LeAnne Howe Delivers Keynote Address for Indigenous Heritage Month

 

KENNESAW, Ga. (Nov 10, 2015) —  

On Thursday, November 5th, the Interdisciplinary Studies Department welcomed LeAnne Howe, celebrated poet, novelist, and playwright to deliver the keynote address for Indigenous Heritage Month.

 

Howe is a citizen of the Choctaw nation and much of her creative work deals with the experiences of American Indians. For this address, Howe read from her 2013 novel Choctalking on Other Realities. This collection of personal essays chronicles Howe’s life traveling across the seen and unseen borders of cultures and nations. For the audience of students, faculty members, and staff, Howe recollected her experience travelling to Japan as an American Indian representative for the United nations’ “International Year for the World’s Indigenous People.” Howe captured the humorous, awkward, and sometimes troubling circumstances associated with being a cultural outsider in that nation, ultimately revealing the growth and wisdom that those experiences produce.

 

The Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas awarded Howe with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. Her debut novel, Shell Shaker, won an American Book Award. Howe is the Eidson Distinguished Professor in American Literature at the University of Georgia.

 

©