Erik Bitsui, a Navajo from Blue Gap, Arizona, has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Bitsui’s first book, Mosh Pit Etiquette, Volume One: Secrets of a 21st Century Navajo Headbanger, will be published in 2023 by Tolsun Books. Hostiin Bitsui lives with wife and two daughters and one cat in East Flagstaff.

Jalen Charley was born on the Navajo Nation. Raised in Aztec, New Mexico, and has earned his Bachelor's in Sociology from Fort Lewis College. He is Honey Combed Rock clan, born for the Bitter Water clan. He is the recipient of the 2021 SkyWords Emerging Writers Prize and a Writing Fellow of the Emerging Diné Writers’ Institute.

Pauletta Chief-Lee is a cofounder of the Shima Storytelling program with two other educated mothers who seek to develop and implement a Navajo Language curriculum to children and people of all ages. Shima Storytelling emerged out of the desire to provide a Navajo Language learning program in communities that lack programs for children under the age of five. These ideas cultivated into researching resource supplies and developing our own beginner/intermediate Navajo Language materials. Navajo children songs and activities incorporate repetition and gross motor skills via body motions, music shakers and stretchy bands. Pauletta assists Shima’ Storytelling by writing songs and activities in Navajo so participants can follow along. She also reads Navajo Language story books for various groups. Pauletta is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) and a stay-at-home mother. Pauletta speaks and teaches Navajo to her children in a bilingual home. She is pleased to be a part of a Navajo teaching program that has become a resource for families who desire to enhance or relearn their Navajo Language.

Will Cordeiro has work published in AGNI, Bennington Review, Copper Nickel, The Threepenny Review, THRUSH, and elsewhere. Will won the 2019 Able Muse Book Award for Trap Street. Will is also co-author, with Lawrence Lenhart, of Experimental Writing: A Writers’ Guide and Anthology, forthcoming from Bloomsbury. Will co-edits Eggtooth Editions, is on the executive board of the Northern Arizona Book Festival, and teaches in the Honors College at Northern Arizona University.

Ash Davidson was born in Arcata, California and attended FALA, the University of Arizona, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and MacDowell. She moved back to Flagstaff in 2014.

Owen Davis is a composer, percussionist, improvisor, noise artist, educator, and curator based in Flagstaff, AZ. He is currently the general music teacher at Sturgeon Cromer Elementary School in Flagstaff Unified School District. He also maintains a growing private percussion studio teaching the percussive arts weekly to students of all ages at the Flagstaff School of Music. His artistic work is animated by noise - searching out ways to find and make it in composition, improvisation, and other artistic endeavors. He is an active recording artist, improvisor, and new music performer nationally and internationally frequently collaborating or composing for projects and performances. He holds degrees in Music Education (Northern Arizona University studying with percussion professor Steven Hemphill) and a master's degree in Music Composition (DePaul University).

Dr. Monica De La Torre is an assistant professor in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University and author of "Feminista Frequencies: Community Building Through Radio in the Yakima Valley." Her research and teaching practices bridge Chicana feminist theory, Latinx feminist media studies, radio and sound studies, and women’s and gender studies. Monica is a former community radio producer and member of the LA based radio collective Soul Rebel Radio. She is reviving her audio production skills with a forthcoming podcast based on the book. 

Rosemarie Dombrowski is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ, the founding editor of rinky dink press, and the founding director of Revisionary Arts, a nonprofit that facilitates therapeutic poetry workshops. She’s published three collections of poetry and was the winner of the 2017 Split Rock Review chapbook competition. She’s the recipient of an Arts Hero award, a Great 48 award, a Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, and others. She teaches creative writing, women’s literature, and medical poetry at Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus. www.rdpoet.com

Gabriel Dozal is from El Paso, TX. He received his MFA in poetry from The University of Arizona. His work appears in POETRY, Guernica, The Iowa Review, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Literary Review. His book The Border Simulator will be published by One World/Random House in 2023.

Cymelle Leah Edwards (she/her) is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer from Casa Grande, AZ and the author of Coordinates [chapbook]. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University and serves as current nonfiction editor of Kelp Journal and board member for the Northern Arizona Book Festival.

Emily Forney is a literary agent at BookEnds Literary, where she focuses on a diverse list of children's literature and adult fantasy. She was an inaugural member of the Young Leader's Council for Feminist Press and works with the LA Review of Books for their Publishing Fellowship after being a fellow herself in 2020. When she isn't reading submissions, working with her authors, or procrastinating her own writing, she's usually binge watching an unhealthy amount of television and stress baking when deadlines are near.

Peter Fulé is a Professor at Northern Arizona University. Peter's expertise includes ecological restoration, fire ecology, Cordilleran forest ecology (southwest U.S., northern Mexico). 

Jerry Gabriel's first book of fiction, Drowned Boy, won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and was published in 2010 (Sarabande Books). It was a Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" pick and awarded the 2011 Towson Prize for Literature. His second book of fiction, The Let Go, was published in 2015 (Queen's Ferry Press). His stories have appeared in One Story, Epoch, Fiction, Five Chapters, The Missouri Review, failbetter, and Big Fiction, among other publications. His work has been short-listed for a Pushcart Prize and he has received grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2004), the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference (2011), and the National Endowment for the Arts (2016). He is Project Director for SlackWater: A Journal of Environmental and Cultural Change in Southern Maryland, and Co-Director of the Chesapeake Writers' Conference.

Cristián Gómez is a Chilean Poet that has widely published his creative work both in Latin America and Europe. He did his B.A. and Master in Universidad de Chile, his alma mater. His PhD is from The University of Iowa. He has published nine books of poetry and his work appears in many anthologies, having been partially translated into English, Polish and Basque. He was member of the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa and a Writer in Residence at The Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada.

Raquel Gutiérrez is an arts critic/writer, poet and educator. Gutiérrez is a 2021 recipient of the Rabkin Prize in Arts Journalism, as well as a 2017 recipient of the The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Her/Their writing has recently appeared in or is forthcoming in Art In America, NPR Music, Places Journal, and The Georgia Review. Gutiérrez teaches in the Oregon State University-Cascades Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program. Her/Their first book of prose, “Brown Neon,” is an ekphrastic memoir that considers what it means to be a Latinx artist during the Trump era and will be published by Coffee House Press, June, 2022. Gutiérrez calls Tucson, Arizona home.

Boderra Joe is a poet, journalist, and photographer from Bááhazł'ah (Twin Lakes), New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation. She is Diné of the Folded Arms Clan, born for the Water’s Edge Clan. She holds an MFA and BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her forthcoming book, DESERT TEETH, will be published by Abalone Mountain Press, August 2022. She is the Program Coordinator at the Institute of American Indian Arts in the MFA Creative Writing Program.

Chris Kalman is the author of three books, including Dammed If You Don’t—winner of the 2021 Banff Mountain Fiction Award. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Alpinist, Climbing, The Gulch, Mountain Life Annual, Sidetracked, and Your Forests as well as digital publications in Adventure Journal, Outside Online, and many other outlets. His work has been translated into Korean, and a French translation of his first book is forthcoming. Kalman lives in Flagstaff, Arizona where he is the Features Editor for the American Alpine Journal, and a student in Northern Arizona University’s Creative Writing MFA.

Neha Khurana is a Flagstaff-based artist, climber, and community organizer, with success implementing high-impact campaigns around social and environmental change. She is a passionate climber, with a personal and deep understanding of the challenges facing the outdoor industry. She is actively involved in stewardship as a board member of the Northern Arizona Climbers Coalition. Neha holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Outdoor Education and Cultural Studies from Prescott College, where she first grew her love for the Southwest. Currently she is supporting voter registration efforts across communities of color in Arizona for the upcoming midterm elections. "

Grace Shuyi Liew is a lesbian writer and poet born and raised in Malaysia. She is the author of the poetry collection Careen (Noemi Press, 2019), which has been named Electric Literature’s 14 Unmissable Poetry Books of 2019 and Entropy magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2019. She is a 2020 Emerging Writer at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives. She is writing a multigenerational novel, and this is her debut short story publication.

Clare Magneson received her MFA in Creative Writing along with an Environmental Narrative Certificate from NAU in 2021. She has rafted over 50 trips through the Grand Canyon. Her work is forthcoming in Creative Nonfiction magazine.

Jesse Tsinajinnie Maloney grew up on the Leeward side of O’ahu. He went to the same High School as Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. His work has appeared in Turtle Island Quarterly, Peach Velvet Lit Mag, About Place, Cutthroat, and other places. His debut full-length work Health Carefully was released through Cyberwit press 2019. In 2020, he co-hosted the late night virtual reading series Midnight Transmission with poet Orlando White. He’s producing a collaborative spoken word/instrumental album featuring poets Pamela Uschuk and William Pitt Root. Jesse Tsinajinnie Maloney teaches at Diné College and lives with his wife and cats on the Navajo Nation.
 

Oscar Mancinas (Rarámuri-Chicanx) was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona's Washington-Escobedo neighborhood. His debut short fiction collection, TO LIVE AND DIE IN EL VALLE, won a 2021 Southwest Book Award. His other published works include the chapbooks JAULA and ROTO: A MEX-TAPE.; his debut, full-length collection of poetry is forthcoming from Tolsun Books. He's still working on his PhD, he promises. 

Ted Martinez is a senior lecturer and Academic Director of the Grand Canyon Semester, a semester-long academic and experiential learning program in the NAU Honors College. He holds degrees in botany and environmental science and policy from Northern Arizona University.  He is also co-director of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site at NAU in Environmental Science and Biology. Ted has received grants from the Sonoran Joint Venture, Xerces Society and Arizona Game and Fish to perform wetland restoration, Monarch conservation, and Bighorn Sheep education and outreach, respectively.  Ted is also working with Mexican partners, ProNatura, to perform bi-national wetland restoration along the Colorado River in Mexico. Ted is happy to be in the NAU Honors College teaching classes on plants, water and the environment, playing in his dad band, and spending time outdoors with his wife and children.

Amber McCrary is Diné poet, zinester and feminist. She is Red House Clan born for Mexican people. Originally from Shonto, Arizona and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. She earned her BA from Arizona State University in Political Science with a minor in American Indian Studies. She received her MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry at Mills College. She recently released a chapbook of poetry titled, Electric Deserts! (Tolsun Books). She currently resides in Mesa, Arizona. McCrary is also the owner and founder of Abalone Mountain Press, a press dedicated to publishing Indigenous voices. She is also a board member of the Northern Arizona Book Festival. You can find her poems, interviews and art at Yellow Medicine Review, Blue Stockings Magazine, Thin Air Magazine, Mayday Magazine, The Womanist, The Navajo Times and forthcoming in Room Magazine and Martin Lake Journal.

tanner menard is a poet & composer, a Louisiana Creole & a member of the Atakapa Ishak Nation. They have published ten albums of ambient music, a chapbook, were thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize & are published in magazines such as Entropy & Beestung. The Wire Magazine called their sound poetry collaboration with Andrew Weathers an influential modern composition. They are an MFA Candidate at Northern Arizona University, have served as a member of their tribal council, as poetry editor of Thin Air Magazine & are a Kundalini Yoga Teacher. tanner is a student of paranormal poetry at Ariana Reines’ Invisible College.

Ander Monson is the author of nine books: five of nonfiction (Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, Vanishing Point, Letter to a Future Lover, I Will Take the Answer, and the forthcoming Predator: a Memoir (September 2022), two poetry collections (Vacationland and The Available World), and two books of fiction, Other Electricities and The Gnome Stories. A finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award (for Other Electricities) and a National Book Critics Circle in criticism (for Vanishing Point), he is also a recipient of a number of other prizes: a Howard Foundation Fellowship, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction, the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award in Nonfiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He edits the magazine DIAGRAM <thediagram.com>, the New Michigan Press, Essay Daily <essaydaily.org>, and a series of yearly literary/music tournaments, most recently March Fadness <marchxness.com>, which will take place in March 2023. He teaches at the University of Arizona. 

Julie Morrison is an Arizonan, horsewoman, and dog person, all of which inspire her poetry and prose. Barbed is her first book-length publication. She is pursuing a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. To learn more about Barbed or Julie, please visit www.juliemorrisonwriter.com.

Shaina A. Nez is a Diné mother, writer, and educator. She is Táchii’nii born for Áshįįhi. She is originally from Lukachukai, Arizona. Nez is a first-year doctoral student in Justice Studies at Arizona State University. Nez serves as a Project Manager for the Northwest Teacher Education Program and adjunct faculty for the School of Arts, Humanities, and English at Diné College. Her work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Tribal College Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, Woodhall Press and forthcoming essay in anthology with Abalone Mountain Press.

Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta translates and interprets between Spanish and English. Past work includes various translation projects for Chilean television, as well as historical translation for the Academy of American Franciscan History. More recently, she has translated short fiction and poetry, with work appearing in Harpy Hybrid Review, DoubleSpeak Magazine, and at fiikbooks dot org, where she participates in collaborative group translation projects. Also a member of the Cardboard House Press Cartonera in Phoenix and a long-time bookseller, she grew up in Los Angeles, California and Santiago, Chile, but Tempe, Arizona has been her home the longest. 

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Señora Libros (aka Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta) is a book lover who enjoys reading quietly and aloud. She likes to read in English and Spanish, but especially loves books that are bilingual. A former Spanish teacher and bookseller, she now spends more time translating, but continues reading picture books aloud to anyone who needs more story time in their day!

Edward Peace Jr. is an actor and model originating from Buffalo, New York. He has been working with the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival for the past year and a half.

Deidra Peaches is a Diné Filmmaker, Director, Cinematographer, Editor, and Writer. A passion for storytelling led Peaches to teach herself the intricacies of the craft and to cofound Paper Rocket Productions with Jake Hoyungowa, a Native production company based in Flagstaff, Arizona. Since then, Peaches has become a skilled filmmaker, traversing Turtle Island with her camera. In 2020, Peaches documented the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic among the Diné populations in the southwest. That same year Peaches founded DLP Productions LLC. Recently, Peaches created a series of short documentaries regarding the Grand Canyon and Little Colorado River.

Patricia Petelin is a graduate of the MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has appeared on stage at Chicago's Curious Theatre Branch, and online at Wigleaf, Atticus Review, Curios Magazine, and others. She co-founded the Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase, and she's a contributing producer at Radio Sunnyside. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Daisy Pitkin has spent more than twenty years as a community and union organizer, working first in support of garment workers around the world, and then for US labor unions organizing industrial laundry workers. Her essays have been awarded the Montana Prize, the Disquiet Literary Prize, the New Millennium Award, and the Monique Wittig Writer’s Fellowship. She grew up in rural Ohio and holds an MFA from the University of Arizona. Today, Pitkin lives and writes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she works as an organizer with Workers United, an offshoot of the union UNITE.

Revelucien is a local drag queen and artist with a passion for literacy. Revel knows just how important it can be to make reading exciting and accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, which is why he is so excited to be doing another Drag Storytime in Flagstaff. So let’s take a look, it’s in a book!

Levi Romero was selected as the inaugural New Mexico Poet Laureate in 2020 and New Mexico Centennial Poet in 2012. His most recent book is the co-edited anthology, Querencia: Reflections on the New Mexico Homeland. His two collections of poetry are A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works and In the Gathering of Silence. He is co-author of Sagrado: A Photopoetics Across the Chicano Homeland. He is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. He is an Associate Professor in the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at the University of New Mexico. He is from the Embudo Valley of northern New Mexico.

Jan is a local actor, director and playwright. She is a member of the artistic committee at Theatrikos Theatre Company and the president of the board for FlagShakes.

Eric Santoro is a filmmaker based in Flagstaff, AZ. He first realized his passion for film as a child when his parents bought him an Indiana Jones box-set and found he was more interested in the behind the scenes content than the actual movies. Since then, Eric has worked on countless independent productions, and has been very proud to see his work garner a few awards in the process.

Myles Schrag is co-founder of Soulstice Publishing, the award-winning Flagstaff-based publisher of "books with soul" since 2019. A Flagstaff resident since 2010, Myles has authored/edited eight books and helped more than 200 books reach publication either as an acquisitions editor, developmental editor, publisher, manuscript broker, ghostwriter, or writing coach. He has been in written media for more than 25 years, including more than 20 in book publishing. Myles has also been a newspaper reporter and editor, freelance magazine writer, and marketing content writer. He holds a master of science in kinesiology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Bo Schwabacher is a South Korean adoptee. Born in South Korea, she was adopted at three-months-old and grew up in Illinois. Her poems have appeared in Cha, CutBank, Radar, Redivider, Tupelo Quarterly, The Offing, Zone 3, and others. Omma, Sea of Joy and Other Astrological Signs, published by Tinderbox Editions, is her debut collection of poems.

Anthony Seidman is a poet and translator from Los Angeles. His translations include Contra Natura (Cardboard House Press) by Rodolfo Hinostroza, the novel For Love of the Dollar by J.M. Servin, and A Stab in the Dark by Facundo Bernal. Seidman’s most recent collections of poetry are Cosmic Weather and A Sleepless Man Sits Up In Bed. His poetry, translations, reviews, and short fiction have appeared in such journals and anthologies as New American Writing, Poetry International, World Literature Today, Modern Poetry in Translation, Ambit, and The Ecopoetry Anthology. Some of his poetry has been translated into French and Spanish, with versions appearing in literary magazines from Mexico, Chile, France, and Argentina.

“Shimá Storytelling is a grassroots reading program for youth of all ages featuring storytelling, singing and activities in Diné Bizaad/ the Navajo Language. Shimá Storytelling has been in existence since April 2019. We are a team of Mothers from various educational backgrounds who are actively involved in strengthening k'é/ kinship through the revitalization of the Diné language beginning first at home with our children. As stay-at-home mothers, we have taken our methods and strategies of home schooling the Diné language and literacy teaching with our children to the community level. The Shimá Storytelling curriculum celebrates and strengthens Na’nitin/ cultural knowledge, K’é/ kinship, Sin/ song lines and Hane’/ stories that are reliant on language in order for these important cultural elements to be passed on from generation to generation.“

Jake Skeets is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, winner of the National Poetry Series, Kate Tufts Discovery Award, American Book Award, and Whiting Award. He is from the Navajo Nation and teaches at Diné College. He will be joining the University of Oklahoma as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2022.

Katherine Standefer’s debut book Lightning Flowers was a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction and the Arizona/New Mexico Book Award in Memoir. It was also selected as a New York Times Book Review Staff Pick, shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and featured on NPR’s Fresh Air. Standefer was a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and earned her MFA at the University of Arizona. Her previous writing appeared in Best American Essays 2016. She lives on a mesa in New Mexico with her chickens.

Lindsay Stewart is from Glen Ellen, California. Her second home is San Diego. Her work has been featured most recently in Tar River Poetry, The I-70 Review, Spillway, and The Shore, and one of her poems was recently featured on the Poetry Foundation’s VS podcast. Her chapbook house(hold) was a finalist in the 2022 Black River Chapbook Competition.

Meredith Talusan (she/they) is the author of the critically-acclaimed memoir Fairest from Viking/Penguin Random House, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist. She is also an award-winning journalist who has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, WIRED, SELF, and Condé Nast Traveler, among many other publications, and has contributed to several collections of essays and fiction. She has received awards from GLAAD, The Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. She is also the founding executive editor of them, Condé Nast’s LGBTQ+ digital platform, where she is currently contributing editor.

Laura Tohe is Diné and the current Navajo Nation Poet Laureate. She is Sleepy Rock People clan and born for the Bitter Water People clan. She published 3 books of poetry, an anthology of Native women’s writing, and an oral history on the Navajo Code Talkers. Her librettos, Enemy Slayer, A Navajo Oratorio (2008) and Nahasdzáán in the Glittering World (2021), performed in Arizona and France, respectively. Among her awards are the 2020 Academy of American Poetry Fellowship and the 2019 American Indian Festival of Writers Award. She is Professor Emerita with Distinction from Arizona State University.

RHONDA URDANG (nee Thomas) has been making and exhibiting her art since 1970.  She has had a varied and interesting career and has worked as a typesetter, museum gallery attendant, apprentice dot etcher, and journeyman color separation artist on high-fashion catalogs in Omaha and Phoenix.  Since leaving academia, the patriarchy, and pseudoscience behind (some things are folktales and misbelief), her ingenuity has flourished.  Since founding Flagstaff Feminist Art Studio, she has been interested in making contemporary art that challenges the narrative.  Rhonda stays true to her artistic instincts and is always authentic.  She is grateful to have the opportunity to collaborate with other multi-media artists living on the Colorado Plateau.

Kelsi Vanada's translations include Sergio Espinosa’s Into Muteness (Hacia la mudez) (Veliz Books, 2020) and Berta García Faet’s The Eligible Age (La edad de merecer) (Song Bridge Press, 2018), and she is the author of the poetry chapbook Rare Earth (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Kelsi holds an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, and she is the Program Manager of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) in Tucson, Arizona.

Daniel Vandever (Diné) is an award-winning author and entrepreneur from Haystack, NM. He is the CEO of South of Sunrise Creative, a strategic communications firm that helps advance higher education initiatives through community-based solutions. Vandever is a product of Small Wonders Day Care where his experiences as a Ninja Turtle helped shape the creativity behind his debut picture book, Fall in Line, Holden!, a 2018 Honor Book for the American Indian Youth Literature Award. His follow up picture book, Herizon (2021), was self-published and was recognized as the Best Picture Book of 2022 by the American Indian Library Association.

Taté Walker is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are an award-winning Two Spirit storyteller for outlets like The Nation, Everyday Feminism, Native Peoples, Indian Country Today, Apartment Therapy, and ANMLY. They are also featured in several anthologies, including FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women, South Dakota in Poems, and W.W. Norton's Everyone's an Author. Their first full-length poetry book, The Trickster Riots, is set to publish in 2022 via Abalone Mountain Press.

Orlando White is from Tólikan, Arizona. He is Diné of the Naaneesht’ézhi Tábaahí and born for the Naakai Diné’e. White earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Brown University. He is the author of LETTERRS (2015) and Bone Light (2009). White’s work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, Salt Hill, and elsewhere. The recipient of a residency from the Lannan Foundation, White teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, and in the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Baje grew up on the Navajo Reservation near Shonto, Arizona. As a child, he was first drawn into the world of storytelling when he and his brothers would make up stories on the way to their grandmother's house. His talent for art was apparent even in grade school, and his teachers were all supportive of his gift.

Currently, Baje resides in Flagstaff, Arizona, and he continues to pursue his childhood interests of storytelling and art. His artwork reflects his homeland and rich culture, depicting striking landscapes and the harmony of the Navajo way of life. In most of his pieces is a small folding chair, popularly regarded as Baje's personal trademark. Baje has illustrated eight children's books, two of which he also authored. Among them are the Native American legends Monster Bird, Monster Slayer, and Sika and the Raven. His unique style has earned him the Western Heritage Wrangler Award from the Cowboy Hall of Fame, in addition to many other honors.

Baje's artwork can be seen at various museums, art galleries, and private collections across the globe.

Tom Zoellner is the author of eight nonfiction books, including The National Road and Island on Fire, which won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. A fifth generation Arizonan, he teaches at Chapman University and Dartmouth College.