This event features Traci Sorell (Cherokee), Michelle M. Jacob (Yakama), and Fern Renville (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate). Free event. Registration required. 

Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature. Sacred Breath features Indigenous writers and storytellers and we couldn't miss this event, even while we're all at home. So we're bringing the event straight to your home!

Join us for a special family and children focused event. We're featuring 2 children's book authors and a storyteller, followed by a moderated Q&A session where you can comment or write in your questions for the artists.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Traci Sorell is a Cherokee Nation citizen and award-winning author who writes fiction and nonfiction books, short stories and poems for children. A former federal Indian law attorney and advocate, Traci lives with her family in northeastern Oklahoma where her tribe is located. She looks forward to sharing two nonfiction books in 2021—Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer (Millbrook, March 2) and We Are Still Here: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know (Charlesbridge, April 20). Find out more about her work online at www.tracisorell.com or @tracisorell via Twitter and Instagram.

Michelle M. Jacob is an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation and is Professor of Indigenous Studies and Director of the Sapsik’ʷałá (Teacher) Education Program in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Oregon. Michelle also serves as Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies, and Affiliated Faculty in the Environmental Studies Program. Michelle engages in scholarly and activist work that seeks to understand and work toward a holistic sense of health and well-being within Indigenous communities and among allies who wish to engage decolonization.

Fern Renville is a theatre director, storyteller, teaching artist, and enrolled citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, an eastern Dakota band of the Oceti Sakowin. A long-time teaching artist in out-of-school spaces and former director of Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theatre, Fern currently is director of SNAG Productions, a Seattle-based collective of Native artists committed to sharing traditional stories in contemporary settings.

Sacred Breath is sponsored by the Department of American Indian Studies, the Intellectual House Academic Programming Committee, the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, the UW Diversity Seed Grant, the Banks Center for Educational Justice, and the Squaxin Island Tribe.

*Note: Zoom webinar link will be emailed out to all registrants the day before the event. We are able to host the first 500 guests (individual computers logging in, not counting family or people who are watching together in person using the same device). If you are not able to attend on the day of the event or if tickets are sold out, we will be recording and making the video available on our Facebook page once the event is completed.