D/N/Lakota literary project kicks off during Lakota Nations Education Conference

A panel of finalists for a one-of-a-kind D/N/Lakota literary project will be presenting during the Lakota Nations Education Conference.

The panel will be held Friday, December 20, 2019, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Sylvan II room at the Ramkota Conference Center, in Rapid City.

In 2019, a group of L/D/Nakota writers and educators pulled together a list of over 200 books written by our people with the aim to identify ‘one book’ that our community will read and discuss throughout 2020. In addition to ‘one book,’ we also compiled a series of books that are critical to the L/D/Nakota literary tradition. 

Panelists include contemporary authors Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Lydia Whirlwind Soldier, Edward Valandra and Nick Estes. Honorary panelists, invited, are Joseph Marshall III and Layli Long Soldier.

The committee for this unique project are members of The Oak Lake Writers’ Society. This tribal writers group was recently chosen to be the inaugural grant partner with First Nations Development Institute to develop a new indigenous reading initiative to study what roadblocks exist to people recognizing and utilizing literature written by American Indian authors as well as create a full catalog of historical and contemporary literature written by members of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate (The Seven Council Fires, also known as The Great Sioux Nation).

First Nations Development Institute is a non-profit in Colorado, managed and led by American Indians. To continue in their own goals to preserve and promote indigenous knowledge, they decided to choose partners from various areas of the United States to research and showcase multiple tribal literatures chosen by tribal members themselves. 

The Oak Lake Writers Society is their inaugural partner and grantee, as a group of D/N/Lakota writers, to partner with for the first year of this project and help develop the methodology for how the literature is chosen.

The Lakota Nations Education Conference is an excellent place to give the public a sneak peek behind this important work, as the books and writers chosen are already in use in tribal schools and other Native Studies programs across Indian Country, from preschool through college levels.

For more information, please email oaklaketribalwriters@gmail.com.