Mona Susan Power
{{Short description|Native American author (born 1961)}}
{{distinguish|Susan Powers|Susan Kelly Power}}{{Use American English|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox writer
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Mona Susan Power
| honorific_suffix =
| image =
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| native_name =
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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1961}}
| birth_name = Susan Power{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}
| birth_place = Chicago, Illinois
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| pseudonym = Mona Susan Power
| occupation = author, novelist
| language = English
| nationality = Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota, American
| education =
| alma_mater = Harvard University (BA{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}), Harvard Law School (JD), Iowa Writer's Workshop (MFA)
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| notable_works = The Grass Dancer{{cite web |title=Mona Susan Power |url=https://carolshieldsprizeforfiction.com/team/monasusanpower |website=The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction |access-date=13 December 2024}}
| spouse =
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| children =
| relatives = Susan Kelly Power, mother
| awards = PEN/Hemingway Award (1995)
US Artists Fellowship
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| website = {{URL|https://www.monasusanpower.com/}}
}}
Mona Susan Power (Standing Rock Dakota, born 1961) is a Native American author based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her debut novel, The Grass Dancer (1994), received the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.
Early life
Power was born in Chicago, Illinois, and is a Yantonai Dakota enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota.{{cite web |title=Susan Power|website=Milkweed Editions |date=5 October 2016 |url=https://milkweed.org/author/susan-power |access-date=2022-12-20}} Her mother, Susan Kelly Power, Gathering of Stormclouds Woman (Standing Rock Dakota, 1925–2022), was an activist who helped found the American Indian Center of Chicago. Susan's mother, Mona's grandmother, Josephine Gates Kelly was three-term tribal chairperson for the Stand Rock Sioux Tribe.{{cite news |last1=Rickert |first1=Levi |title=Chicago Native American Community Loses Susan Kelly at 97 |url=https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/chicago-native-american-community-loses-susan-power-at-97 |access-date=13 December 2024 |work=Native News Online |date=3 November 2022}} Mona's great-grandmother was Nellie Two Bear Gates.{{Cite book|title=Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists|last1=Ahlberg Yohe|first1=Jill|last2=Greeves|first2=Teri|last3=Power|first3=Susan|publisher=Minneapolis Institute of Art|year=2019|location=Minneapolis|chapter=Nellie Two Bears Gates: Chronicling History through Beadwork}} She is a descendant of Sioux Chief Mato Nupa (Two Bears).[http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/power_susan.html Susan Power: Biography and criticism of work], Voices from the Gap, University of Minnesota, accessed 24 July 2014
Power's father, Carleton Gilmore Power, a Euro-American from New England, worked in publishing as a salesman. One of his great-great-grandfathers was governor of New Hampshire. She heard stories that inspired her imagination from both sides.
Education
Power attended Chicago schools, then earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School.{{cite web |title=Mona Susan Power |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/people/mona-susan-power/ |website=National Book Foundation |access-date=13 December 2024}}
In 1992 she entered the MFA program at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.[http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/97/0310/0310-power.html Caroline Moseley, "'Grass Dancer' evokes past, present"], Princeton Weekly Bulletin, 10 March 1997, accessed 24 July 2014
Writing career
After a short career in law, Power decided to become a writer. She worked as a technical writer and editor, reserving her creative writing for off hours.
Her 1994 debut novel, The Grass Dancer, has a complex plot about four generations of Native Americans, with action stretching from 1864 to 1986.
Power has written several other books as well. Her short fiction has been published in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, Voice Literary Supplement, Ploughshares,[http://www.pshares.org/authors/author-detail.cfm?authorID=1224 "Susan Power"], Ploughshares Story, and The Best American Short Stories 1993. She teaches at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Power's most recent novel, A Council of Dolls, was released in 2023. The novel was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction.{{Cite news |last=Nguyen |first=Sophia |date=September 15, 2023 |title=All the books longlisted for the National Book Awards this year |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/09/15/national-book-awards-longlist-2023/ |access-date=September 18, 2023 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}{{Cite magazine |date=September 15, 2023 |title=The 2023 National Book Awards Longlist: Fiction |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-2023-national-book-awards-longlist-fiction |access-date=September 18, 2023 |magazine=The New Yorker}}
Honors and awards
The Grass Dancer won the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Powers won a United States Artists Fellowship.
Bibliography
= Books =
- The Grass Dancer, Putnam, 1994.
- Strong Heart Society, Penguin, 1998.
- Roofwalker, Milkweed Editions, 2002.
- Sacred Wilderness, Michigan State University Press, 2014.
- A Council of Dolls, Mariner Books, 2023.
= Short Stories =
- “Dead Owls” in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (September, 19th, 2023){{Cite web |title=Never Whistle at Night: 9780593468463 {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707468/never-whistle-at-night-by-shane-hawk-and-theodore-c-van-alst-jr-editors/ |access-date=2024-01-10 |website=PenguinRandomhouse.com |language=en-US}}
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- Gleichert-Bothner, Amy. "Changeable Parts: History and Contemporary American Women Writers,"{{cite web |title=Dissertations & Alumni Careers |url=https://www.literature.pitt.edu/graduate/dissertations-alumni-careers |website=Deitrich School of Arts & Sciences Literature Program |publisher=University of Pittsburgh |access-date=13 December 2024}} DAIA 5149 (1997): vol. 57, no. 12, Sec. A., Pittsburgh University.
- Kratzert, M. "Native American Literature: Expanding the Canon," in Collection Building Vol. 17, no. 1, 1998, p. 4.
- Shapiro, Dani. "Spirit in the Sky: Talking With Susan Power," People Weekly, 8 August 1994: vol. 42, no. 6, 21–22.
- Walter, Roland. "Pan-American (Re) Visions: Magical Realism and Amerindian Cultures in Susan Power's 'The Grass Dancer,' Gioconda Belli's 'La Mujer Habitada,' Linda Hogan's 'Power,' and Mario Vargas Llosa's 'El Hablador'," American Studies International (AsInt) vol.37, no.3, 63-80 (1999).
- Wright, Neil H. "Visitors from the Spirit Path: Tribal Magic in Susan Power's The Grass Dancer," Kentucky Philological Review (KPR) vol. 10, 39-43 (1995).
External links
- [http://www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A259 Susan Power], Native American Writers Project
- [https://hdl.handle.net/11299/166308 Susan Power: Biography and criticism of work], Voices from the Gap, University of Minnesota
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Power, Susan Mona}}
Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
Category:Harvard College alumni
Category:Harvard Law School alumni
Category:Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winners
Category:Native American novelists
Category:Native American women writers
Category:Standing Rock Sioux people
Category:Writers from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Category:Yankton Dakota people
Category:20th-century Native American writers
Category:20th-century Native American women