DEC 19 ONE BOOK, ONE ND featuring LeAnne Howe

LeAnne Howe, an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is the Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature in English at the University of Georgia.  She’s the author of novels, plays, poetry, and screenplays.  Her first 90-minute PBS documentary, Indian Country Diaries, Spiral of Fire, aired in 2006.  She is producer-writer for the 56-minute Searching for Sequoyah, airing November 2021 with producer-director Ojibway filmmaker James M. Fortier.

Howe’s newest books in 2020 are: Famine Pots: The Choctaw Irish Gift Exchange 1847-Present, Michigan State University Press, co-edited with Irish scholar, Padraig Kirwan; and, When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, the groundbreaking anthology covering two centuries of Native poetry, edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Howe, and Jennifer Elise Foerster.

Howe’s awards include: the American Book Award, Western Literature Association’s 2015 Distinguished Achievement Award; the inaugural 2014 MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures; and a 2012 United States Artists Ford Fellowship, among others.

Her most recent book, Savage Conversations, Coffee House Press, (2019) is the story of Mary Todd Lincoln and the Savage Indian that Mary claimed tortured her nightly in 1875.  Savage Conversations has been staged as a play in NYC, Seattle, and in Athens, GA.

Two major anthologies released in August are: Famine Pots: The Choctaw Irish Gift Exchange 1847-Present, Michigan State University Press, released in August 2020 co-edited by Howe and Irish scholar, Padraig Kirwan; and, When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, the ground breaking anthology covering two centuries of Native poetry,  edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, LeAnne Howe, and Jennifer Elise Foerster. Both books appeared in August 2020.  She is at work on a new book set in Stonewall, Oklahoma.

Savage Conversations

May 1875: Mary Todd Lincoln is addicted to opiates and tried in a Chicago court on charges of insanity. Entered into evidence is Ms. Lincoln’s claim that every night a Savage Indian enters her bedroom and slashes her face and scalp. She is swiftly committed to Bellevue Place Sanitarium. Her hauntings may be a reminder that in 1862, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of thirty-eight Dakotas in the largest mass execution in United States history. No one has ever linked the two events―until now.

Moderator Mona (Susan) Power

is a Standing Rock Sioux author from Chicago. She earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School. After a short career in law, she decided to become a writer, starting her career by earning an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Her fellowships include an Iowa Arts Fellowship, James Michener Fellowship, Radcliffe Bunting Institute Fellowship, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, and USA Artists Fellowship. She lives and teaches in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

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However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally.

Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University.

To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.