Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) from Sunday, January 5 through Thursday, January 9, 2025, as the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFACW) program presents an Evening Reading Series featuring program mentors and special guests. Each evening will engage its audience with poetry, memoir, or fiction from some of today’s most vibrant and vital writers. These events will be held both in-person and virtually via livestream.

Evening Reading Series Events

• Sunday, January 5, 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by James Thomas Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk), Toni Jensen (Métis), and Chen Chen—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
• Monday, January 6, 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Indigenous to Colombia), Abby Chabitnoy (Aleutian), and Bettye Keerse—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
• Tuesday, January 7, 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Debra Magpie Earling (Bitterroot Salish), Kelli Jo Ford (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), and Brittney Means—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
• Wednesday, January 8, 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Pam Houston, Geoff Harris, and Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe) ’09—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
• Thursday, January 9, 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Dezbaa’ (Diné and Basque, Spanish, and Mexican descent) ’21 and Kahlil Hudson (Tlingit and Haida)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus, no livestream available.

Bios

Dezbaa’ (Diné and Basque, Spanish, and Mexican descent) ’21 is an actor and filmmaker based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. DezBaa’ debuted in Hostiles and earned her first speaking role in Woman Walks Ahead. She has performed in stage productions such as The Sweetest Swing in Baseball and Sovereignty. A former Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources team member, she holds a BA in geology from Amherst College and two MFAs (Screenwriting and Creative Nonfiction) from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her first acting memory is playing a cycad in Kindergarten. Her artist name, DezBaa’, meaning “She’s Going on a Raid,” was given by family friend and physicist Dr. Fred Begay.

Kahlil Hudson (Tlingit and Haida) is an Emmy® Award-winning film and commercial director. He is an executive producer, director, and creator of the Emmy® Nominated  HBO documentary series “Navajo Police: Class 57,” currently streaming on MAX. His recent feature documentary, Wildland, won two Emmy® Awards for Editing and Cinematography as the season-premiere broadcast of the acclaimed PBS series Independent Lens. Kahlil’s debut feature, Low and Clear won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival and was named Paste Magazine’s “100 Best Documentaries of All Time.” His work has been screened and won awards at film festivals, including Tribeca, South by Southwest, AFI, Hot Docs, IDFA, Camden, and True/False. He is a Sundance Institute Time Warner Fellow and received the Discovery Impact Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Kahlil has directed commercials and films for brands such as Ram Trucks, Patagonia, Filson, Jeep, Yeti, Porsche, REI, Chevrolet, and Nike. Born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, Kahlil is an enrolled member of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska and is T’aakdeintaan (Sea Tern Clan), as well as English and Filipino. He holds an MFA in Film Directing from UCLA and is an associate professor of film production at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

MFA in Creative Writing

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is designed as a two-year program with two intensive week-long residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. Students and faculty mentors gather for a week of workshops, lectures, and readings. At the end of the residency week, each student is matched with a faculty mentor, who then works one-on-one with the student for the semester. IAIA’s program is unique in that we emphasize the importance of Indigenous writers speaking to the Indigenous experience. The literature we read carries a distinct Native American and First Nations emphasis. The MAFCW offers four areas of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting.

The deadline to apply for the 2025 academic year is Feb. 1 by 5 pm (MST).