In this panel, Tommy Orange will be joined by poet Joan Naviyuk Kane and scholar-writer Paula Peters in a conversation moderated by Matthew Shenoda (Brown University Literary Arts), about their writing and life’s work. Read more about the panelists and moderator below.

Tommy Orange is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel There There, a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about a side of America few of us have ever seen: the lives of urban Native Americans. Orange graduated from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and was a 2014 MacDowell Fellow and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Oakland, California.

Joan Naviyuk Kane is Inupiaq with family from Ugiuvak (King Island) and Qawiaraq (Mary’s Igloo), Alaska. Dark Traffic (2021) follows The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife (2009), Hyperboreal (2013), The Straits (2015), Milk Black Carbon (2017), Sublingual (2018), A Few Lines in the Manifest (2018) and Another Bright Departure (2019).

Paula Peters is a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and an independent scholar and writer of Wampanoag history. She is the executive producer of the 2016 documentary film Mashpee Nine and author of the companion book.

Matthew Shenoda is a writer, professor, and author and editor of several books. His poems and essays have appeared in a variety of newspapers, journals, radio programs and anthologies. His debut collection of poems, Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press), was named one of 2005’s debut books of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine and was winner of a 2006 American Book Award. Currently he is Professor and Chair of the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University. His latest book is The Way of the Earth (Northwestern University Press, 2022).

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch is included at 11:30. Please RSVP here.