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Stjukshon: An Indigenous Reading Series
w/Karen W. Olson, Mario Matus Villa, & Joshua Cochran

Thursday, February 13
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 featuring diverse author & poet, Karen W. Olson, poet Mario Matus Vill, and talented novelist, Joshua Cochran.  Materials from the artists will be available for purchase and signing after the event. Refreshments will be served.

Karen W. Olson is Muskaigo Cree from the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, Canada. She began writing as a journalist for Indian newspapers and magazines and was an assistant producer at CBC Radio in Winnipeg for several years before succumbing to the creative writing spirit that had been visiting and helping her to write poetry and short stories about the people and events around her. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria in British Columbia in 2002. From 2002 to 2009, Karen worked at the En’owkin Centre in Penticton, BC as the Department Head of Creative Writing. Four years ago, she moved to her home community to teach for Red River Community College and University College of the North. Presently, she is a long-distance student at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan and is writing an historical fiction novel as her Master’s Thesis. Karen has published 4 children’s books with Theytus Books. Her short stories and poetry can be found in several anthologies published in Canada. Karen is also a spoken word artist and has performed and read at the Vancouver Writers Festival, Meadowlark Festival, Banff Centre for the Arts, South Okanagan Art Gallery, Kelowna Art Gallery, En’owkin Centre and Penticton Library.

The Indigenous man called Mario Matus Villa, (insert #tag here) [sic] of Nednai Chiricahua Apache and Otomi descent, was raised in the contested desert borderlands.  After several years of wandering among Chihuahuan cacti and cement blocks, Mario ended up with a degree by studying his own delineated peoples.  He worked with “At-Risk” youth and community organizations while attending the state school.  A stint in Indian gaming taught him the calculus of tribal card counting. Caterwauling in the public domain blew him to the University of Miami as a purported James A. Michener Writing Fellow landing him an inutile MFA. Composition teaching in the mangroves brought angst and he Greyhound back to the desert to sieve for shards of its past.  He relocated to the Sonoran biome, where he now ambles among Indian art and aging tomes mulling the substance of a deserted history PhD.

Having experienced the life of a fast-food worker, hotshot firefighter, EMT, electrician, landscaper, copy shop manager and enduring dilettante, Joshua Daniel Cochran decided to pursue his lifelong love of words. An award-winning author of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, his first novel, Echo Detained, was published in 2007. His second novel, The Most Important Memoir Ever Written Ever, was published in January 2014. Currently, he writes and teaches in his hometown of Tucson, Arizona.