ABOUT
I am from the Ihanktonwan Nation (Yankton Sioux Tribe), in southeastern South Dakota. We are the smallest tribe in South Dakota. At age two, I was adopted off the reservation under false pretenses and was raised with a loving family in northeastern Ohio. It would take nearly four decades to reunite with my first family. Both my creative writing, in the forms of poetry and creative non-fiction are nature themed and about life experiences, as any artist creates with a heart filled with passion for telling the truth of what happened. My scholarly writing also focuses on themes of what it means to be Indigenous and raised away from my Cultural Knowledges. Because my path to find the way home was meant to happen, I write about reclamation of culture
and ways of knowing and being.
There is a lifetime of learning ahead of me and I do not walk the path alone and the lessons are not just for me. They are to share with the communities I have varied degrees of contact and connection with for the benefit of becoming whole and to usher in healing.
I grew up in a home with hand crafted wooden bookshelves that covered both sides of the rear wall in the living room. Low to the floor was a section for my brothers and sister and I. Reading was a regular activity in our home. I’d sit on the floor reading and memorizing poetry or reading the dictionary for fun. I loved the melodic sound of words. My dad would have spelling contests some nights at the dinner table. He’d give the winner a quarter. One word I remember was sphygmomanometer.
Writing is an intentional and deliberate practice used to communicate with words arranged in a logical sequence to produce thought. And depending on the word choices dreams, desires, social justice, plans of action, song lyrics, beloved poems, inspirational quotes, humor and other signs and symptoms of the human condition are given life on the page. What you think matters and how you feel can change the world if the words are honored with respect. I invite you to explore writing and your relationship with words widely and deeply. Especially in writing, a topical sweep is not the end but a new beginning, an opportunity to compose something no one else has
before. Oh yes, the basic concepts of defining life, love, sorrow, grief, victory or madness have been written down but not in the exact way you can write it. Let me show you how to create something new or help you discover why the time is now…