Elizabeth Woody

Elizabeth Woody (born 1959) is an American Navajo-Warm Springs-Wasco-Yakama artist, author, and educator. In March 2016, she was named poet laureate of Oregon by Governor Kate Brown, the first Native American to be so named.

Elizabeth Woody was born in Ganado, Arizona in 1959. She is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon. She is born for Tódích'íinii (Bitter Water clan). Her mother's mother belongs to the Milee-thlama (People of the Hot Springs) and Wyampum peoples (People of the Echo of Water Upon Rocks). Her maternal grandfather's people were the middle Columbia River Chinook peoples. After studying at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico from 1980 to 1983, she earned a bachelor's degree in Humanities with an emphasis in English from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. In 2012 she received a Master of Public Administration Degree through the Executive Leadership Institute of the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

From 1994-1996, Woody was a professor of creative writing at the IAIA. In 1992, she was an invited writer at the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers and a featured poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Her poetry has been praised by James Welch and chosen by him for inclusion in the Spring 1994 issue of Ploughshares, which he edited. She is a board member of Soapstone, Inc., an organization dedicated to providing a writing retreat for women. This organization has revamped its focus and supports women writers by supporting study groups on women authors. Applications are available for residencies at their website.

...
Wikipedia