ELIZABETH WOODY
Guest Poet and Mentor at SFU Poetry Exchange 2007, and Poetry Gathering, Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Center 2007, andHonouring Homeland and Her Beings: Weaving Conference 2009.
Elizabeth Woody is an award-winning writer, poet, artist, and teacher. She was born in Ganado, Arizona and is of Warm Springs, Wasco, Yakama, and Dine’ descent.
Woody has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She has also studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1). For the last several years Woody has been the Director of Indigenous Leadership Program for Ecotrust, a non-profit environmental organization in Portland Oregon, and is a board member of Soapstone, Inc. which provides writing retreats for women. Woody is a founding member of the Northwest Native American Writers Association (2).
She has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including theAmerican Book Award in 1990 from the Before Columbus Foundation forHand into Stone, the Medicine Pathways for the Future Fellowship from Americans for Indian Opportunity in1993, and the William Stafford Memorial Award for Poetry from the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Association in 1995 (3).