Poet, Essayist Marilou Awiakta to Speak at University of Richmond
October 24, 2006
Marilou Awiakta, an award-winning poet, storyteller and essayist, will speak at University of Richmond Nov. 2 as part of the 2006-07 WILL/WGSS/Quest speaker series. Her talk will take place in the Brown-Alley Room of Weinstein Hall at 4 p.m. It is open to the public at no charge.
Awiakta blends poetry, storytelling and essays with her Cherokee-Appalachian heritages to advocate how Cherokee and other Native American philosophies are applicable to contemporary problems. The philosophies, she advises, help bring balance and healing to the environment and humanity.
Her work has been featured in Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens,” Gloria Steinem’s “Revolution from Within,” and Ms. magazine, Southern Exposure, Southern Style and A Southern Appalachian Reader. She is author of “Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet,” “Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery” and the critically-acclaimed “Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom.”
Awiakta is recipient of the Distinguished Tennessee Writer Award and the award for Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature. Her reading of “Selu” earned her a Grammy nomination in 1996, and the book became a Quality Paperback Book Club selection in 1994.
Her talk is the third of six events in the series, sponsored by Richmond’s Women Involved in Living and Learning (WILL), Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and Richmond Quest. The series’ theme is “Environmental Justice.”
For more information, contact WILL at (804) 289-8578 or will@richmond.edu.