Jesse N. Alexander is a performance poet, hypertex book publisher and winner of PoetryWorks’ “Breath of the Four Winds” contest. He has performed at the Knitting Factory and the Sumei Multidisciplinary Center, Newark, NJ and his work has appeared in Sojourners Magazine.
Minerva Allen (Assiniboine) is the author of two poetry collections, Spirits Rest and Winter Smoke. She currently resides on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Northern Montana. A retired educator, she currently teaches part-time Native language and is currently working with her tribe to retrieve artifacts and ancestral bones from museums and other resources.
M. Cochise Anderson (Chickasaw and Mississippi Choctaw) is a poet, playwright, actor and traditional storyteller. He lectures and teaches poetry, playwrighting and Native American Studies throughout the United States in Native and non-Native public schools, as well as cultural centers and museums. He also continues the honored profession of storyteller and traditional musician.
Annette Arkeketa (Muskogee Creek/enrolled member of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma) has conducted numerous poetry workshops and readings throughout Oklahoma and Texas. Her volunteer efforts include the American Indian Theatre Company, American Indian Resource and Education Coalition, Native American Heritage Committee, Corpus Christi Army Depot, White House Conference on Indian Education, Red Spirit Inter-Tribal, and Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers. She is also a coordinator for the Oklahoma City Muskogee Association and the Linguistic Anthropology Department of the University of Oklahoma in Norman. She is the author of the poetry collection The Terms of a Sister (Full Moon Publishing, Corpus Christi, TX).
Carol Snow Moon Bachofner (Abenaki) is a retired registered nurse and full-time writer whose poetry has been widely anthologized. Her first full-length poetry manuscript Taproot . . . poems from a little brown basket, was a finalist in The Greenfield Review Press’ Native American Authors First Book Award in 1995. She is the winner of the Jack London Award 1997 (for service to the writing community) and the Jack London Poetry Award 1997. A member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers & Storytellers, California Writers Club, the Conservatory of American Letters, Teachers and Writers Collaborative, Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, the New England Poetry Club and she was recently named poet-teacher in the California Poets In the Schools.
Charles Ballard (member of the Quapaw tribe of Northeastern Oklahoma) is retired from the Department of English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He has published articles in his field of Native American mythology, and received the 1996 Diane Decorah Memorial First Book Award for Poetry from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, sponsored by the University of Oklahoma at Norman.
Juanita C. Barnes-Bourguillon (African/Native American) has been published in various anthologies, including Whispers, Iliad Press, Something for Everyone, Creative Arts & Sciences, Treasured Poems of America, Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum, Inc., and others.
Diane E. Benson (Tlingit, of the T’akdeintaan (Sea Tern Clan), originally from Sitka, Alaska) is a playwright and poet. She has published in Returning the Gift (Univ. of AZ, 1994), Collaloo: Native America Literatures (John Hopkins Univ., 1994) and Raven Tells Stories (The Greenfield Review Press, 1991), and is currently attending the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing Program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
Bernie Bernstein began his writing career after retirement from government service. His work has appeared in over fifty publications, and his work was presented as part of the composite play “Time Dance,” in Illinois which appeared on Cablevision in January 1980. He spends considerable time reading throughout the Cook County and Chicago metropolitan areas.
Gloria Bird (member of the Spokane Tribe of the slawtews or Chewelah band, a Kalispel band of the Flathead) is author of Full Moon on the Reservation which won the Diane Decorah First Book Award for Poetry, coeditor with Joy Harjo, of Reinventing The Enemy’s Language: North American Native Women’s Writing, (W.W. Norton, 1997), and author of the forthcoming chapbook, The River of History, from Trask House Press. She is an associate editor of the Wicazo Sa Review, in Washington. Reinventing The Enemy’s Language is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Kimberly M. Blaeser (Anishinaabe/German, enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her publications include Trailing You, which won the Diane Decorah First Book Award for poetry from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, and Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition, a critical study. Her work has been anthologized in numerous Canadian and American collections, including: Earth Song, Sky Spirit, The Colour of Resistance, Red Earth, Narrative Chance and Unsettling America.
Chris Brandt’s poems and essays have appeared in magazines in the U.S. and Spain. His translation of Carmen Valle’s book Entre la vigilia y el sueno de las fieras was recently published as a bilingual edition by the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture in San Juan.
Beth Brant/Degonwadonti (Bay of Quinte Mohawk from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada) is editor of the ground-breaking collection A Gathering of Spirit (Firebrand Books, USA and Women’s Press, Canada 1988), and I’ll Sing Til the Day I Die: Conversations with Tyendinaga Elders (McGilligan Books, Toronto 1995). She is the author of Mohawk Trail (Firebrand Books and Women’s Press, 1985), Food & Spirits (Firebrand Books and Press Gang, 1991), and Writing As Witness (Women’s Press, 1994). Her work has appeared in numerous Native, feminist and lesbian anthologies throughout North America. She was recently made a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation. A Gathering of Spirit is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Charles Brashear (Cherokee) has authored a dozen books, several short stories and critical essays. His work has appeared in High Plains Literary Review, Crazy Quilt Quarterly, SAIL, San Diego North County Magazine, The Greenfield Review Press, New Frontiers -The Magazine of New Mexico, and has works forthcoming in American Indian Culture and Research Journal and Cimarron Review. An original member of the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, he is also served as secretary of Wordcraft Circle, 1996/97. He taught at the University of Stockholm (on a Fulbright grant), University of Michigan, and San Diego State University. Recently retired, he is devoting all his time to writing, research and travel.
Jeane C. Breinig (tribally enrolled in the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and of the Haida Nation: Raven Brown Bear Clan) is currently an Assistant Professor of English at The University of Alaska, Anchorage where she teaches composition, and American and Native American literature.
Vee Browne (Navajo) is an educator and substance abuse counselor at Chinle High School. She holds a B.S. in Education, an M.Ed. in Counseling, and her short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies. She currently resides in Cottonwood/Chinle on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and is working on a poetry collection for University of Arizona Press.
Jesse Bruchac (enrolled member of the Abenaki Nation) is a poet, writer, linguist of the Abenaki language, and singer-songwriter in both English and Abenaki. His poems and songs in the Abenaki language have published in the United States and Europe, including Moccasin Telegraph and Reclaiming the Vision. In addition, he has appeared as a featured guest on Canadian Public Radio and Television, CNN and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He teaches Abenaki culture classes and is a member of the performance group, Dawn Land Singers, whose 1994 CD Alnobak features his original compositions, has been widely played on Native radio in Canada and the United States.
Joseph Bruchac, III (enrolled member of the Abenaki Nation) is an award-winning author, poet, storyteller, a scholar of Native American culture and publisher/owner of The Greenfield Review Press. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in more than 500 publications, from Parabola to National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. He is the author of the novel Dawn Land and Ling River, coauthor of the “Keepers of the Earth” series, and is the author of Roots of Survival, Native American Storytelling and the Sacred (Fulcrum Publishing, 1996) and Bowman’s Store, A Journey to Myself (1997).
Regie Cabico, guest editor of phati’tude, is the winner of The New York Poetry Slam, a Road Poet on Lollapalooza and was the opening act of MTV’s “Free Your Mind Spoken Word Tour” for which his performance garnered a poetry video on MTV. His work appears in numerous anthologies, including Aloud: Voices from The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry and teaches poetry courses in the New York metropolitan area.
E. K. Caldwell (Tsalagi/Shawnee/Celtic/German, d. 1997) was a writer whose poetry and short stories have been included in many anthologies in the U.S. and Canada, most recently in For She is the Tree of Life: Grandmothers Through the Eyes of Women Writers (Conari Press, 1995), Blue Dawn, Red Earth (Doubleday, 1996), Gatherings VII (Theytus Press, 1996) and Reinventing the Enemy’s Language (W.W. Norton, 1997). She was a regular contributor to News From Indian Country, a past contributor to The New York Times Syndicate’s multicultural wire service, and was the recipient of the Native American Journalists Association Award for best feature story of 1996.
Derek J. Cannon (member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma) is a poet and writer. His book, Native American Perceptions, a collection of poetry and art (provided by a Cherokee artist), is forthcoming.
Don Mee Che is a writer and film video artist whose artwork and films have been shown at galleries in Arizona, Los Angeles and Seattle. She holds an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts and currently teaches writing at an adult literary center in Seattle.
James E. Cherry is a poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in DrumVoices Revue, The Griot, Crab Orchard Review, NOMMO, Shooting Star Review, and the anthology Beyond the Frontier, edited by E. Ethelbert Miller. He is currently working on his novel.
Rosa Lynette Clipper-Fleming is authoring the forthcoming novel Soultelling. Her most recent publication is a poetry chapbook entitled Reality/Fantasy. She does scheduled poetry readings throughout the Dallas, TX area.
Allison Hedge Coke (Tsalagi/Huron/French Canadian/Portuguese) has published poetry, fiction and nonfiction in numerous Canadian and U.S. literary magazines and anthologies, including Caliban, The Little Magazine, 13th Moon, Speaking for the Generations, Reinventing the Enemy’s Language, and 11th Muse.
Gabrielle David, editor of phati’tude, is a poet, writer, photographer and graphic artist. She has published two poetry collections, this is me, a collection of poems & things (CCI Books, 1994) and spring has returned & i am renewed (CCI Books, 1995).
Jim DeWitt is the author of 34 published books of poetry, stories and erotica. He is the managing editor of the publishing House Pen-Dec Press, editor of Eschew Obfuscation Review and Free Fall Express. He has served as president of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English and director of six annual youth writing competitions. His works has been widely published, appearing in literary magazines, periodicals, and anthologies. In addition, he was the first place winner of the San Francisco Bay Area Poets Coalition.
Marilyn Dumont (Metis, northeastern Alberta) has published in numerous publications, including Writing the Circle (Newst Press 1990), The Road Home (Reidmore Books, 1992), The Colour of Resistance (Sister Vision Press, 1994), Looking at the Words of Our People (Theytus Books, 1994) and Miscegenation Blues (Sister Vision Press, 1994). Her first collection of poetry, A Really Good Brown Girl (Brick Books, 1996) which won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for Best First Collection of Poetry by a Canadian poet presented by the League of Canadian Poets. She is working on her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, at the University of British Columbia while teaching English to First Nations adult students at the Native Education Center and Creative Writing through Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C.
Anita Dupris (member of the Colville Confederated Tribes) has published in numerous publications. Currently a part-time Chief Justice of the Colville Tribal Court of Appeals, she is also a consultant in tribal courts and government development. In 1995, she received an award from the Washington Poet’s Association.
Jimmie Durham (World Clan Cherokee) received his B.F.A. from the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Geneva, Switzerland. During the 1970s he was a member of the Central Council of the American Indian Movement and was a founder and executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications. His poetry collection, Columbus Day, is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Ren?pe/Delaware-Len?pe and other backgrounds), is the author of numerous books, monographs and articles, including: Columbus and Other Cannibals (Autonomedia, 1992), Only Approved Indians (Oklahoma, 1995), Apache, Navaho and Spaniard (Oklahoma, 1960, 1994 ), and Africans and Native Americans (Illinois, 1993). A world renown poet, writer and guest lecturer, he is professor and former chair of the Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis, where he has served since 1969. He is also the recipient of the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement 1997.
Eric Gansworth (Onondaga) is a writer, painter and photographer. His fiction has appeared in Growing Up Native (Morrow), Blue Dawn, Red Earth (Doubleday) and Iroquois Voices, Iroquois Visions (Bright Hill), and For a Winter’s Night (White Pine). His poetry was included in the performance audio tape “Roadkillbasa.” He is currently an Instructor of English at Niagara County Community College.
Robert Franklin Gish (native New Mexican and member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) is currently the Director of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The author of fifteen books and numerous scholarly articles on the history and literature of the American West, his most recent books are: Beyond Bounds: Cross Cultural Essays on Anglo American, Indian and Chicano Literature (Univ. of NM), Bad Boys and Black Sheep: Fateful Tales From the West (Univ. of Nevada), Beautiful Swift Fox: Erna Fergusson and the Southwest (Texas A&M Univ.), and When Coyote Howls (Univ. of NM). He is a frequent contributor and book review editor for several literary magazines.
Frederick J. Goodall, a graduate of Howard University, is a poet whose work has appeared in Eclectic Literary Forum, Amelia, The Candlelight Poetry Journal, Black Diaspora, and Out of the Cradle.
Janice Gould (Maidu/Konkow) attended U.C. Berkeley, earning degrees in linguistics and English. Her first book of verse Beneath My Heart (Firebrand, 1990) is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude. She is also the author of the poetry collection Earthquake Weather (Univ. of AZ, 1996).
Linda LeGarde Grover (Ojibwe, member of the Bois Forte Band of Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) is a poet and Ojibwe storyteller. Among her credits are: A Childhood In Minnesota and Growing Up in My Family, published by Duluth Children’s Museum, Duluth, MN 1994, for which she received an award from the University of Minnesota “Friends of the Library” in 1995.
Maja Guerrero/M.A. Jaimes Guerrero (Native and Mestiza descent and heritage from the Southwest, among the Yaqui/Opata of Arizona and the California Mission Bands (Juaneno)) is an associate professor in Women’s Studies, College of Humanities, at San Francisco State University. Instrumental in developing the American Indian Studies program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, her work has been published in anthologies and texts in the interdisciplinary fields of Ethnic Studies. She is editor of the internationally award-winning The State of Native America (South End Press, 1992).
Joy Harjo (enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma) has published several award-winning books of poetry, including She Had Some Horses, In Mad Love and War, and The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and is coeditor, with Gloria Bird, of Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: North American Native Women’s Writing (W.W. Norton, 1997). Among her many honors, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. She plays saxophone with her band Poetic Justice, which released their first CD, Letter From the End of the 20th Century (Silver Wave Records, 1997), and is interviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Barbara-Helen Hill (Mohawk from Six Nations of Grand River in Southern Ontario) is anthologized in Gatherings Vols. No. 6 1996 and No. 7 1997 (Theytus Books, Penicton, BC), and is the author of Shaking the Rattle: Healing the Trauma of Colonization (Theytus Books, Penicton BC, Canada 1996, ISBN 0-919-44175-0). She is the recipient of En’owkin Creative Non-Fiction Writing award (1995), the Simon Lucas Jr. Award for Excellence in Writing (1996) and the SUNY at Buffalo Faculty of Arts and Letters Award.
Geary Hobson (Cherokee-Quapaw/Chickasaw) is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, specializing in American Indian literature. His essays and reviews have been published in a variety of journals, including Contact II, New America, Y’Bird and World Literature Today. He is the editor of The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature (1979), author of the poetry collection Deer Hunting and Other Poems (1990). He is also one of the original founders of the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, formerly Returning The Gift, and a Board member of the IAAS.
Ruth Hopkins (Sioux, member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Nation, The Santee Band of Dakota Sioux) studied Chemical Engineering at the University of North Dakota and has just completed her first nonfiction autobiographical manuscript.
Maurice Kenny (Mohawk, not tribally enrolled) has served as panelist and adviser to many organizations such as Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, and has been associated with Akwesasne Notes and Studies in American Indian Literature. Guest poet and speaker at many national art centers and universities, he has published books include The Mama Poems (1984), Between Two Rivers: Selected Poems (1987), and Rain & Other Fictions (1990). His most recent work, Tekonwatonti: Molly Brant, was published by White Pine Press in 1992. His work has appeared in many anthologies, including The North Country (Greenfield Review Press), Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry, (Harper & Row), Earth Power Coming (Navajo Community College Press), and Wah Kon Tah (Int’l Publishers).
David Kherdian’s books have been published in England, and translated in Africa, Asia and most European countries. “My Father” is from his unpublished memoir, I Called It Home in his acclaimed “Root River Cycle.” The last published volume from this cycle was My Racine (1995). He is also the editor of Beat Voices: An Anthology of Beat Poetry (Henry Holt, 1995).
Pamela Green LaBarge (enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin) is an emerging writer. Her work has appeared in Akwe:kon/Northeast Indian Quarterly, The Mixed Bag – Wildfire: Inner Weavings, Gatherings IV – The En’owkin Journal, Dreaming History and News From Indian Country. She has recently completed an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and she has an intense interest in cultural knowledge which spans many art forms, including the healing arts.
Tom Loftus is a graduate of the University of Connecticut where he majored in English literature. This is his first publishing effort from his body of work which includes poetry and ultra-short stories.
Reginald Lockett was recently awarded a 1996 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for his collection, Where the Birds Sing Bass (Jukebox Press 1995). Currently an English teacher at San Jose City College, his poems, reviews, articles and essays have appeared in over sixty anthologies and periodicals, and he has performed poetry throughout California and around the nation.
Victoria Lena Manyarrows (Tsalagi/Eastern Cherokee) has published in numerous Native and multicultural publications in the United States and Canada, notably: Unsettling America (Viking/Penguin Press), Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Culture and Identity (The Crossing Press), Without Discovery: A Native Response to Columbus (Broken Moon Press), and the journals: The Four Directions, The Raven Chronicles, Catalyst, Calyx, Hurricane Alice, Eclectic Literary Forum (ELF) and Kalliope. She is a member of the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers’, and Storytellers and the Indigenous Women’s Network. She is also the author of the poetry collection Songs From The Native Lands (Nopal Press 1995).
Joseph R. McGeshick (enrolled Sokaogon Chippewa, Assiniboine/Sioux) was a professor at Washington State University, Pullman, and is currently finishing his dissertation for a Ph.D. in American Studies. His spends his spare time writing novels.
Tony Medina, guest editor of phati’tude, teaches English at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus. The author of numerous books, including: Emerge & See, Arrest the IRS, No Noose Is Good Noose and coeditor of In Defense of Mumia. His work is featured in the anthologies In the Tradition, Aloud, Soulfires, Tough Love, Spirit & Flame, Catch the Fire, Identity Lessons, Poetry Nation and What Is Not Said, as well as many literary and popular culture publications.
Jes?s Papoleto Meléndez is a performance-poet who distinguishes himself as a dynamic presenter of his works in the oral tradition, and who has performed throughout the country, notably in California, Tijuana and New York. As a poet-teacher, his career has spanned 29 years, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of children of all ages across the country. His current collection is Concertos on Market Street (Kenetic Images Press, 1993).
Tiffany Midge (enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux) is poetry editor of The Raven Chronicles and a member of the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas. Her work has been published in SAIL, Gathering, Poetry Northwest and Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: North American Native Women’s Writing (Norton 1997). She was the recipient of the Diane Decorah Memorial Poetry Award for Outlaws, Renegades & Saints: Diary of a Mixed-Up Halfbreed, published by Greenfield Review Press in 1996.
Deborah A. Miranda (member of the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation, a California Tribe) recently won the 1997 Diane Decorah Memorial First Book Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas for her manuscript Indian Cartography, published by The Greenfield Review Press in 1998. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Callaloo and Sojourner.
Lorraine Miller, an illustrator of phati’tude, is an illustrator, artist and photographer. A graduate from SUNY Empire State College with a B.A. in Psychology, she is currently working on her M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Hofstra University. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers throughout New York.
Margo Norman is the author of two books of poetry, Laffin’ at Lini’ and My Lord, My God, The Beginning. She has been a member of the Black Writers Guild and was co-owner of the magazine, The BayViewer.
Simon J. Ortiz/Hidrutsih (Acoma Pueblo), is the author of numerous books, including A Good Journey, Going For The Rain, Fight Back, Howbah Indians, and From Sand Creek, which won a 1982 Pushcart Prize. Recipient of numerous awards, he has taught Native American literature and creative writing at numerous institutions and is interviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
L. Patty Phillips (Delaware-Apache/Welsh/English) is a former NASA public affairs liaison who has sustained a longtime professional writing career. She has published in various publications and has received numerous awards in both the journalistic and aerospace fields.
Liz Pinto has served on the state board of the California Writers Club, and is editor of the organization’s branch newsletter, Ink Slingers. Her short stories and nonfiction articles have been published in numerous journals such as Lynx Eye, Images, Sauce*Box Journal, and Dream Merchant.
Richard P. Quatrone, poet, playwright and teacher, he has been the editor and publisher of Passaic Review since 1979, which is currently publishing Passaic Review’s Millennium Editions. In 1993, he earned an M.T.A. in theater from Mason Gross School of the Arts and is the founder and director of Ah! Sunflower Theater, a laboratory for a new theater of the people.
Carter Revard/Nompewathe (Osage) attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, earned a Ph.D. from Yale and since 1969, is professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a board member of the American Indian Center in St. Louis and a Gourd Dancer. He has published poems, stories and essays in Nimrod, Greenfield Review, Denver Quarterly, Massachusetts Review and in the anthologies Earth Power Coming, The Remembered Earth, Voices of Wahkontah, American Indian Literature and The Clouds There This Light. His published collections include Ponca War Dancers and Cowboys & Indians, Christmas Shopping, both published by Point Riders Press (1980 and 1992).
William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. (enrolled in the Assiniboine Tribe at Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana) is an actor, director, and playwright. He is a recipient of an NEA Playwrighting Fellowship, a Princess Grace Fellowship, and a Jerome Fellowship from The Minneapolis Playwright Center. He is presently the Artistic Director for Wakiknabe Theatre Company in Santa Fe, NM.
Lola Rodr?guez, poet/artist, is the author of Notes from a Solitary Rhumba. Her work is featured in The Coffeehouse Poetry Anthology, New to North America: Writings, and Poets and Painters. Her essays and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including The Columbia Review, American Mensa Newsletter, The Caribbean Writer, Peau Sensible, Excursis, Lungfull!, Afro Hispanic Review, A Gathering of the Tribes and St. Mark’s Poetry. She participates in Poets and Writers Readings/Workshops Programs and is the recipient of several Lila Acheson Wallace Reader’s Digest grants.
Richard Rosenberg holds a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Cornell University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Currently retired from practicing law, he is a full-time writer and fine art photographer, whose still life work is in the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.
Armand Garnet Ruffo (Ojibway) is a lecturer and Associate Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Education Research and Culture at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of Opening In The Sky (Theytus Books 1994) a poetry collection, and Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney (Coteau Books 1997), a poetic narrative biography. In addition, he has written essays, fiction and plays.
James Ruppert enjoys a joint appointment in English and Alaska Native studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and has published numerous articles on contemporary Native American literature.
G. Anna Sanchez/Ohoyo Ishkitini (Choctaw/Cherokee) is the author of Native American Holocaust for Beginners (available from Writers and Readers in the fall, published under “Gregory”). In addition to poetry, she has published professional research under the name “Gregory,” children stories, vignettes and essays. She is President and acting Director of Ho Anumpoli, an all Indian non-profit organization and is a performing Azteca dancer. Her homepage is http://www.unm.edu/~ggregory.
Ilka Scobie is an art critic and poet whose work has appeared in Cover, NY Soho Arts and The Exhibitionist, Exquisite Corpse, Cover, Home Planet News, and in the chapbooks ANY ISLAND (Soncino, 1995) and There For The Taking (Four Zoas, 1979), respectively. She has taught at Parsons School of Design and currently conducts poetry residencies in urban public schools for Teachers & Writers in New York.
Bob Slaymaker is a product of Columbia’s graduate writing program. His poems have appeared in many publications, including Essence, River Styx, the minnesota review, New York Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse and The Christian Science Monitor.
Tanya Tyler writes poetry, prose, lyrics, plays and short stories. She has published in Essence Magazine and served as a board member and associate editor at Blind Beggar Press. Her play, “Wide River Crossing,” was staged at the Newark Symphony Hall in New Jersey in 1997.
Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez (Tohono O’odham-Pima/Chumash) is a teacher of American Indian literature and Native American Women’s Literature at California State University, Long Beach. Her work has been published in The Stories We Hold Secret (The Greenfield Review Press), Invocation L.A. (West End Press), The Sound of Rattles and Clappers (Univ. of AZ), and Returning The Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers’ Festival (Sun Tracks, Univ. of AZ, 1992)
Michael Walters is a musician and graphic artist. He is also a musician who has performed and toured with a multitude of artists, notably Stephanie Mills, Melba Moore and Maurice Hines. He has developed logos for album covers, musical groups, and various publications and is currently owner of Cyber-Sax Graphics in Brooklyn, New York. His work is featured in this issue of phati’tude.
Toy-Ling Washingtonis a poet/performer whose works have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Dusting Off Dreams and the Swiss journal ORTE. She had performed at numerous venues, including the Afrikan Poetry Theatre and has appeared on New York’s WLIB radio station.
Gail Moran Wawrzyniak (Lac du Flambeau, Ojibwe) writes poetry and essays, and is currently working on her novel. She has published in Colors Magazine, The Hamline Literary Journal, Beaver Tail Journal and ArtWord Quarterly. A recipient of an M.A. in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Literature from Hamline University, she currently teaches at North Hennepin Community College and working toward an M.F.A. in Creative Writing.
Norma C. Wilson is a professor of English at the University of South Dakota where she specializes in Native American literature. Among her articles in Native literature is “Ceremony: From Alienation to Reciprocity” in Teaching American Ethnic Literatures, ed. John R. Maitino and David R. Peck. (Albuquerque: Univ. of NM Press 1996).
Bayla Winters, who recently retired from Austin, TX as a feature stand-up performer, is currently an Extension Instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Writers’ Program. A Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of a Lifetime Award from International Writing Guild, New York City, her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Maverick Press, Graffiti Rag, Nemo, Sweet Annie Press, and White Wall Review in Canada.
William Woodruff is a writer whose works have appeared in numerous publications, including: The Amarath Review, Aura Literary Arts Review, Connecticut River Review, Crazyquilt Quarterly, Fox Cry, Frogpond, Insomnia, Lactuca, Nomad, The Pacific Review, The Panhandler, The Portable Wall, Sonoma Mandala and Spillway.
Emanuel Xavier is a Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Winner whose work has appeared in Best Gay Erotica 1997 (Cleis Press). Pier Queen, his self-published poetry collection, is available through Pier Queen Productions NY.
Nancy C. Zak (Inuit/Irish/German/Scot) has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and taught Native American Studies for many years at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM. and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Her published works include that of Inuit and Pueblo studies, notably in Dialogues With the Living Earth and Earthwalking Sky Dancers.
