The Aunties
Bellingham 2023
Meet The Aunties
_
HEATHER JEFFERSON
Mother, Grandmother, Educator
.png)
Heather Jefferson is a Lummi Nation member, a mother, and grandmother. As an educator and particularly as a community member she is committed to supporting community healing through compassion and understanding. She brings a wealth of experience from many years of working in classrooms with students from Pre-K through high school and now works at the Northwest Indian College supporting adult professionals.
DIAN MILLION
Writer, Educator
.jpeg)
Dian Million (Tanana Athabascan) is an Associate Professor at the University of
Washington in Seattle. She is the author of Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights, along with several enduring poems and articles: “There is a River in Me: Theory from Life,” “Intense Dreaming: Theories, Narratives and Our Search for Home,” and “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History.”
Her research and writing seeks to understand the effect-affect of racial capitalism/settlercolonialism on Indigenous family and community health in North America. Informed by two generations of Indigenous Feminist scholarship and activism, Million seeks to illuminate the ways in which Indigenous life reorganizes and resurges, making intentional relationships and kin in the face of colonial violence.
RENA PRIEST
Poet
Rena Priest is a member of the Lummi Nation. She served as the 6th Washington State Poet Laureate (2021-2023), and is a Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow. She is also the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Indigenous Nations Poets, and Nia Tero. Her literary debut, Patriarchy Blues, was published in 2017, and received the American Book Award. Her most recent book, Northwest Know-How: Beaches, is a love letter to 29 of her favorite beaches in Washington and Oregon. You can find her nonfiction in High Country News, Nautilus Magazine, YES! Magazine, Seattle Met, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Learn more at renapriest.com.
