LAND & WATER: A WRITER’S RELATIONSHIP WITH PLACE

*This event will be held in person with limited seating. Live streaming is available for those not able to attend in person.

Setting is often described as an element in a writer’s story, a tool that helps the reader visualizevthe place where their characters live. And yet, as humans, we are profoundly shaped by the land we come from, the water we live near, the plants and animals who share the earth with us, and the horizon that greets us each day. Along with discussion of select excerpts by various writers, such as Robin Wall Kimmerer, Linda Hogan, and Kimberly Blaeser, participants will explore their relationship to place through brief writing exercises, and consider how they might extend that visualization to their broader work.

This two-part workshop will be team taught by writers Diane Wilson and Halee Kirkwood

• On Tuesday May 5, novelist Diane Wilson will focus on Land, encouraging participants to write about a beloved place that has influenced their lives. Free copies of her novel The Seed Keeper will be available as supplies last.

• On Wednesday May 20, poet and memoirist Halee Kirkwood will focus on Waterways, encouraging participants to write about a waterway that nourishes them. Free copies of New Poets of Native Nations edited by Heid E. Erdrich will be available as supplies last.

Diane Wilson is a Dakota writer, educator, and bog steward, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She has published six award-winning books as well as essays in numerous publications. Her novel, The Seed Keeper, won the 2022 MN Book Award and is a selection for the 2026 NEA Big Read. Her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award and her nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life, received the Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado. Wilson has written two middle-grade biographies about Dakota language protectors and co-authored a 2022 picture book—Where We Come From, winner of the 2023 Carter G. Woodson award. Wilson’s work explores seed sovereignty, social justice, cultural recovery, and environmental stewardship. She is currently working on a memoir, Mapping My Way Home: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Bog.

Halee Kirkwood's debut poetry collection, To Think of a Match, is forthcoming with Curbstone Press in spring 2027. Kirkwood is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, an inaugural and returning Indigenous Nations Poets fellow, and a 2019 Loft Mentor Series fellow. They are a direct descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.

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