Susan Power

Biography

Susan Power is a writer and storyteller with experience in technical writing and editing. Her writing has earned her the Pen/Hemingway Award for first fiction for The Grass Dancer. She is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (Yanktonnai Dakota) but grew up in Chicago. Her other honors include being an Iowa Arts fellow, James Michener fellow, Bunting Institute fellow, and Alfred Hodder fellow.

Power's other books include a novel Strong Heart Society and a book of short stories, Roofwalker. She has also had short stories published in Atlantic Monthly, Best American Short Stories of 1993, and other collections.

The Grass Dancer

Power's novel The Grass Dancer, published in 1994, crosses effortlessly back and forth between past, present and future to tell the tale of a Sioux community in North Dakota. The book shows that life does not end in the human world, but rather spirits remain to interact through memories, stories, and dreams. While The Grass Dancer considers the question of what effect ancestry has and continues to have within a Native American community, the question is equally valid for all cultures.

Other Books by Susan Power

Roofwalker. Milkweed Editions, 2002.

Website Links:

Primeau Organization

Internet Public Library: Native American Authors Project

Article from the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, March 10, 1997