Mixed Media The IAIA Winter Writers Festival
WRITERS BLOCK
Joy Harjo headlines the Winter Writers Festival, from Saturday, Jan. 2, to Saturday, Jan. 9, at the Institute of American Indian Arts. The festival, hosted by the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program, is held annually the first week of the year. Harjo is the author of eight books of poetry and the recipient of the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. She reads at 6 p.m. on the festival’s final night with fiction writer Pam Houston (Cowboys Are My Weakness and Contents May Have Shifted) and poet Natalie Diaz (When My Brother Was an Aztec). Readings by program faculty are held each of the preceding nights at 6 p.m.; some are followed at 7:30 p.m. by student readings or film screenings. The first reading, on Jan. 2, is by Ramona Ausubel, Toni Jensen, and Ismet Prcic. On Sunday, Jan. 3, Shane Book, Santee Frazier, and Claire Vaye Watkins read, followed by a short film by Book. Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Derek Palacio, and James Thomas Stevens read on Monday, Jan. 4, followed by a screening of Drunktown’s Finest, with director Sydney Freeland. On Tuesday, Jan. 5, MFA program director Jon Davis, a former poet laureate of Santa Fe, reads with Lidia Yuknavitch and Joan Naviyuk Kane. Nathalie Handal, Chip Livingston, and Manuel Gonzales read on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed by first-year MFA student readings. The reading by Marie-Helene Bertino, Sherwin Bitsui, and Melissa Febos on Thursday, Jan. 7, is followed by a film screening with Prcic, and on Friday, Jan. 8, the reading by Cynthia Cruz, David Treuer, and Elissa Washuta is followed by second-year MFA student readings. Readings are in the auditorium in the Library and Technology Center on the IAIA campus (83 Avan Nu Po Road).