Often written about and not often enough written by, Native Americans are dispelling the mainstream cultural amnesia that surrounds the West’s first peoples through the genre of memoir. In this panel, three distinctive Californian Indian memoirists—a rising literary light, an award-winning poet-professor, and a celebrated storyteller and tribal leader—share their journeys navigating Indigenous identity in relation to the land, across continents, and through time.

This virtual event is part of the Association of Writer’s and Writing Programs 2023 annual meeting. It has been prerecorded, and will be available to watch on-demand online from March 8, 2023 to April 8, 2023.

Moderator:

Carolann Jane Duro (Maara’yam & Kumeyaay desc.) is the founder of Indigenous Book Club and Quiet Quail Books. Indigenous Book Club is an online literary community that reads Native authors and literature. Quiet Quail Books is an Indigenous independent popup book store.

Panelists:

Deborah A. Miranda (Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation & Chumash) is author of Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir; poetry collections Indian Cartography, The Zen of La Llorona, Raised by Humans, and Altar for Broken Things. She is Thomas Broadus Professor of English emerita at Washington and Lee University.

Greg Sarris received his PhD in modern thought and literature from Stanford University and is a Walter Gore Awardee for excellence in teaching. He is Distinguished Emeritus Graton Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, and the author of multiple books, including Becoming Story.

Ursula Pike is the author of An Indian among los Indígenas: A Native Travel Memoir from Heyday Books. She is a member of the Karuk Tribe and earned her MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has appeared in LitHub, Yellow Medicine Review, and Ligeia magazine.

Learn More