NACDI's All My Relations Arts' Native Authors Program
Storytelling is central to contemporary Native American life-ways, yet, there is an extremely limited number of published works by Native authors. By amplifying Native authors, all Minnesotans will have access to literary works that connect the public to the vital and thriving Native American culture that Minnesota is rooted in. AMRA's Native Authors Program creates opportunity and placemaking for Native authors who are not given access to other workshops at more established writing programs.
2022-2023 Cultural Heritage and Community Identity Grants - Winter 2021
Our measurable outcomes include: Two of the eight to 10 authors will have a completed manuscriptWe will have a successful week-long community engagement series focused on a particular themeWe will have a completed anthology of short stories by each of the authors available for community dissemination
The Native Authors program supports the development of individual authors and impacts the greater Minnesota community through the completed publications and accessibility to the published works of the participating authors. This will be measured by the number of completed and in-progress manuscripts.
The Native Authors program will develop culturally diverse humanities programming through our week-long community engagement series. This will be measured by the number of community collaborators, the number of participants engaging through our digital and in-person platforms, and the qualitative analysis as procured through participant evaluation surveys and one on one interviews.
The Native Authors program will produce an anthology of short stories by each of the authors available for community dissemination. This will be measured by actual production and printing of the anthology, the number of entities that the anthology is disseminated to, and the number of requests that we have for the anthology.
The 2nd cohort of the All My Relations Native Authors program received an overwhelming response of applications to choose the 12 applicants that would be invited to join the program. Thirty-three applicants applied and it became very apparent that there are many Native writers that have need for a program such as this. We juried the applicants and narrowed down 12 writers: An Garagiola, Chloe Allyn, Deanna StandingCloud, Nicolas DeShaw, Kyle Hill, Melissa Olson, Emmy Her Many Horses, Gillian Joseph, Emily Poupart, Tara Widner, Tara Perron, and Sarah Wheelock were selected. The authors began meeting in September of 2022 and met monthly where they peer reviewed each other's work, provided feedback, developed relationships with each other, and learned from invited guests and speakers. Periodically throughout the duration of the program, Art Coulsen, program facilitator, invited mentor visitors who are established, published authors, agents, editors, and others relevant to the field to meet with the writers. Marcie Rendon, Cynthia Leitich Smith, David Treuer, Heid Erdrich, Jacqui Lipton, and Stephanie Strachan were invited mentors who took time out of their busy schedules to offer insights and wisdom to the writers. In June 2023, the Walker Art Center partnered with AMRA to host a reading of alumni writers and Art Coulsen to read excerpts of their work at the Walker's Green roof Poetry series. This event allowed AMRA to introduce the new cohort to the community. Following that event, AMRA planned an hosted 3 public reading events with 4 writers per event sharing excerpts of their work with the community. The first event was held at the Brichbark books new event space, Birchbark Bizhew in June, followed by 2 additional events held at All My Relations Arts gallery in August, and September of 2023. Native photographer Nedahness Greene, attended each public reading and was able to provide professional headshots of each writer to have access to use for business purposes. In January 2024, we hosted a meeting for feedback from the writers about their experience in the program. We learned the writers were reaffirmed that other Native writers experienced the same struggles and creative practices, they appreciated hearing feedback from the other writers, and the character development support they were provided. There was strong agreement with the appreciation of not having to explain culture related references with this group of Native specific writers.
An initial change to the timeline was in regards to the facilitator. Initially we had planned on Diane Wilson again leading the facilitation and mentorship, however, since she had lost her husband, Jim Denomie, she pulled back from her commitments and we needed time to find a replacement. Art Coulsen was recommended and after meeting and discussing the program, he enthusiastically agreed to lead as the program facilitator. This set us back by about 3 months from when we had planned to launch the call for writers but once we had Art on board, the program ran smoothly. AMRA checked in often with Art on how he felt the program was operating and any support needs he had. The second delay we had was in thepublication of the anthology. The first Native Authors program was in partnership with the Hennepin County Library and so the library took on the responsibility of publication of the anthology so this cohort was the first time that AMRA lead the work and we should have begun planning the anthology in November to be completed in time for the grant schedule, however, we did not begin the planning of the anthology until the last month of programming. This allowed the writers focused time without distraction and once the program was completed, then we shifted to a capstone project of the anthology. The writers needed to submit works and Art agreed to lead the editorial review of the submissions.
Overall, this program once again has shown the need for a native specific writers group where culture is known and understood and not needed to be explained.. We are excited to report that Nicolas DeShaw has been picked up by an agent and is on his way to having his work published. Emmy Her Many Horses and Chloe Allyn have completed works while in the program. The diversity in stories has been uplifting and rewarding to hear. The work that the writers have been developing have left us hungry for the finished, published work.
We receive a general operating grant from the MN State Arts Board.