Canku Ota
	(Many Paths)
	An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America
	December 29, 2001 - Issue 52
	Gerald Vizenor Earns Native Writers’ Circle Award

Gerald Vizenor, author and White Earth enrollee, was recently presented the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Vizenor, a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from White Earth, is a prolific writer. He has authored works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, textbooks, and contributed to numerous anthologies. He has been a professor at Lake Forest College, Bemidji State University, University of Minnesota, University of Oklahoma, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Vizenor's efforts have been recognized with numerous awards: In 1983, his screenplay Harold of Orange won the Film-in-the-Cities national competition, Robert Redford Sundance Film Institute. The film also won Best Film at the San Francisco Film Festival for American Indian Films. In 1988, Gerald received the New York Fiction Collective Prize and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for his novel Griever: An American Monkey King in China. In 1989, he has received an Artists Fellowship in Literature from the California Arts Council, an award for professional achievement in literature. In 1990, he was awarded the PEN Oakland, Josephine Miles Award, Excellence in Literature, for Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors, University of Minnesota Press, in 1990. In 1996, he was again awarded the PEN Oakland, Josephine Miles Award, Excellence in Literature, for Native American Literature, an anthology, HarperCollins College Publishers. In his acceptance speech, he described his art as follows: “Literature has been my fantasy and practice for more than fifty years, and for most of that time, literature has been my solemn, wordy, ironic trouble, and my profession as a journalist and teacher.” Vizenor’s works of fiction include Chancers, The Heirs of Columbus, and Earthdivers: Tribal Narratives on Mixed Descent. Nonfiction titles include Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors, The Everlasting Sky: New Voices from the People Named the Chippewa, and Touchwood: A Collection of Ojibway Prose. Poetic works include Empty Swings (Haiku in English Series), and Summer in the Spring: Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories. Gerald Vizenor Gerald Vizenor was born in Minneapolis. He is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor attended New York University for one year, transferring to the University of Minnesota where he earned his B.A. in 1960. His graduate studies include University of Minnesota and Harvard University. His career includes work for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, and the Minneapolis Tribune. Vizenor's teaching career includes professorships at Lake Forest College, Bemidji State University, University of Minnesota, University of Oklahoma, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/vizenor/ Gerald Vizenor - Minnesota Authors Biography Project Before Vizenor was four years old, his father was murdered, he lived in several foster homes, he moved back in with his mother and stepfather, he was abandoned by his mother (although later they reconciled), and, when he was fifteen years old, his stepfather was killed in a work accident. His father was Anishinaabe (Chippewa), and Vizenor spent considerable time on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota with his father's family. http://people.mnhs.org/authors/biog_detail.cfm?PersonID=Vize363

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