Elissa Washuta facts for kids
Elissa Washuta is a talented Native American author. She is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe from Washington State. Elissa Washuta has written several books about her life experiences. These books include Starvation Mode: a Memoir of Food, Consumption and Control and My Body is a Book of Rules.
In 2019, Elissa Washuta became an Assistant Professor of English. She teaches in the Creative Writing program at Ohio State University.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Elissa Washuta's mother had family from the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Elissa grew up in the Columbia River Gorge area. Her parents met while they were in college in Seattle. They later moved to New Jersey.
Washuta finished high school in Hackettstown, New Jersey in 2003. Her family was the only Cowlitz tribal members in her hometown. The Cowlitz tribe did not have its own land until 2015. That year, the government gave them 152 acres near Ridgefield. This land is in Clark County, Washington.
Elissa Washuta went to the University of Maryland. She graduated with high honors in 2007. She then earned a master's degree in Creative Writing. This was from the University of Washington in 2009. She focused on fiction writing.
Career Highlights
Elissa Washuta has had an exciting career helping other writers. She also teaches at universities.
Helping New Writers
Washuta worked at the Hugo House. This is a special center for writers in Seattle. There, she helped new writers improve their skills. She taught classes like "Writing Your Darkest Day." She also taught "Essential Elements of Memoir: Narrative Momentum." These classes helped people tell their own stories.
Teaching and Writing
From 2010 to 2014, Washuta was a lecturer at the University of Washington. In 2016, she was a Writer-In-Residence for the summer. She wrote about the history of Seattle's Fremont Bridge.
Before joining Ohio State University, she worked as a writer for the Institute of American Indian Arts. Since 2017, she has been an Assistant Professor at Ohio State. She teaches courses focused on Creative Writing. In 2019, she was invited to read her work at Cornell University. This was part of a special reading series.
Impact on Native American Writing
Elissa Washuta is known for expanding Native American writing. She is credited alongside other important writers. These include Joy Harjo, Sherwin Bitsui, and Tommy Pico. They have all helped to make Native American stories more widely known.
Other Roles and Achievements
From 2010 to 2017, Washuta was an Academic Counselor. She worked for the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. She also served as the Interim Youth Programs Coordinator. This was at the Hugo House for eight months.
Washuta has written essays for magazines like Guernica and Salon.com. She also helped edit a book called Exquisite Vessel: Shapes of Native Nonfiction. This book was published by the University of Washington Press. She also wrote for This Is The Place: Women Writing About Home. This book was a New York Times Editors Best Pick Choice.
Elissa Washuta has received many awards for her writing. She got a $25,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. This helped her career. She also won the Artists Trusts Innovator Award. This award goes to artists with amazing talent. She won the 4Culture Art Project Award too. This helps artists in King County share their work. Her book My Body Is a Book of Rules was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in 2015.
