Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) from Sunday, January 5 through Wednesday, January 8, 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

Bios

James Thomas Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk) was born in Niagara Falls, New York in 1966 and grew up between Six Nations Reserve in Ontario (the birthplace of his grandfather), the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation in upstate New York (birthplace of his grandmother), and the Tuscarora Reservation in western New York (where his grandparents settled). He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts, Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodies Poetics, and Brown University’s graduate C.W. program. Stevens is the author of eight books of poetry, including, Combing the Snakes from His Hair, Mohawk/Samoa: Transmigrations, A Bridge Dead in the Water, The Mutual Life, Bulle/Chimere, and DisOrient, and he has recently finished a new manuscript, The Golden Book. He is a 2000 Whiting Award recipient and teaches in IAIA’s undergraduate and graduate Creative Writing Programs. He teaches Poetry, Creative nonfiction, Native American literature, and literary world survey courses. He lives in Cañoncito, New Mexico.

Toni Jensen (Métis) is an essayist, short story writer, and mentor in the MFACW program. She is the author of the short story collection From the Hilltop and Carry, a memoir-in-essays about gun violence. Jensen is the recipient of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and the Gary Wilson Short Fiction Award. Her essays and stories have been published in journals such as Orion, Catapult, and Ecotone.

Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017), published by BOA Editions and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK. His latest chapbook is Explodingly Yours (Ghost City Press, 2023). A Kundiman community member, his honors include the Thom Gunn Award, two Pushcart Prizes, the National Book Award longlist, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. His work appears in many publications, including three editions of The Best American Poetry and two editions of The Forward Book of Poetry. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch. He edits the online poetry journals, Underblong and the lickety~split. He lives in Rochester, New York.

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).