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.

Jennifer Foerster

Jennifer Elise Foerster

Jennifer Elise Foerster received her PhD in English and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, her MFA from the Vermont College of the Fine Arts and her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford. In addition to teaching in the IAIA MFA program, which she served for one year as Interim Director, Jennifer teaches for the Rainier Writing Workshop. She also co-directs, with the poet, Joy Harjo, an arts mentorship program for Mvskoke youth in Oklahoma, and is a Project Director with the non-profit organization InnerCHANGE WORKS. She is the author of two books of poetry, Leaving Tulsa (2013) and Bright Raft in the Afterweather (2018), both published by the University of Arizona Press. Foerster is of German, Dutch, and Mvskoke descent, is a member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, and lives in San Francisco.

Brooke Swaney Pepion

Brooke Swaney Pepion

Brooke Swaney Pepion (Blackfeet Tribal Member & Salish Descendent) is a 2003 Stanford graduate. She went on to obtain her MFA from NYU.  A 2013 Native Arts and Cultures Fellow, a 2014 Sundance Native Lab Fellow and a Time Warner Fellow, her work has screened at Sundance, ImagineNative, the Autry and the Museum of Modern Art amongst others.  She is versed in both short and long-form content creation.

Toni Jensen

Toni Jensen

Toni Jensen is the author of a short story collection, From the Hilltop, and a memoir-in-essays about gun violence, Carry, forthcoming from Ballantine. She 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. She teaches in the Programs in Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas and in the low residency MFA Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is Métis.

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.