Swaia - Indian Market

2009: (Re) presentation: An Indian Market Literary Arts Event

What: (Re) presentation: An Indian Market Literary Arts Event: Reading, Booksigning &
Reception

Where: St. Francis Auditorium: 107 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe, NM (505) 476-5072

When: Wednesday, August 19. 6 pm to 8 pm

How Much: Free Admission


For 88 years the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) has been presenting the Santa Fe Indian Market, the premier Native arts event in the world. To further its unconditional support of Native arts and culture, SWAIA is expanding its platform of Native expression, and is very proud to announce and introduce a new literary arts event into its official schedule of programs.

In partnership with the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Shadow Catcher Institute of Indigenous Arts, SWAIA presents "(Re) presentation: An Indian Market Literary Arts Event" that features readings and book signings by acclaimed poet Simon Ortiz (Acoma) and some of the country's most exciting emerging Native writers including poet Orlando White (Navajo), poet Sherwin Bitsui (Navajo), poet dg nanouk okpik (Inuit) and poet and fiction writer Erika T. Wurth (Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee).

The evening will be moderated by fiction writer Evelina Zuni Lucero (Isleta/San Juan Pueblo). Books will be available for purchase on-site from Clearlight Books.

Writer Biographies

Simon J. Ortiz (Acoma)

Simon J. Ortiz was born May 27, 1941 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He attended Fort Lewis College and the University of New Mexico for undergraduate studies. He received his M.F.A. as an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa's Writer's School in 1969. His books of poetry include: Telling and Showing Her: The Earth, The Land (Just Buffalo Literary Center, 1995); After and Before the Lightning (1994); Woven Stone (1992); From Sand Creek: Rising In This Heart Which Is Our America (1981), for which he received a Pushcart Prize; A Good Journey (1977); Going for the Rain (1976); and Naked in the Wind (1971). He has also published children's book, memoirs, non-fiction, and short stories, and served as editor of various books and anthologies. Ortiz is a recipient of the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writer's Award, the New Mexico Humanities Council Humanitarian Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and was an Honored Poet at the 1981 White House Salute to Poetry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers. Ortiz lives in the Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, where he was lieutenant governor and a consulting editor of the Pueblo of Acoma Press. He has taught writing and Native American literature at various institutions, and currently teaches at the University of Toronto.


Orlando White
(Navajo)

Orlando White is originally from Tólikan, Arizona. He is Diné (Navajo) of the Naaneesht'ézhi Tábaahí (Zuni Water's Edge Clan) and born for the Naakai Diné'e (Mexican Clan). He holds a BFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Brown University. His poems have appeared in Bombay Gin, Oregon Literary Review, Ploughshares, Salt Hill Journal, They Are Flying Planes, and are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Talking Stick Native Arts Quarterly, and Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. He has taught at Brown University, and been a visiting writer at Colgate University and Naropa University's summer writing program. Currently he is teaching at The Art Center Design College and the Institute of American Indian Arts. He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bone Light (Red Hen Press, 2009) is his first book.

Sherwin Bitsui
(Navajo)

Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. Currently, he lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is Dine of the Todich'ii'nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl'izilani (Many Goats Clan). He holds an AFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing Program. He is the recipient of the 2000-01 Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, the 1999 Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency and more recently, a 2006 Whiting Writers' Award. Sherwin has published his poems in American Poet, The Iowa Review, Frank (Paris), Lit Magazine, and elsewhere. His poems were also anthologized in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. He is the author of Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press 2003). His next book, Flood Song, is scheduled for release in October of 2009 from Copper Canyon Press.

dg nanouk okpik
(Inuit)

dg nanouk okpik is an Alaskan Native, Inupiat--Inuit from the arctic slope. Her family resides in Barrow, Alaska. Okpik graduated with AFA in 2004 and a BFA in Creative Writing with honors in 2005 at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2003, she received the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award. Okpik is currently employed at Santa Fe Indian Boarding School. Okpik is pursuing a MFA in Creative Writing at Stonecoast College, University of Southern Maine in Portland. Effigies, Salt Publishing, Editor Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is an anthology from the Pacific Rim was released in April 2009. The poets Brandy Mc Dougall, Meahalani Wendt, are both Hawaiian and dg nanouk okpik and Cathy Rexford, both Inupiaq are featured. Okpik has also been published In University of Arizona, Red Ink, New York University, Washington Square, and Ahani Indigenous Writers Anthology, by Oregon Literary Council and Many Mountains Moving Journal.

Erika T. Wurth

(Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee)
Erika T. Wurth is a mixed-blood American Indian (Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee) poet & fiction writer. Her book, Indian Trains was published by the University of New Mexico's West End Press. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Raven Chronicles, Fiction, Pembroke, Cedar Hill Review, AMCRJ, SAIL, Ellipsis, Boulevard, 5AM, Borderlands, Global City Review, Bryant Literary Review, Stand, Vibrant Gray and Red Ink. She lives in Macomb, Illinois where she teaches Creative writing at Western Illinois University. Recently, she was a visiting writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Evelina Zuni Lucero (Moderator)
(Isleta/San Juan Pueblo)

Evelina Zuni Lucero, Isleta/San Juan Pueblo, is a fiction writer, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She spent the first eight years of her life at Isleta Pueblo before her family moved to Ignacio, Colorado, and then later to Stewart, Nevada, both BIA Indian agencies with boarding schools, where her father was superintendent. She grew up during the turbulent years of the Vietnam War with its accompanying political protests, the Civil Rights movement, the hippie movement, the women's movement, and American Indian Movement, all of which affected her life in some way. She graduated from Carson City High School in 1971, and was accepted to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in the second year of the university's Native American program. At Stanford, she majored in journalism and also took courses in American literature and creative writing. After graduation, she returned to Isleta Pueblo, and worked as a journalist for a number of years, writing for tribal and national Indian news publications. She later earned a masters degree in English within the creative writing program at the University of New Mexico, where she worked with New Mexican writer, Rudolfo Anaya, and the late Choctaw/Cherokee novelist and Native American literary critic, Louis Owens. Her short fiction has appeared in various journals and anthologies, such as Blue Mesa Review, Northeast Indian Quarterly, Returning the Gift Anthology, Women on Hunting, Naive Roots & Rhythms, and Native Peoples Magazine. She lives in Isleta Pueblo with her family, and is working on a second novel on Indian gamingwhich incorporates historical imagination, political observations, and elements of mythical realism.

Partners

New Mexico Museum of Art
The New Mexico Museum of Art (formerly the Museum of Fine Arts) is one of four museums that comprise the Museum of New Mexico. The New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors is located one block to the east. The Museum of International Folk Art and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture are located on Museum Hill. www.nmartmuseum.org

Shadow Catchers Institute of Indigenous Arts

Shadow Catchers Institute of Indigenous Arts (SCIIA) is a non-profit organization concentrating in the area of film, theatre and the written word produced by Indigenous Peoples from all regions. Storytelling is the primary source of legacy of native individuals, tribal history, current events and social challenges, no matter if it is today, five years ago or 25,000 years ago, it is the fabric of the lives of all Indigenous Peoples. Storytelling in these forms, in these mediums, is what SCIIA celebrates. SCIIA was founded by Karen Red Hawk Dallett of Catawba and Scottish heritage.