nila northSun

nila northSun (born 1951) is a Native American poet and tribal historian.

northSun's gritty, realistic poems about life both on and off the reservation, have made her one of the most widely read of all Native American poets. She is often considered an influential writer in the second wave of the Native American Renaissance.

Life northSun was born in 1951 in Schurz, Nevada to a Shoshone mother and a Chippewa father, activist Adam Fortunate Eagle. She was given the name Cheri Nordwall at birth. She was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating, northSun moved to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in Nevada. who would be her first husband. The two collaborated on the literary magazine Scree and co-founded Duck Down Press. In 1977, northSun published her first chapbook through Duck Down. That year, she began work on her monograph After the Drying Up of the Water, which she published in 1980. northSun's first three chapbooks received critical praise, but she was unable to republish many of her poems due to sharing copyright with Robinson, whom she had divorced.

Personal life She lives on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in Fallon, Nevada and works as a grant writer for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. Governor Kenny Guinn appointed her to the Nevada State Arts Council that same year.

Selected works Poetry whipped cream and sushi (2008) co-written with Jim Sagel co-written with first husband Kirk Robertson

Non-fiction After the Drying Up of the Water, a tribal history of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone (1980)