255. Sasha LaPointe with Dawn Barron: Poignant Reflections on Indigenous America

Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

What does it mean to be a proudly queer Indigenous woman in the United States today?

Sasha LaPointe, winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award for her memoir, Red Paint, shares a new collection of essays that navigate the complexities of indigenous identity, challenge stereotypes, and address cultural displacement and environmental concerns. Thunder Song draws inspiration from her family’s rich archive and the work of her late great-grandmother and weaves together stories that demonstrate the profound intersections of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty.

Described as “unapologetically punk,” the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art — in particular, music — and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.

Celebrate cultural diversity as LaPointe explores how we shape our understanding of the world, hoping to inspire a new era of conscientious living.

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe is a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes. She is the author of Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, winner of a Pacific Northwest Book Award, the Washington State Book Award for Creative Nonfiction/Memoir, and an NPR Best Book of the Year, and the poetry collection Rose Quartz. She received a double MFA in creative nonfiction and poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She lives in Tacoma, Washington.

Dawn Pichón Barron of Chowanoke/Choctaw/Mexican-Chihuahua/European heritage, is the Academic Director of the Native Pathways Program and Creative Writing Faculty at the Evergreen State College. She founded and curated the Gray Skies Reading Series 2009-2019. Her chapbook, ESCAPE GIRL BLUES, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018.

Buy the Book Thunder Song

The Elliott Bay Book Company