About the Workshop

Through art-making and expression, Indigenous artists and writers participate in a practice that has ensured the existence of our societies, our people and our belief systems since time immemorial. Under the literary western canon, the approach to narrative forms and literary craft is dogmatic and often attempts to mark “untraditional” or even “hybrid” narratives in specific “genre.” In short, what is “narrative” and “genre” and who defines it? What is “literary craft?”

In this workshop, we will explore other means of “narrative” through the traditions and oral histories found in Indigenous Poetics, as well as explore narratives outside of the western canon. We will focus on reading Indigenous poets and writers as they engage, or rather disengage, with “narrative” and western “literary craft” in efforts to understand and embrace our own work and define it on its own terms. This workshop is generative and for writers of all levels and disciplines.

About the Instructor

Michaela RedCherries is a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. She has a J.D. from Arizona State University College of Law and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her debut, mother was a finalist for the National Book Award. She currently teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM.