I’ve spent over a decade empowering Native American communities.  From my work in Santa Fe, NM with Intermountain Youth Centers and the Santa Fe Mountain Center, I’ve worked with Pueblo, Apache, and Navajo peoples.  Currently, living in my home town of Tahlequah, Oklahoma (in the heart of Cherokee Nation), I work with Indian Child Welfare, where I give back to the community that nurtured and embedded  the Indigenous values I pass along to my children.

I’m a regionalist Native American writer of literary fiction, interested in capturing intertribal and multicultural aspects within two tribally specific communities: Tahlequah and Lawton, Oklahoma.  I was raised inside these tribal circles and continue to reside there today–half Native American (Kiowa/Cherokee) and half Hispanic.  I belong to the Stopp family in Tahlequah, and the Hokeah and Tahsequah families in Lawton (organized The Oklahoma Gourd Dance Club–we’re easy to find).  I have family actively involved with the Comanche War Scouts Society, Comanche Little Ponies Society, and the Kiowa Tia-Piah Society.

I hold an M.A. in English from the University of Oklahoma, with a concentration in Native American Literature. I also hold a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies. I’m a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA, and also a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. I have short stories published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South ’09, and Red Ink Magazine

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