Natalie Diaz

STAFF REPORT

Mojave poet Natalie Diaz will give readings and book signings at Texas State’s Wittliff Collections and the Katherine Anne Porter (KAP) Literary Center in September.

Diaz will appear at the Wittliff Collections 3:30 p.m. Sept. 12, and the KAP Literary Center 7:30 p.m. Sept. 13.

The Wittliff Collections are located on the seventh floor of Alkek Library. The KAP center is located at 508 W Center Street in Kyle. Both events are free and open to the public.

Diaz, a member of the Mojave and Pima Indian tribes, attended Old Dominion University (ODU) on a full athletic scholarship. After playing professional basketball in Austria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Turkey she returned to ODU for an Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. Her work was selected by Natasha Trethewey for Best New American Poets.

Diaz has received the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published in 2013 by Copper Canyon Press. She lives in Surprise, Ariz., where she directs a language revitalization program at Fort Mojave, her home reservation. There she works with the last Elder speakers of the Mojave language.

The events are sponsored by the Burdine Johnson Foundation, Wittliff Collections, Lindsey Reading Series and Department of English.