2026 MFACW July Evening Reading Series: Jim Terry, Aaron John Curtis, and Sherwin Bitsui
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Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) from Sunday, July 12, through Thursday, July 16, 2026, as the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFACW) program presents its 2026 July Residency, welcoming a new cohort of incoming graduate students. Visiting writers, acclaimed for their work in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting, will read and perform alongside several of our full-time mentors. Each evening will engage audiences with poetry, memoir, or fiction from some of today’s most vibrant and vital voices.
We are pleased to invite the public to attend the July Evening Reading Series events, held in the CLE Commons Room 201 on the IAIA campus at 83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe, NM 87508.
All readings will be held in person and virtually via livestream on the IAIA website and Facebook. See links below to watch the livestreams. All readings are in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).
July Evening Reading Series Events:
- Sunday, July 12 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Chris Santiago, Bojan Louis (Diné), and Brooke Swaney (Blackfeet Nation Citizen and Salish Descendant)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Monday, July 13 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Nicole Chung, Matias Viegner, and Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota Nation)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Tuesday, July 14 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Jim Terry (Ho-Chunk), Aaron John Curtis (St. Regis Mohawk Tribe), and Sherwin Bitsui (Diné)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Wednesday, July 15 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Film Screening featuring Wenonah Wilms (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) of Wilms Films—IAIA Auditorium, IAIA Campus, no livestream available
- Thursday, July 16 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Crisosto Apache (Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné) ’15, Toni Jensen (Métis), and Jamie Figueroa (Boricua)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
All readings are open and free to the public. We hope to see you there!
For questions, please contact IAIA MFACW Program Coordinator Veronica Bustamante at [email protected].
Biographies:
Jim Terry is a Ho-Chunk storyteller who has called Chicago his home for about ten thousand years or so. His graphic memoir “Come Home, Indio” was an LA Book Prize finalist, a Publishers’ Weekly Notable Book, and an Ignatz nominee. “Paper Cuts,” a visual comic essay about who gatekeeps history and the personal toll of discovering painful truths, was completed in conjunction with his residency at the Newberry Library and is currently being taught in several schools. He’s illustrated comics for over fifteen years with everyone from Marvel to Heavy Metal, and his prose will be published this fall in the sequel to the smash “Never Whistle at Night.” He just finished directing his first feature film and is currently working on a horror novel. He has three cats.
Aaron John Curtis is an enrolled member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and author of Old School Indian, a USA Today bestseller and longlist nominee for the 2026 PEN Open Book Award. Aaron lives in Florida, where he is working on his second novel. Aaron is the author of the USA Today bestselling Old School Indian, which was longlisted for the 2026 PEN Open Book Award. Aaron is an enrolled member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which he’ll tell you is the white name for the American side of Akwesasne. Aaron has judged for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance prizes, the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The Boston Globe called him “Your new literary obsession.” He lives in Florida.
Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. He is Diné of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He is the author of Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press, 2003), Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), and Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). His honors include a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and a Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship. He is also the recipient of a 2010 PEN Open Book Award, an American Book Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. In addition to teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), he joined the faculty at Northern Arizona University in the fall of 2019.
https://iaia.edu/event/2026-mfacw-july-evening-reading-series-terry-curtis-bitsui/
MFA in Creative Writing
The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is designed as a two-year program with two intensive week-long residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. Students and faculty mentors gather for a week of workshops, lectures, and readings. At the end of the residency week, each student is matched with a faculty mentor, who then works one-on-one with the student for the semester. IAIA’s program is unique in that we emphasize the importance of Indigenous writers speaking to the Indigenous experience. The literature we read carries a distinct Native American and First Nations emphasis. The MAFCW offers four areas of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting.
We are pleased to invite the public to attend the July Evening Reading Series events, held in the CLE Commons Room 201 on the IAIA campus at 83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe, NM 87508.
All readings will be held in person and virtually via livestream on the IAIA website and Facebook. See links below to watch the livestreams. All readings are in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).
July Evening Reading Series Events:
- Sunday, July 12 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Chris Santiago, Bojan Louis (Diné), and Brooke Swaney (Blackfeet Nation Citizen and Salish Descendant)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Monday, July 13 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Nicole Chung, Matias Viegner, and Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota Nation)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Tuesday, July 14 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Jim Terry (Ho-Chunk), Aaron John Curtis (St. Regis Mohawk Tribe), and Sherwin Bitsui (Diné)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Wednesday, July 15 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Film Screening featuring Wenonah Wilms (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) of Wilms Films—IAIA Auditorium, IAIA Campus, no livestream available
- Thursday, July 16 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Crisosto Apache (Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné) ’15, Toni Jensen (Métis), and Jamie Figueroa (Boricua)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
All readings are open and free to the public. We hope to see you there!
For questions, please contact IAIA MFACW Program Coordinator Veronica Bustamante at [email protected].
Biographies:
Jim Terry is a Ho-Chunk storyteller who has called Chicago his home for about ten thousand years or so. His graphic memoir “Come Home, Indio” was an LA Book Prize finalist, a Publishers’ Weekly Notable Book, and an Ignatz nominee. “Paper Cuts,” a visual comic essay about who gatekeeps history and the personal toll of discovering painful truths, was completed in conjunction with his residency at the Newberry Library and is currently being taught in several schools. He’s illustrated comics for over fifteen years with everyone from Marvel to Heavy Metal, and his prose will be published this fall in the sequel to the smash “Never Whistle at Night.” He just finished directing his first feature film and is currently working on a horror novel. He has three cats.
Aaron John Curtis is an enrolled member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and author of Old School Indian, a USA Today bestseller and longlist nominee for the 2026 PEN Open Book Award. Aaron lives in Florida, where he is working on his second novel. Aaron is the author of the USA Today bestselling Old School Indian, which was longlisted for the 2026 PEN Open Book Award. Aaron is an enrolled member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which he’ll tell you is the white name for the American side of Akwesasne. Aaron has judged for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance prizes, the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The Boston Globe called him “Your new literary obsession.” He lives in Florida.
Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. He is Diné of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He is the author of Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press, 2003), Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), and Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). His honors include a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and a Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship. He is also the recipient of a 2010 PEN Open Book Award, an American Book Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. In addition to teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), he joined the faculty at Northern Arizona University in the fall of 2019.
https://iaia.edu/event/2026-mfacw-july-evening-reading-series-terry-curtis-bitsui/
MFA in Creative Writing
The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is designed as a two-year program with two intensive week-long residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. Students and faculty mentors gather for a week of workshops, lectures, and readings. At the end of the residency week, each student is matched with a faculty mentor, who then works one-on-one with the student for the semester. IAIA’s program is unique in that we emphasize the importance of Indigenous writers speaking to the Indigenous experience. The literature we read carries a distinct Native American and First Nations emphasis. The MAFCW offers four areas of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting.
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Where is it happening?
Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), 47 A van NU Po, Santa Fe, NM 87508, United States
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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