Writing Native Stories in DC

Mary Phillips is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe and also from the Umoⁿhoⁿ (Omaha) Tribe of Nebraska. Her career has focused on program evaluation, community-based research, community development, and strategic planning for tribes and Native Americans living in urban areas. She was the co-editor and a chapter author of the book, “Speaking In Red: Healing and Mental Health for Native Americans”. She is also a powwow dancer and sings “lady back-up” for Native American powwow drum groups.

Suzan Shown Harjo is an enrolled Cheyenne citizen of the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes, and is Hotvlkvlke Mvskokvlke, Nuyakv. She is founding president of The Morning Star Institute (1984-), which is dedicated to Native cultural and traditional rights and research, sacred places protection and stereotype-busting. A founding trustee of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, her coalition work that began in 1967 led to NMAI, repatriation laws, and nationwide museum reforms, and she edited and curated NMAI’s Treaties book and award-winning exhibition (2014-2027), Nation to Nation.

Elizabeth Rule, PhD (enrolled citizen, Chickasaw Nation) is a writer, public scholar, and advocate for Indigenous communities. She holds a Social Practice Residency at the Kennedy Center and is an Assistant Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University. Rule’s time at the Kennedy Center is being dedicated to the development of an Indigenous feminist television screenplay, Moon Time. Her Critical Indigenous Studies research has been featured in the Washington Post, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, The Atlantic, Newsy, and NPR. She has also released articles in American Quarterly and the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and has two forthcoming monographs.