization and genocide upon our current Native generation.
This excerpt is from the first book (currently untitled) of the trilogy.
A Mi’kmaq Métis, my roots are in the Kespu’kwitk District of Nova Scotia. The St. Louis Poetry Center, to which I belong, published my prize-winning poems in its annual chapbooks of 2007 and 2008. My first book, In Mi’kmaq Country: Selected Poems and Stories, was released in 2007 by Albatross Press. My recent poems have appeared in Yellow Medicine Review; Whisper n Thunder (an e-magazine); I Was Indian: An Anthology of Native Literature; Visions and Voices: American Indian Activism and the Civil Rights Movement; Many Mountains Moving; Yukhika-latuhse; Mid Rivers Review; and Birthed from Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War.
Anecia O'Carroll, M.A., author of First Breaths, is a member of the Alutiiq Tribe of Alaska. Her life is a pulsing collage of stories, dances, dreams, spirited conversations and lasting connections made together with Kevin, her husband of 23 years, three daughters whom Anecia feels so privileged to know -- Kathleen, Bridget, and Fiona, and friends-turned-family in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, New England, and Ireland. She can be contacted at
LoudBlood@gmail.com .
Ardie Medina is a Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin Anishinabe poet who has twice participated in The Loft Literary Center’s Native American InRoads program. She is also a playwright and has appeared in the Minnesota Fringe Festival as writer and actor. Her commissioned work includes poems based on the Weisman Art Museum’s New Voices of the Heartland exhibit (2002) and poetry for the Twin Cities Women’s Choir’s spring concert (2003) entitled Strong Hearts Leading the Way, a performance piece of music and spoken word. You can find Ardie’s poems in the anthologies Traces in Blood, Bone and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry (2006, Loonfeather Press) and Yellow Medicine Review. Ardie lives in northeast Minneapolis with her husband and their dog, Amos.
I am of mixed heritage - Abenaki/Cree/French Canadian and Irish; born in Washington DC, I now live in northern California Sierra foothills. My poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Canary, Manzanita and Red Ink. Anthologies include I Was Indian, Sacramento: 100 Best Poems, and Nantucket. My latest collection is A Counterpane Without (Rattlesnake Press).
Brittany Luby is an Anishinaabe author from Kenora, Ontario. She has a BAH in English from Queen’s University and an MA in History from York University. She is now completing her doctorate in History with the University of British Columbia (UBC). Most recently she has been published in Red Ink Magazine. She also presented at the 8th Annual Indigenous Graduate Student Symposium, sponsored by the Indigenous Education Institute of Canada. She spoke on the panel of “Indigenous Stories and Creative Expressions.” New work is to be released in Caitlin Press’s upcoming anthology Walk Myself Home.
Carter Revard (Osage) was born March 25, 1931 in Pawhuska, OK. He taught at Washington University, St. Louis, until his retirement. His two collections of his poems were published by Point Riders Press in Oklahoma: Ponca War Dancers (1980) and Cowboys and Indians Christmas Shopping (1992). His other books include An Eagle Nation and Family Matters, Tribal Affairs, Winning the Dust Bowl, and How the Songs Come Down: New and Selected Poems.
Cecelia R. LaPointe, M.A. is a proud Anishinaabekwe of mixed heritage who strongly identifies with her Native roots. She is an healer, poet and writer. Cecelia loves Michigan, The Great Lakes, hiking in the woods, running, poetry and tea.
Cheryl Minnema (Waabaanakwadookwe) is a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raised on the Mille Lacs Reservation by her mother, Mille Benjamin (Zhaawanigiizhigookwe) and grandmother, Lucy Clark (Omadwebigaashiikwe). Graduating from Nay Ah Shing Tribal School, she went on to receive her Associate of Arts Degree from Central Lakes Community College and her Bachelor’s of Elective Studies from St. Cloud State University. She lives in Milaca, Minnesota with her husband Ed and their two sons, Sean and Ethan. Cheryl devotes her time to Ojibwe bead working, writing, and family.
I am a Gooreng Gooreng/Yidinji Woman, currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. My poems have been influenced by the issues that have affected my life: my parents, my grandparents and great grandparents.
As a modern day Aboriginal women, I know that our people are still dealing with the effects of the assimilation policy as dictated by the colonisers of yesteryear. Through poems these emotions and thoughts can be expressed freely to an audience that can choose to listen or not.
Choctaw satirist D.L. Birchfield is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma College of Law and is Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. He has also taught American Indian studies at Cornell University, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He has served as book review editor for Studies In American Indian Literatures (SAIL), Native Americas, and News From Indian Country, and is a former editor of Camp Crier at the Oklahoma City Native American Center.
His Oklahoma Basic Intelligence Test (Greenfield Review Center, 1998) won the First Book Award For Prose from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas, and his Field of Honor (U of OK P, 2004) won the Writer of the Year award from Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers and the Spur Award for Best First Novel from Western Writers of America.His other books include Black Silk Handkerchief: A Hom-Astubby Mystery (U of OK P, 2006) and nineteen textbooks for children from educational publishers.
He was a founding member of the National Advisory Caucus of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers and was General Editor of the eleven-volume Encyclopedia of North American Indians (Marshall Cavendish, 1997). In 2007 he was the Distinguished Lecturer at the 84th annual convention of the Central States Anthropological Society. His most recent book, How Choctaws Invented Civilization and Why Choctaws Will Conquer The World (U of NM P, 2007), treats American history, American Indian law and policy, Choctaw history, and academe as objects of satire.
Dar’ron Cambra birthed his first real poem in an attempt to escape the word count of daily writing assignments while in high school. His first live performance was interrupted by a heart attack. A large ego and the desire for attention drew Dar’ron from the page to the stage; after many failed attempts and embarrassing mistakes, Dar’ron has become a noticeable figure in the Hawai’i slam poetry community (because he is tall) and is a Mentor and Workshop Facilitator for Youth Speaks Hawai’i, where he copies the talented teens’ poetry and passes it off as his own.
He has helped coach teens from Hawai’i to back to back national championships at Brave New Voices and has represented Hawai’i three times in national adult competition. He has created and maintains an innovative program where poets, as registered substitutes, visit classrooms and facilitate workshops similar to the after school workshops. His CD “TRUE Confessions of a Compulsive LIAR” has been self-released, using pieces from his chapbook with the same name.
The CD is a wonderful mix of poetry and music, produced by artists from both Washington and Hawai’i. The follow-up collection, “(A Poet’s) Hypocritical Oaf” (containing “Plantation Generation”) is in the works. For more info visit his website, www.poorwettree.com or Contact darron@youthspeakshawaii.org.
David Beaulieu is an Emeritus Professor of Education Policy at Arizona State University where he was also the Director of the Center for Indian Education and editor of the Journal of Indian Education. He is currently a Professor of Education Policy and Director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. An enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from White Earth, he was formerly the Director of the Office of Indian Education at the US Department of Education. In 2005 he was President of the National Indian Education Association. He has been at various times Chairman of the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Director of Indian Education, Vice President at Sinte Gleska Tribal College Rosebud South Dakota and the Commissioner of Human Rights in the administration of Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson. “Wine and Cheese” is from a collection of John Clement Beaupre stories in the unpublished “The Strange Empire of John Clement Beaupre.” Other selections from the “Strange Empire” have appeared in a collection of Ojibwe prose Stories Migrating Home and a collection of Ojibwe poetry Traces in Blood, Bone and Stone both edited by Kim Blaeser.
Dean is a member of the Lumbee Nation with a Ph. D. in Communication from Stanford University.
DeAnna Quietwater Noriega is half Apache, and a quarter Swan Creek Chippewa. She lives in mid Missouri with her husband, youngest daughter and three grandchildren. She works as a legislative public policy advocate for an independent Living center. You can find more of her writing in an anthology entitled Behind Our Eyes.
Deborah A. Miranda is the author of two poetry collections, Indian Cartography [Greenfield Review Press, 1999] which won the Diane Decorah Award for First Book from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, and The Zen of La Llorona, nominated for the Lambda Literary Award [Salt Publishing, 2004]. Miranda is an enrolled member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation of California, and is of Chumash ancestry as well. She is currently finishing “Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir,” a collection of stories, poems, Mission documents, her Esselen grandfather’s tape-recorded histories, government records, newspaper articles, and her own experiences as a mixedblood California Indian woman in the 21st century, as well as a book of poems titled “Raised By Humans.” As Associate Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, Deborah teaches Creative Writing (poetry and memoir), composition, and a variety of literatures concerned with race, gender and ethnicity.
Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-2009, has been writing, reviewing, editing and publishing literary and scholarly works for 30 years. She is the author of ten collections of poetry and six books of prose, including a biography of Langston Hughes (co-authored with Thomas Weso).
Members of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) elected Low to their national board 2008-12. She serves as AWP vice president and 2010 conference chair. She has awards and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, Academy of American Poets, The Newberry Library, National Endowment for the Humanities, Roberts Foundation, and others. Low authors a regular poetry blog, which includes downloadable electronic poetry broadsides and other resources for writers.
Low’s poetry books include Thailand Journal: Poems, a Kansas City Star notable book (Woodley Press-Washburn University, 2003) and New & Selected Poems 1980-1999 (Penthe, 2000), recipient of a Lawrence Arts Commission grant. Earlier books of poetry are from BookMark Press (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Cottonwood (University of Kansas), Mulberry, Holiseventh, and Howling Dog. Individual poems recently appear in Connecticut Review, Chariton Review, Chiron Review, Connotation Press-Congeries, North American Review, Northwest Review, Midwest Quarterly, New Mexico Poetry Review, Yellow Medicine Review, The Poets Guide to the Birds (Anhinga, 2008, eds. Judith Kitchen & Ted Kooser), Summerset Review, and others
A book about writing poetry in the Midwest grasslands, Words of a Prairie Alchemist (Ice Cube Press 2006), was recognized by the Kansas Center for the Book as a Kansas Notable Book, and To the Stars: Kansas Poets of the Ad Astra Poetry Project (Washburn University Center for Kansas Studies/Mammoth, 2009) also was given the same award. In addition, she has edited anthologies of writings about William Stafford, ecology, Laguna author Leslie Marmon Silko, and poetry. Three Voices is a multimedia collaborative project with Low’s text, images by Paul Hotvedt, and videography by Josh Kendall (Blue Heron, 2008). A forthcoming book is Natural Theologies–critical essay about Plains and Midwestern settler and Indigenous writers (The Backwater Press, 2011).
Low is a 5th generation Kansan of British, German, and unaffiliated Lenape (Delaware) and Cherokee heritage. She has been a faculty member and administrator at Haskell Indian Nations University for 25 years; visiting professor at the University of Richmond (2005) and visiting professor at the University of Kansas (2008). She has a Ph.D. and M.A. in English from the University of Kansas and M.F.A.in Creative Writing from Wichita State University.
Diane Glancy is professor emeritus at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she taught Native American Literature and Creative Writing. She was the 2008-09 Visiting Richard Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College. Glancy was awarded a 2003 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the 2003 Juniper Poetry Prize from the University of Massachusetts Press for PRIMER OF THE OBSOLETE. Her 2009 books are THE REASON FOR CROWS, a novel of Kateri Tekakwitha, SUNY Press, and PUSHING THE BEAR, After the Trail of Tears, University of Oklahoma Press.
(Photograph by Michael Conway)
In 2007, Arizona published a collection of poems, ASYLUM IN THE GRASSLANDS. Her 2005 books are ROOMS: New and Selected Poems, Salt Publishers, IN-BETWEEN PLACES, essays, University of Arizona Press, and THE DANCE PARTNER, Stories of the Ghost Dance, Michigan State University Press. Glancy's novels include STONE HEART: a novel of Sacajawea, Overlook Press, THE MAN WHO HEARD THE LAND, Minnesota Historical Society Press, DESIGNS OF THE NIGHT SKY, University of Nebraska Press, and PUSHING THE BEAR, the 1838-39 Cherokee Trail of Tears, Harcourt Brace.
She received a 2009 Expressive Arts Grant from the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. to write a play on the history of Indian education. Glancy is of German / English and Cherokee heritage.
Eric Gansworth (Onondaga) is Lowery Writer-in-Residence and Professor of English at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. He was born and raised at the Tuscarora Nation. The author of eight books, including the PEN Oakland Award winning MENDING SKINS, and A HALF-LIFE OF CARDIO-PULMONARY FUNCTION, (National Book Critics Circle's "Good Reads List" for Spring 2008). Gansworth is also a visual artist, and generally incorporates paintings as integral elements.
In 2008, his first full length dramatic work, RE-CREATION STORY, was part of the Public Theater's Native Theater Festival, in NYC. His work has been widely shown and anthologized and has appeared in THE KENYON REVIEW, SHENANDOAH, THE BOSTON REVIEW, PROVINCETOWN ARTS, STONE CANOE, POETRY INTERNATIONAL, THIRD COAST, and THE YELLOW MEDICINE REVIEW, among others. His most recent books are FROM THE WESTERN DOOR TO THE LOWER WEST SIDE, a poetry collaboration with social-documentary photographer, Milton Rogovin, and EXTRA INDIANS, a novel.
Geary Hobson is a professor of English and Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of a novel, The Last of the Ofos (2000), a collection of short stories, Plain of Jars and Other Stories (in press), a book of poetry, Deer Hunting and Other Poems (1990), the editor of two anthologies, The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature (1979) and The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal (in press). He has been teaching Native American literature for almost forty years.
Gord Bruyere is Anishnabe originally from Couchiching First Nation in northwestern Ontario, Canada. He has taught, developed curriculum and coordinated programs at mainstream and Aboriginal post-secondary institutions across Canada in Social Work, Aboriginal Law and Advocacy, Political Science, Indigenous Learning and Early Childhood Education. He has made national and international presentations on Aboriginal education and social work issues. He has published poetry, journal articles, book chapters and reviews that focus on Aboriginal issues in education, child welfare, traditional Anishnabe family beliefs and anti-racism. His poetry appears most recently in FACE: Aboriginal Life and Culture. His first book is Wicihitowin: Aboriginal Social Work in Canada. He is currently working on a book of poetry and a book on healing with Aboriginal men. He currently lives in Lakefield, Ontario, Canada and teaches nearby at Fleming College in Peterborough.
Henry Heavy Shield, Blackfoot name Otah kwistowan (Yellow Knife), is a proud member of the Blood Tribe of southern Alberta. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Lethbridge, and he is currently pursuing his Master's at the University of British Columbia. Henry's work has appeared in Whetstone Literary Magazine and the Westron Wynde online journal. “Generational Intermediary” placed in the 2008 Striking Prose Short Story Competition held by the UofL.
Holland M. Colclasure, Cherokee poet/author is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a degree in English Literature and a Creative Writing minor. Holland is a McNair, national scholar, who wrote two theses, “James Welch’s Riding the Earthboy 40: Poetic Notions in a Prosaic Nation,” and, “Walt Whitman’s Indifference Towards the Indians of America from the Death Bed Edition of Leaves of Grass.” Holland also did an internship at the Sequoya Research Center exposing false groups claiming Cherokee blood in order to receive government funding. Holland has worked for Children International for four years, shaping young minds and helping them find their creative outlet through poetry and short stories. He was invited to read a selection from his first book of poems, “Wounded in Love, Wounded in Hate,” at The Prost, sponsored by the Arkansas Times “Pub or Parish” in April, 2010 and can be seen on youtube < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-MljSJ1UO4> reading selected poems. Holland has been featured in the DVD, “Arkansas: Shaping the Way We Think,” and is currently working on new poems, short stories and novels. It has been said that he has Whitman’s soul and Bukowski’s style. Holland currently resides in London, U.K.
Janet Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in southern Ontario. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people (Victoria, British Columbia) since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, short fiction, science fiction, play writing, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poems with music.
Her literary inspiration comes from her native heritage, feminism, historical territories, human love, sexuality and spirit. Her first published collection of poems is titled Splitting the Heart, Ekstasis Editions 2007 which contains a companion CD of the same name. Janet has collaborated with musicians as a lyricist and has read with dance troupes, creating unique segments of mixed media presentations. Janet’s 2nd video poem was launched in October 2009 titled “What Did You Do Boy” in support of a spoken word track from her CD Firewater. You can hear Janet on the air waves hosting Vancouver Island’s only native radio program on CFUV 101.9fm in Victoria called “Native Waves Radio” and is host of a native music column, Tribal Clefs on CBC Radio One’s program, All Points West in British Columbia every Tuesday.
Her newest collection of poems titled Unearthed is due out in the fall of 2011 with Leaf Press. Janet’s website includes mp3 files, video files, writing samples and Janet’s extensive literary c.v. and list of published works.
Janice Gould (Concow) grew up in Berkeley, California. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned degrees in Linguistics (BA) and English (MA), later enrolling at the University of New Mexico, where she received her Ph.D. in English. More recently, Janice completed a Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Arizona. Janice has received awards for her writing from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Astraea Foundation. Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies. Janice’s books include Beneath My Heart (Firebrand), Earthquake Weather (University of Arizona), Alphabet (May Day), and Speak to Me Words: Essays on American Indian Poetry (University of Arizona), co-edited with Dean Rader. A new collection of poetry, Doubters & Dreamers: Poems and Narrations, will be published with the University of Arizona in Spring 2011. Janice is an Assistant Professor in Women’s and Ethnic Studies (WEST) at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.
Jeanette Weaskus (Nez Perce Tribe) is currently a doctoral student in the rhetoric & composition program at Washington State University. Ms. Weaskus taught composition, humanities, and Native American Literature at Northwest Indian College on her reservation in Lapwai, Idaho. She often fishes with her many sons and will begin hunting with them soon as well. Her family belongs to the traditional Plateau Indian religions and also attends services of the recently established Native American Church in Lawpai, Idaho. Ms. Weaskus enjoys traveling, powwows, playing guitar, hiking Kamiak Butte, and video games.
Jeanne Northrop is a Swedish/Indian (Seneca & Miami)/Irish etc. mix from Bradford, Pennsylvania. She is a writer, and a teacher of composition at Fletcher Technical Community College in Houma, Louisiana. Additionally, she is pursing (sometimes actively, sometimes not) a PhD from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in English with a concentration in Folklore. She received her MA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington and is a graduate of the National Writing Project’s Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project. The submitted story is from an on-going semi-autobiographical, though semi-fictional project tentatively titled The Powwow Cookbook, several chapters of which have been presented at various venues, including the Southern Women’s Writing Conference. She currently lives in Algiers Point in New Orleans, walking distance from the French Quarter, though she foregoes walking on water and takes the ferry instead.
Jeanne Reames somehow managed to acquire three different degrees in three different subjects, including English/Creative Writing, but finally settled down to pursue ancient history. She’s the Martin Professor of European History at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, where she specializes in ancient Greece and Macedonia – thereby proving one’s interests are not genetic. She’s also a member of their Native American Studies faculty, and her ancestry is Miami-Peoria of the Brouillette-Richardville family line. She lives in Omaha with one son, way too many cats, and a yard full of flowers, bunnies, squirrels, and one 80-year-old cottonwood.
John Michael Wenitong majored in Aboriginal Studies and Literature at Central Queensland University (CQU), Rockhampton, Australia. From the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Sydney, he has a certificate in producing films, documentaries. He has taught, worked as a rigger and crane driver, as well as supervised teachers working with English as second language (ESL), Aboriginal youth 15-21 yrs in work readiness, basic literacy, numeracy, life skills and local enterprise. John Lives in Queensland, Australia.
Judi Brannan Armbruster, 62, is a direct descendant of the Karuk Tribe of northern California. Her poetry is found on the internet and in literary magazines and anthologies, @Yellow Medicine Review, Stellar Showcase Journal, Thresholds, Autumn Leaves, Short, Fast and Deadly, Poetry Quarterly, and many more for the asking.
Kate Martin is an assistant professor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in the Ethnic Studies Department, and teaches courses in Indigenous Studies. She is the mother of three daughters, all of who have finished advanced degrees, and five grandchildren, in whom I see the hope for new possibilities in the future and who make my heart happy. Her German, Irish and Dakota family is from Minnesota and South Dakota, and she holds MA and PhD degrees in Native Religious Traditions and Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include advocacy and equity in educational leadership, and issues in American Indian education and language learning. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Academy of Religion, and her current edited volume, Indigenous Symbols and Practices in the Catholic Church on visual culture, missionization and appropriation was published in Feb 2010. Kate's poetry and photography has appeared in a range of publications including the University of Arizona’s prestigious American Indian student publication Red Ink, whose mission is to promote creative expression and promote ongoing dialogue with students, professors, tribal leaders and members, and other community members. She is currently working on a book entitled “Slides for Stars: Poetry and Photographs of Living and Dying.” Important to Kate has been her work with American Indian and Indigenous students through Community of Scholars, Cal Poly and when teaching at D-Q (Deganawidah-Quetzacoatl) University (California’s tribal college).
Kimberly Blaeser is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches Creative Writing and Native American Literature. An enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe who grew up on White Earth Reservation, she is the author of three books of poetry: Trailing You, Absentee Indians and Other Poems, and Apprenticed to Justice.
Her scholarly work, Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition, was the first native-authored book-length study of an Indigenous author. Blaeser's work is widely anthologized and translated works have been included in exhibits and publications around the world, most recently in Norway and Indonesia. She is also the editor of two collections of Anishinaabe writing: Stories Migrating Home and Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry. Her other creative interests include wildlife and nature photography.
Blaeser lives with her family in the woods and wetlands of rural Wisconsin where she often finds the subjects for her photography literally outside her front door. She also enjoys wilderness expeditions and spends part of every year in a remote cabin adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. Current projects include collaborating with her son and daughter on writing for children and a mixed-genre collection, Tinctures of a Family Tree.
Kim Shuck is a writer, visual artist, curator, frustrated mom and recovering sarcastic. Her first solo book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee, was published by Greenfield Review press in 2005 and won the Diane Decorah Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Recent work has been included in the anthologies New Poets of the American West and I Was Indian . In June 2010 Kim had a month long co- residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
ku`ualoha ho`omanawanui was born in the seaside town of Kailua, O`ahu, and raised in uplands of Wailua, Kaua`i. A Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) scholar, poet and artist with a love for diverse genres of art and music, ku`ualoha is also the Chief Editor of ‘Oiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal, the first contemporary journal featuring Native Hawaiian writers and artists. She teaches a variety of courses at different levels, focusing on Native Hawaiian folklore and mythology, contemporary Pacific literature, and indigenous perspectives on literacy.
lance henson is cheyenne, lakota and cajun french. dog soldier headman and sundancer. most recent books “the missing bead,” arcipilago edizione,milan and “the wolf texts,” nottetempo press, rome. both books published in 2009. henson refuses to publish books in america protesting america’s continuing colonial global war against indigenous peoples
Laura Tohe is Diné (Navajo). She is Tsénáhábiãnii (Sleepy Rock People clan) and born for the Tódich'inii (Bitter Water clan). She has written and co-authored four books. Her most recent book, Tseyi, Deep in the Rock won the 2007 Glyph award for Best Poetry and Best Book by Arizona Book Association. She wrote a commissioned libretto, Enemy Slayer, A Navajo Oratorio, for the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra that made its world premiere in 2008. In 2009 she was nominated for an Arizona Arts Award. She is a Professor of English at Arizona State University.
Lee Maracle is Canada's most published, critically acclaimed Aboriginal author. She has a number of works to her credit, including Ravensong, I am Woman, Sojourner's & Sundogs, Daughter's are Forever (to be reprinted by Theytus Books), Bentbox. She has co-edited a number of works, including, Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures and the award winning My Home As I Remember. She has served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Western Washington University and the University of Toronto, and is currently the Traditional Teacher at First Nation's House, University of Toronto.
As well, she teaches in the Aboriginal Studies Department. Her new work First Wive's Club and Other Stories is slated for publication in June 2010; Memory Serves and Other Words is slated for publication in 2012.
Linda S. Covey holds major and minor degrees in religious studies, psychology, anthropology, and journalism from Missouri State University. She did doctorial work in clinical psychology at Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, Springfield, Mo, and has recently finished her Masters thesis in religious studies on the Religion, Self, and Society track from Missouri State University. Linda currently teaches psychology at Missouri State University’s College of International Business embedded in Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China. Linda’s masters thesis explores the phenomenon of why over 300 Dine’s came into the Bahá’í Faith at the Great Council Fire Unity Conference held at Pine Springs, AZ in 1962, and why more have continued to do so. She presented a short paper on her thesis, “The Navajo Tradition-Transition to the Bahá’í Faith,” at the Eighth Native American Symposium held by Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. Her paper was published in the Symposium’s journal of their proceedings: Images, Imaginations, and Beyond: www.se.edu/nas/ , and she presented at the 34th Annual Association for Bahá’í Studies Conference-North America, “Rethinking Human Nature,” held in Vancouver, B.C. in August, 2010. Her thesis will be published as a book in the near future. During her research and interviews on the Navajo Reservation spanning a period of over ten years, Linda became acquainted with some members of the Kahn family, who figure prominently in her thesis. The eldest Kahn brother passed away within months after she interviewed him. Linda’s poem submitted here is dedicated to him.
Linda is of Cherokee/Southern Cheyenne/German heritage and has been highly active in her culture. She founded and organized the “Heart of America Spiritual Gathering” held at Temerity Woods in Rolla, Mo ( see: http://www.temeritywoods.org/) now in its 14th year, and founded the four-year “Nunavut Project: a journey to the arctic’s people, which was a cultural-to-cultural and spiritual-to-spiritual exchange (see www.NunavutProject.com ). In addition, Linda was a volunteer in corrections (VIC) for seven years in Missouri with the native circles in the prison system, a pow wow organizer and dancer, and helped to organize and create the non-profit Thunder Eagle Ridge Youth Camp and Retreat in Macks Creek, Mo (www.thundereagleridge.org ), serving as its first president.
Mabel Picotte is Ihunktowan and Ogalala Sioux. She attained her B.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, Morris. She is employed by the East Dakota Educational Cooperation at the Chamberlain Academy site in South Dakota where she teaches high school level Language Arts, Readers Theatre and Native American Studies. Mabel has published poems in Bluffton College's Shalith, and Dakota Wesleyan University's Prairie Winds, and South Dakota State Poetry Society's Pasque Petels. She was the featured poet of the 2010 Darkling Magazine a South Dakota based literary journal.
Marcella Hadden is a member of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe and the Public Relations Manager. She is an award winning photographer and a member of Native American Journal Association (NAJA). She is a contributing writer to her tribe’s newspaper the Tribal Observer with submissions of articles, photos, or poetry. She graduated from Northern Michigan University with an Associate Degree in Business and has been employed with her Tribe for more than 17 years. Her work experience has a heavy concentration in Public Relations and several years as a Vault/Cage Manager for the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort. Currently she is raising her two grandchildren and plans to continue promoting her poetry and photography.
As an Abenaki scholar, performer, and historical consultant, Bruchac specializes in Algonkian Indian history, oral traditions, museum representations, and material culture. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point. A few early poetic expressions appeared in a small local publication---the Griffin’s Prism Book---in 1970. Her more recent (and mostly academic) publications include: “molly has her say” in Keepers of the Morning Star: Native American Women Playwrights (UCLA Press 2001); “Earthshapers and Placemakers: Algonkian Indian Stories and the Landscape” in Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice (Routledge Press 2005); and Malian’s Song (Vermont Folklife Center 2006). In 2009, Marge served as a Writer in Residence for the Wabanaki Writers’ Camp on the Penobscot River in Maine; her experiences among that company of young and old Native writers inspired several of the poems published here.
MariJo Moore (Cherokee/Irish/Dutch) is an author, poetess, editor, essayist, artist, medium, and psychic. Her published works include The Diamond Doorknob, its sequel When the Dead Dream, Red Woman With Backward Eyes and Other Stories, The Boy With a Tree Growing From His Ear and Other Stories, Confessions of a Madwoman, and Spirit Voices of Bones. She has also edited numerous anthologies including Genocide of the Mind: New Native
Writings, Feeding the Ancient Fires: A Gathering of NC American Indian Writings, and Birthed From Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War. The recipient of numerous literary and publishing awards, she resides in the mountains of western North Carolina.
I earned my B.A. in Literature, M.A. in Fiction and M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from Boise State. While doing graduate work, my first novel, Moving Towards Home, was published, and from then on my work has appeared in several anthologies and journals including SOMA Literary Journal, O’iwi, and Cold Drill. My chapbook “16 November 1996” was selected to be included in the NYC MOMA permanent library. I have been a finalist for the Faulkner Award in Nonfiction and have received partial fellowships to attend the Prague and St. Petersburg Summer Seminars. My collection of multi-genre writing, titled “Distant Tides,” has been chosen for the Wayne Kaumuali’i Westlake Monograph Series, and will be published by Kuleana Press in 2010. Most recently, I was awarded a $5000 literature fellowship from the State of Idaho Arts Commission. I am presently shopping a new novel and collection of nonfiction. I am a full-time faculty member in the English Department at the College of Western Idaho in Nampa, ID. I teach literature, film, humanities, creative writing and composition. I am also the advisor for the English Club and Phi Theta Kappa, the Honors Society.
Mihku Paul is a writer, visual artist, and storyteller. A Malaseet Indian, member of Kingsclear First Nation, N.B., Canada. She was born and raised along the Penobscot River in Maine. Mihku received a traditional education from her grandfather, a Maliseet trapper and river guide who traveled in a wild west show and later served in WWII. She holds a bachelors degree in liberal arts with a focus on communication and human development and an MFA in creative writing. Her poetry has been published in Words and Images, The Stolen Island Review and the Goose River Anthology. “Look Twice: The Waponahki in Image & Verse” is her first multimedia installation, and includes archival photographs, poetry and original graphic art. The exhibit, first installed at the Abbe Museum, in Bar Harbor, Maine, will be on view at its third venue in the spring of 2011. She resides in Portland, Maine.
Philip H. Red Eagle is the author of Red Earth, a work of fiction about the Vietnam War. Born in Tacoma, Washington in 1945, he moved to Sitka, Alaska, when he was 14 years old. After enlisting in the Navy, he served during one WesPac tour on the USS Somers, DDG-34 in 1969-70, and then made his next tour "In-Country" as a riverboat mechanic from August 1970 to January 1972. He is active in the ongoing canoeing tradition in the Pacific Northwest.
Ronya Hoblit, was born and raised in Martin, SD, and is a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. Her undergraduate degrees in psychology, Native American Studies, and Master of Interdisciplinary Studies degree were earned at The University of Montana. Other degrees have been earned from Chief Dull Knife College (Lame Deer, MT) and Sitting Bull College (Fort Yates, ND). Her work since 2001 has been as the Career Counselor at Sitting Bull College. She has one son, Jonathan, and is Unci to his daughter, Sophia. Ms. Hoblit has been published in the Tribal College Journal and Laramie County Community College’s High Plains Register: LCCC’s Literary and Arts Magazine. Most recently (2011), as a member of the Oak Lake Writers’ Society, one of her poems was included in He Sapa Woihanble: Black Hills Dream.
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.
Stephanie Fitzgerald (Cree) lives in Lawrence, KS where she teaches Native literatures at the University of Kansas.
Stephanie Sellers holds a Ph.D. in Native American Studies and has published two books with Peter Lang publishing: Native American Autobiography Redefined: A Handbook and Native American Women’s Studies Primer. Her poetry has been published in American Indian Culture & Research Journal’s tribute to Paula Gunn Allen. She is currently guest editor of a special issue of the literary journal FemSpec, where several of her Coyote stories have been published over the years.
Steve Holmes, wife Susan and three children reside in Glenburn, Maine. Steve and family are enrolled members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik/Pleasant Point in Maine. Steve is the business development director for a Native federal contracting company in Maine.
Quote, "This writing came from my heart and jumped out onto the page in no time
at all."
Sy Hoahwah is Yappituka Comanche and Southern Arapaho. He is the author of Velroy and the Madischie Mafia published by West End Press, Albuquerque, NM. His poetry has also appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, and now available on Poetry Foundation’s website.
Thomas Pecore Weso, enrolled Menominee, is an artist, writer, and educator living in Lawrence, Kansas. He completed an AA degree at Haskell Indian Nations University and BA and MA degrees at the University of Kansas. He is co-publisher of Mammoth Publications, an independent literary press. His own publications are in Flint Hills Review, Mid-America Folklore Journal, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Overland Review, and others. He has taught social sciences at Kansas City Metro Community Colleges, Avila University, and Haskell. Artworks are in collections in Arizona, California, Kansas, Missouri, Washington, D.C., & Wisconsin. His art has been used for book covers of writers Diane Glancy, Denise Low, and Jonathan Holden, among others. He is currently working on a food memoir about growing up on the Menominee reservation: Salt, Sweet, Water, Meat.
http://www.lawrenceartscenter.com/Artists/index.html and www.tomweso.com
and www.mammothpublications.com all have info. about my art.
Tiffany Midge is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She is the recipient of the Diane Decorah Poetry Award from The Native Writers Circle of the Americas for her collection, Outlaws, Renegades and Saints: Diary of a Mixed-Up Halfbreed published by Greenfield Review Press. The chapbook, Guiding the Stars to Their Campfire, Driving the Salmon to Their Beds, was published in 2005 by Gazoobi Tales. Animal Legend and Lore: Buffalo is her first children’s book, published by Scholastic. Publication credits include, Growing up Ethnic in America, Viking/Penguin; Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing About Learning to be American, Viking/Penguin; Reinventing the Enemy’s Language,” W.W. Norton; Blue Dawn, Red Earth; New Native American Storytellers, Anchor Books. More recently her work has appeared in Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology, and America! What’s My Name? edited by Frank X Walker. Her poetry has been commissioned into a choral ensemble by composer Seppo Pohjola of Finland, and has been adapted into the dramatic work, Cedars, produced by Red Eagle Soaring Native American Theater, of which she serves on the advisory board. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Idaho.
Tony Robles--San Francisco based poet, children's author and co-editor of POOR Magazine, an indigenous organizing project that challenges who creates and what voices are represented in media. We have implemented the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples as a resistance document while working against border fascism and English language domination. My work has been featured in various journals and anthologies. Graduated with an AA from City College of San Francisco. Took one writing class which I dropped out of half way due to my work schedule.
Vera Wabegijig is a writer, media artist, and a mother from the Odawa/Ojibway Nations in Ontario. She has graduated from the En'owkin Centre's Creative Writing Program and studied at the University of Victoria. Her published poetry and creative non-fiction can be found in "Breaking the Surface"; "Foundation of English 9"; "Surviving in the hour of darkness: the Health and Wellness of Women of Colour and Indigenous Women"; "Our Words, Our Revolutions: Di/Verse Voices of Black Women, First Nations, and Women of Colour in Canada"; "Reclaiming the Future: Women’s Strategies for the 21stCentury"; and "Sweetgrass Grows All Around Her". She has been invited to read poetry at the prestigious Talking Stick Festival in Vancouver, BC and at various events hosted by Redwire Magazine and by Uts'am/Witness, a multi-cultural gathering.
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