The Institute of American Indian Arts’ (IAIA) Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program presents the 2019 Summer Readers Gathering—July 20–27, 2019. Readings will take place each night beginning at 6:00 pm in the Auditorium in the Library and Technology Center (LTC) on the IAIA campus. For directions and a map of the IAIA Campus, please visit www.iaia.edu/visit. All readings are free and open to the public.

Abigail Chabitnoy

Abigail Chabitnoy

Abigail Chabitnoy earned her MFA in poetry at Colorado State University and was a 2016 Peripheral Poets fellow. She has been a resident of Caldera and the Wrangell Arts Center, and her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, LitHub, and Red Ink, among others. She is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, Alaska. Her debut poetry collection, How to Dress a Fish, was recently released from Wesleyan University Press.

Kimberly Blaeser

Kimberly Blaeser

Kimberly Blaeser is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Copper Yearning, (forthcoming from Holy Cow! Press) and Apprenticed to Justice (Salt Publishing). Her scholarly work includes the monograph Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition, and she is the editor of Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry and Stories Migrating Home. Blaeser, who served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2015–2016, is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. She is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and grew up on White Earth Reservation.  An editorial board member for the “American Indian Lives” series of the U of Nebraska Press and the “Native American Series” of Michigan State University Press, Blaeser’s short fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and scholarship has been widely anthologized.

Ken White

Ken White

Ken White is a poet and screenwriter. He co-wrote and and co-produced the feature film Winter in the Blood, co-directed and co-wrote the short film Universal VIP, as well as directed and co-wrote the short film The Conservationist, currently in development as a feature, which White will direct. He has written or co-written ten feature scripts, including Blight, and The Wereman, The Sorrows, and Cullen’s Hound, as well as new scripts, The Orpheum Circuit, The Conservationist, and a television pilot, LIT, with James Meetze. White is the author of three books of poetry, Eidolon, The Getty Fiend, as well as Middlemost Constantine (forthcoming from Spork). His work has appeared in The Boston Review, The Tusculum Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Omniverse, Manor House Quarterly, Versal, Spork, Horsethief, and Poets.org, among others. White teaches screenwriting in the IAIA Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program and joins the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in the fall of 2019.

Schedule of Readings

Participating in the gathering this year are noted writers Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), Abigal Chabitnoy (Unangan/Sugpiaq), and E.C. Onsondu—as well as IAIA MFA faculty members Ramona Ausubel, Esther Belin (Diné), Marie-Helene Bertino, Sherwin Bitsui (Diné), Cherie Dimaline (Métis), Jennifer Elise Foerster (Muscogee [Creek] Nation of Oklahoma), Santee Frazier (Cherokee), Geoff Harris, Pam Houston, Toni Jensen (Métis), Kristiana Kahakauwila (Native Hawaiian/German/Norwegian), Chip Livingston (Creek), Derek Palacio, Brooke Swaney Pepion (Blackfeet Tribal Member and Salish Descendent), and Ken White.

“The 2019 IAIA MFACW brings together a diverse range of voices working in the literary arts. We welcome readings by new mentors Esther Belin (Diné) and Brooke Swaney Pepion (Blackfeet Tribal Member and Salish Descendent). Featured writers include emerging poet Abby Chabitnoy (Unangan/Sugpiaq), Nigerian fiction writer E.C. Osondu, and renowned poet and visual artist Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota). This year, with the appointment of Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) as US Poet Laureate, we celebrate the integral contributions made by Indigenous Women to World Literature.”
—MFA Program Director Santee Frazier (Cherokee)

Free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Santee Frazier at (505) 424-2365 or mfa@iaia.edu. Support for these events is provided by the Lannan Foundation and New Mexico Arts. Partially funded by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodgers Tax.