Cover Photo: An image of the author and a translation next to her
Photo by Anthony DiCaro and graphic by Jaya Nicely/Stamp by Eliza Harris

Beginning to Write in Wazhazhe ie

I dream of raising a child with Wazhazhe ie as their first language.

formal writing systemmore than a decadeBoarding School

Indigenous language writersLearner-Driven Language Learning (LDLL) technique

a program supporting Native artists

leisure reading

Institute of American Indian Arts’ continuing education department

Abalone Mountain PressWords of the People

ekphrasis poem in Wazhazhe iebook tourWazhazhe designer

Chelsea T. Hicks' writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine , McSweeney's, Yellow Medicine Review, the LA Review of Books, Indian Country Today, Believer Magazine, The Audacity, The Paris Review and elsewhere. 'A Calm & Normal Heart' inspired by the Wazhazhe ie phrase, Nantse Wacpe, is her first book, out June 2022 from Unnamed Press. She is a citizen of the Osage Nation and her district is Waxakaolin or Pawhuska. She is a 2022-2023 Tulsa Artist Fellow and received a 2021 LIFT Award from the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation. She has taught writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where she received her MFA, and she also holds a master’s in creative writing from the University of California, Davis. She is a 2016 and 2017 Writing By Writers Fellow as well as a 2016 Wah-Zha-Zhi Woman Artist featured by the Osage Nation Museum.