UMD News Releases

UMD Professor Linda LeGarde Grover (Chippewa, Bois Forte Band of Minnesota {Nett Lake Reservation}) of Duluth is the winner of the 2008 First Book Awards competition in prose from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

Ms. Grover, an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, wins the award for her collection of short stories-in-manuscript entitled "The Road Back to Sweetgrass," an inter-connected series of several Chippewa women on a northern Minnesota reservation.

She is also a poet. Her poetry collection, The Indian At Indian School, was the 2008 selection for the Sequoyah Research Center (University of Arkansas-Little Rock) Native Writers Series. As well, her poem, "Casualty Days," won Honorable Mention in the 2008 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers and is easily accessible on the internet. In addition to publishing poetry, she has published fiction, historical research, and a children's family history guide. She is a traditional powwow dancer, storyteller, and a grandmother.

Steve Russell (Cherokee) of Bloomington, Indiana, is the winner of the 2008 First Book Awards competition in poetry.