Mona Susan Power
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Distinguish".Template:Use American English Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Mona Susan Power (Standing Rock Dakota, born 1961) is a Native American author based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her debut novel, The Grass Dancer (1994), received the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.
Early life
Power was born in Chicago, Illinois,[1] and is a Yantonai Dakota enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota.[2][3] Her mother, Susan Kelly Power, Gathering of Stormclouds Woman (Standing Rock Dakota, 1925–2022), was an activist who helped found the American Indian Center of Chicago.[2] Susan's mother, Mona's grandmother, Josephine Gates Kelly was three-term tribal chairperson for the Stand Rock Sioux Tribe.[2] Mona's great-grandmother was Nellie Two Bear Gates.[4] She is a descendant of Sioux Chief Mato Nupa (Two Bears).[5]
Power's father, Carleton Gilmore Power, a Euro-American from New England, worked in publishing as a salesman. One of his great-great-grandfathers was governor of New Hampshire.[5] She heard stories that inspired her imagination from both sides.
Education
Power attended Chicago schools, then earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School.[6]
In 1992 she entered the MFA program at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.[7]
Writing career
After a short career in law, Power decided to become a writer. She worked as a technical writer and editor, reserving her creative writing for off hours.
Her 1994 debut novel, The Grass Dancer, has a complex plot about four generations of Native Americans, with action stretching from 1864 to 1986.
Power has written several other books as well. Her short fiction has been published in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, Voice Literary Supplement, Ploughshares,[8] Story, and The Best American Short Stories 1993. She teaches at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Power's most recent novel, A Council of Dolls, was released in 2023. The novel was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction.[9][10]
Honors and awards
The Grass Dancer won the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.[1] Powers won a United States Artists Fellowship.[1]
Bibliography
Books
- The Grass Dancer, Putnam, 1994.
- Strong Heart Society, Penguin, 1998.
- Roofwalker, Milkweed Editions, 2002.
- Sacred Wilderness, Michigan State University Press, 2014.
- A Council of Dolls, Mariner Books, 2023.
Short Stories
- “Dead Owls” in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (September, 19th, 2023)[11]
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
- ↑ a b c Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
- ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Susan Power: Biography and criticism of work, Voices from the Gap, University of Minnesota, accessed 24 July 2014
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Caroline Moseley, "'Grass Dancer' evokes past, present", Princeton Weekly Bulletin, 10 March 1997, accessed 24 July 2014
- ↑ "Susan Power", Ploughshares
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Further reading
- Gleichert-Bothner, Amy. "Changeable Parts: History and Contemporary American Women Writers,"[1] DAIA 5149 (1997): vol. 57, no. 12, Sec. A., Pittsburgh University.
- Kratzert, M. "Native American Literature: Expanding the Canon," in Collection Building Vol. 17, no. 1, 1998, p. 4.
- Shapiro, Dani. "Spirit in the Sky: Talking With Susan Power," People Weekly, 8 August 1994: vol. 42, no. 6, 21–22.
- Walter, Roland. "Pan-American (Re) Visions: Magical Realism and Amerindian Cultures in Susan Power's 'The Grass Dancer,' Gioconda Belli's 'La Mujer Habitada,' Linda Hogan's 'Power,' and Mario Vargas Llosa's 'El Hablador'," American Studies International (AsInt) vol.37, no.3, 63-80 (1999).
- Wright, Neil H. "Visitors from the Spirit Path: Tribal Magic in Susan Power's The Grass Dancer," Kentucky Philological Review (KPR) vol. 10, 39-43 (1995).
External links
- Susan Power, Native American Writers Project
- Susan Power: Biography and criticism of work, Voices from the Gap, University of Minnesota
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with reference errors
- Biography template using bare URL in website parameter
- 1961 births
- Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
- Living people
- Harvard College alumni
- Harvard Law School alumni
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winners
- Native American novelists
- Native American women writers
- Standing Rock Sioux people
- Writers from Chicago
- Writers from Saint Paul, Minnesota
- Yankton Dakota people
- 20th-century Native American writers
- 20th-century Native American women
- 21st-century Native American writers
- 21st-century Native American women