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Stjukshon: An Indigenous Reading Series
w/ Tom Holm & Mariah Chupitit ShieldChief

Thursday, January 17
7 p.m.
$5 Suggested Donation

The word “Stjukshon” is one of the ways that the Northern Piman term for Tucson can be written. It translates to “Spring at the foot of a black mountain.” Curated by Blackfeet tribal member, Bill Wetzel, Stjukshon is a reading series that seeks to celebrate the work of indigenous writers and artists working in a variety of creative mediums.

Join us for a night of stories, literature and music which will feature two talented authors, former University of Arizona professor, Tom Holm and emerging poet, Mariah Chupitit ShieldChief. The authors will each give readings from their literary work before putting on a musical performance with their respective powwow drum groups. Refreshments will be available.

An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and a Muskogee Creek descendent from Oklahoma, Tom Holm has been involved in American Indian education and Native veteran affairs for over thirty-five years. He is also a member of the Cherokee Nation’s Sequoyah Commission. Holm served with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam from 1967-68. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, and was a professor of American Indian Studies and Political Science at the University of Arizona, 1980-2009. Before that, Holm taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and at Oscar Rose Junior College in Oklahoma City. Over the years he has won several teaching and mentoring awards and has published more than fifty books, articles, book chapters, reviews, editorials, and review essays. In 1996, his book Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls was a finalist for the Victor Turner prize. His recent academic work, The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs, was released by the University of Texas Press in 2005. Warriors and Code Talkers: Native Americans in World War II, a book for high school-aged youths, was published in 2007. Holm’s first novel, The Osage Rose, appeared in 2008. He and his wife, Ina, have two sons, two daughters-in-law, and four grandchildren and live in Tucson, Arizona.

RMS ShieldChief (aka Mariah Chupitit ShieldChief) Skidi-Pawnee & Tohono O'odham Ms. ShieldChief currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. She has been published (sometimes several times) in The Brooklyn Review, The Cimarron Review, The Salt Fork Review, Red Ink: A Native American Student Publication, Sister Nations: Native American Women Writers on Community, Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry, Abya Yala: A Love Anthology of Artand Poetry by Native American and Latina Women, and most recently by Yellow Medicine Review. She writes poetry when the spirit strikes and promises to edit her full length, cheesy, NDN, romance-novel regularly. Ms. ShieldChief works, enjoys hanging with her 21 year-old son who likes to remind her that she's too old to be "cool" anymore, and pow-wows when she can and when the singing is going to be good