Award-winning Indigenous author Marcie Rendon to discuss her work at MSUM on Nov. 8
Wednesday, Nov. 8 | 4:30 to 6 p.m. | Comstock Memorial Union Room 105
Award-winning Indigenous Author Marcie Rendon will share insights about her life and the process of writing her books at MSU Moorhead on Wednesday, Nov. 8, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the university’s Comstock Memorial Union Room 105. During her presentation, she will also conduct a reading from her latest book, “Sinister Graves.” The talk is free and open to the public.
Rendon is White Earth Ojibwe from Minnesota. She was included in Oprah’s 2020 list of 31 Native American authors to read and received Minnesota’s 2020 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award.
Her three Cash Blackbear mystery novels have received prestigious recognition. A contemporary crime novel, “Where They Last Saw Her,” will be released by Penguin/Random in May 2024. She has many poems and plays published in anthologies and magazines, in print and online. With poet Diego Vazquez, she received the McKnight Spoken Word Fellowship 2017 for their work with incarcerated women in the county jail system.
Rendon, an MSUM alumna who earned degrees in American Indian studies and criminal justice, received a Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris Causa, Adler University, USA) in 2020. She was also recognized as a “50 over 50 Change-maker” by Minnesota AARP and POLLEN in 2018.
On the Marcie Rendon website, her artistic statement reads:
We are kept in their mindset as “vanished peoples.” Or as workers, not creators… What does this erasing of individual identity do to us? Can you believe you exist if you look in a mirror and see no reflection? What happens when one group controls the mirror market?
As Native people, we have known that in order to survive we had to create, re-create, produce, re-produce. The effect of the denial of our existence is that many of us have become invisible…the systematic disruption of our families by the removal of our children was effective for silencing our voices.
However, not (everyone) can still that desire, that up-welling inside that says sing, write, draw, move, be… we can sing our hearts out, tell our stories, paint our visions…we are in a position to create a more human reality…in order to live we have to make our own mirrors.
This talk is sponsored by MSUM’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, American Indian Student Association, Dragon Entertainment Group, English Department, and the George Soule American Indian Center.
MSUM is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible event. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact Chuck Eade at Charles.Eade@mnstate.edu. You will be contacted individually to discuss your request.