Western Illinois University Holding Virtual Writers In Residence Conference
David Heska Wanbli Weiden
The Western Illinois University Department of English will host the Fred Ewing Case and Lola Case Writers-in-Residence Thursday, Oct. 14, again in a virtual format.
This year’s authors are poet Luther Hughes; novelist David Heska Wanbli Weiden; and graphic novelist Kayla Shaggy. A question and answer session with students and faculty will be held via Zoom from 3-4 p.m. To get the Zoom link, email Professor Erika Wurth a et-wurth@wiu.edu. A reading with the authors will be streamed on the WIU Department of English Facebook page, from 5-6 p.m.
• Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, is the author of “Winter Counts,” nominated for an Edgar Award, and winner of the Anthony, Thriller, Lefty, Barry, Macavity, Spur and Tillie Olsen awards. The novel was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, main selection of the Book of the Month Club, an Indie Next pick, and named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and other magazines. The novel is being translated into French, German, Japanese, Turkish and Polish, and has been optioned for film production. He has short stories appearing or forthcoming in the crime fiction anthologies “Denver Noir,”
Luther Hughes
“Midnight Hour,” “This Time for Sure” and “The Perfect Crime.” Weiden is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, a Ragdale Foundation residency, the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship and was a Tin House Scholar.
• Hughes, born and raised in Seattle, WA, is the author of “A Shiver in the Leaves” (BOA Editions, 2022) and the chapbook “Touched” (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018). He is the founder of Shade Literary Arts and co-host of “The Poet Salon.” In addition, he is the recipient of the 2020 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Poetry Fellowship, and the 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. He received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis.
• Kayla Shaggy, born in Shiprock, NM, is a multimedia artist of Dine and Annishinabe descent. Her artwork has been in various galleries and events: she won Best of Show at the Durango Arts Gallery in 2017, vendors at events like Indigenous Comic Con in 2018-19, and was recently commissioned by Nativo Lodge in Albuquerque, NM, for an art installment in 2020. “The Sixth World,” an Indigenous Futurist story about a young Dine woman on Mars in the future, is her best known work.
The series is sponsored by the WIU Department of English, the Fred Ewing Case and Lola Austin Case Writer-in-Residence program and the WIU College of Arts and Sciences.
The Fred Ewing Case and Lola Austin Case Writer-in-Residence supports bringing national writers of poetry and fiction to WIU each year.
