(For more information contact:
lemkeld@morris.umn.edu)
Heid E. Erdrich, is author of three collections of poetry, The Mother's Tongue and Fishing for Myth, and National Monuments as well as co-editor (with Laura Tohe) of Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, she was raised in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. She co-founded the Turtle Mountain Writing Workshop and Birchbark House, a non-profit indigenous language and literature clearinghouse, with Louise Erdrich, her sister. Her books have each been nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards and her most recent poetry collection, "National Monuments", won the award in 2009. Heid Erdrich's writing has received numerous grants and honors. Her degrees are from Dartmouth College and Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars.
A long-time college teacher, Heid Erdrich taught for more than a decade at the University of St. Thomas where she was tenured. In 2007 she left full-time teaching to concentrate on writing, working with Native artists and serving as a Visiting Writer at colleges and universities across the country.
In 2009-2010, Heid Erdrich will travel to read and teach at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Haskell Indian University, Park University, The Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, Kenyon College, University of Minnesota Morris and elsewhere.
In August of 2010, Heid will teach at the seventh annual Turtle Mountain Writers Workshop in Belcourt, North Dakota.
Read more.
