nila northSun is a Native American poet and tribal historian. northSun's gritty, realistic poems about life both on and off the reservation have made her one of the most widely read of all Native American poets. She is often considered an influential writer in the second wave of the

Native American Renaissance The Native American Renaissance is a term originally coined by critic Kenneth Lincoln in the 1983 book ''Native American Renaissance'' to categorise the significant increase in production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States in ...

Background

northSun was born in 1951 in

Schurz, Nevada Schurz is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mineral County, Nevada, United States. The population was 658 at the 2010 census. It is located on the Walker River Indian Reservation. It is the burial place of Wovoka, the Paiute messiah who originat ...

to a Shoshone mother and a Chippewa father, Native American activist Adam Fortunate Eagle.R.L. Crow
nila northSun
''R.L. Crow Publications'', 2004 Raised in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, she is a graduate of the

University of Montana-Missoula The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fal ...

.Thomas Meyers
brief biography of nila northSun
''The Online Nevada Encyclopedia'', February 13, 2008 northSun uses colloquial "Reservation English," irony, and humor to explore themes of alienation, disenfranchisement, anger, loss, and brutalization. She lives on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in

Fallon, Nevada Fallon is a city in Churchill County in the U.S. state of Nevada. The population was 9,327 at time of the 2020 census. Fallon is the county seat of Churchill County and is located in the Lahontan Valley. History The community was first populat ...

and works as a grant writer for the

Reno-Sparks Indian Colony The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in Nevada was established in the early 1900s by members of related tribes who lived near Reno for work; they became a federally recognized tribe in 1934 after forming a government under the Indian Reorganization Ac ...

Recognition and honors

In 2000, the "Friends of the Library" group at the

University of Nevada The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12 ...

honored her with the Silver Pen Award for outstanding literary achievement.

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Kenny Guinn Kenneth Carroll Guinn (August 24, 1936 – July 22, 2010), was an American academic administrator, businessman and politician who served as the 27th Governor of Nevada from 1999 to 2007 and interim president of the University of Nevada, Las Vega ...

appointed her to the Nevada State Arts Council that same year. In 2004, she received the "Indigenous Heritage Award in Literature" from ATAYL, an international agency and is the recipient of a Sierra Arts Foundation Literary Award.

Selected works

Poetry

*''whipped cream and sushi'' (2008) *''Love at gunpoint'' (2007) *''A snake in her mouth: poems 1974–96'' (1997) *''Small bones, little eyes: poems'' (1981) (with Jim Sagel) *''Coffee, dust devils and old rodeo bulls: poems'' (1979) (with first husband Kirk Robertson) *''Diet pepsi and nacho cheese: poems'' (1977)

Non-fiction

*''After the Drying Up of the Water'', a tribal history of the Fallon

Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Paiu ...

-Shoshone (1980)

References

External links

The Internet Public Library Native American Authors Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Northsun, Nila 1951 births Living people Ojibwe people Native American poets Poets from Nevada Shoshone people People from Mineral County, Nevada People from Fallon, Nevada University of Montana alumni American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers Native American women writers 21st-century Native American women 20th-century Native American women 20th-century American women 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native American writers