Noted poet, Heid Erdrich, will read at the University of Minnesota, Morris, on Monday, November 16 at 7:00pm. The reading, sponsored by the Briggs Library Associates, will be held in Oyate Hall, located in the student center on the UMM campus.

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.

“Writers Helping Writers,” the October 3rd kickoff event of Lake Region Writers Network, drew more than 70 writers from Minnesota and North Dakota.

Provost Wasescha

Dr. Anna Wasescha, provost of M State, welcomed attendees to the college. 

Hale meets attendees

 Keynote speaker, Jocelyn Hale, executive director of The Loft Literary Center, encouraged writers to help each other and take advantage of networking opportunities across the state.

 The conference featured distinguished panelists and published authors Mark Vinz, Athena Kildegaard, Tim Rundquist and Scott Stewart. They shared ideas – low tech and high tech – for networking.

Panel on Networking

Stewart

Over lunch, writers brainstormed ways to keep in touch and support each other in the writing endeavour. Ideas included online classes, list of writers in the region with photos and biographies, notice of contests, a question and answer feature on the blog, want ads, and an anthology.

Getting published is no easy task. Leon Ogroske, Editor of Writers’ Journal, took workshop participants through the nuts and bolts of preparing a manuscript for publishing.

Lein

Meanwhile, Dean Hulse, author of Westhope: Life of a Former Farm Boy, and Linda Lein, writer, instructor and publisher, led a workshop on the many routes to getting published.

More than 70 attendees

Writers came from twenty-seven locations across the region. The conference “network” came from Fergus Falls, Dalton, Underwood, Battle Lake, Clitherall, Vining, Ottertail, Henning, Ashby, Richville, Dent, Perham, Erhard, Sebeka, Park Rapids, Nevis, Vergas, Borup, Pequot Lakes, Alexandria, Morris, Dilworth, Moorhead, Marshall, West Fargo, Fargo and St. Paul.