News from SUNY Cortland

For more information contact: Jean Palmer, 607-753-2232

Native American Author and Storyteller to Tell Traditional Stories Feb. 19

CORTLAND, NY (02/12/2008; 0924)(readMedia)-- Joe Bruchac, Native American author and storyteller from the Adirondack mountain foothills, will read from his books and discuss his views on the Native American oral traditional and why it is still important today on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at SUNY Cortland.

Bruchac will begin his talk, titled “Stories That Sustain Us,” at 4:30 p.m. in the Corey Union Fireplace Lounge. Presented by Native American Studies, the event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase.

Bruchac lives in the town of Greenfield Center, N.Y., in the same house where his maternal grandparents raised him.

Much of his writing draws on the land where he lives and his Abenaki ancestry. Bruchac’s American Indian heritage is only one part of an ethnic background that includes Slovak and English blood, but he has nourished those native roots.

His younger sister, Margaret, and his two grown sons continue to work extensively with him on projects involving the preservation of the Abenaki culture, language and traditional native skills. Among those projects, they perform traditional and contemporary Abenaki music with the Dawnland Singers.

Bruchac is the author of more than 70 books for adults and children, and his writing has appeared in more than 500 publications including National Geographic and Smithsonian Magazine.

His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children’s Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. One of his books, Breaking the Silence, is the winner of an American Book Award.

Bruchac holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a master’s degree in literature and creative writing from Syracuse University and a doctorate in comparative literature from the Union Institute of Ohio.

His work as an educator includes eight years directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum-security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and co-founder of the Greenfield Review Literacy Center and the Greenfield Review Press.

The lecture is sponsored by the Campus Artists and Lecture Series, the Center for Intercultural and Gender Studies, the Cortland County Teacher Center and the Cortland College Foundation.

For more information, contact Dawn Van Hall, Native American Studies co-coordinator, at (607) 753-4890.

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Native American Author and Storyteller Joe Bruchac