Elissa Washuta

Elissa Washuta is an American Indian author from the Cowlitz people of Washington State. She has written two memoirs about her young adulthood, Starvation Mode: a Memoir of Food, Consumption and Control and My Body is a Book of Rules,[1] about her personal history with eating disorders and body dysmorphia.[2] She writes about sexual assault, mental health issues as a young adult, and struggling with her identity within the Indigenous community of the Pacific Northwest Coast.[3]

Washuta at the 2019 Texas Book Festival.

In 2019 Washuta was an Assistant Professor of English in the Creative Writing program at Ohio State University.[4]

Early life and education

Washuta's mother had Cowlitz Tribe ancestry and she lived in the Columbia River Gorge region. Her parents met whilst they were at college in Seattle and they moved together to New Jersey.[5] Washuta graduated from high school in Hackettstown, New Jersey in 2003. According to the United States Census Bureau, her family were the only enrolled members of the Cowlitz tribe in her hometown.[6] The Cowlitz tribe had no reservation until 2015, when the federal government awarded it 152 acres near Ridgefield in Clark County, Washington.[7]

Washuta graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland in 2007[8] and earned a master's degree in Creative Writing with a distinction in Fiction Writing from the University of Washington in 2009.[9]

Career

While she worked at the Richard Hugo House, Seattle's center for writers, Washuta mentored emerging scholars. She led classes titled "Writing Your Darkest Day" and "Essential Elements of Memoir: Narrative Momentum".[10]

From 2010 to 2014, Washuta was a lecturer at the University of Washington. She was the summer's Writer-In-Residence describing the history of Seattle's Fremont Bridge in 2016.[11] She worked as a writer for the Institute of American Indian Arts[12] before she became Assistant Professor at [13]Ohio State University, teaching courses focused on Creative Writing since her debut at the University in 2017. She was invited to read at Cornell University as part of the Spring 2019 Barbara & David Zalaznick Creative Writing Reading Series.[14]

She is credited, with Joy Harjo, Sherwin Bitsui and Tommy Pico for widening the scope of Native American writings.[15]

From July 2010 to June 2017, she was the Academic Counselor for the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. She also served as the Interim Youth Programs Coordinator for eight months at the Richard Hugo House from December 2010 to July 2011.[8]

Washuta has written essays for Guernica and Salon.com. She was the co-editor of the anthology Exquisite Vessel: Shapes of Native Nonfiction, from University of Washington Press.[4] She also contributed to This Is The Place: Women Writing About Home,[16] a Seal Press anthology and New York Times Editors Best Pick Choice.[17]

Washuta received the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Creative Writing Fellowship for $25,000[18] for general career advancement goals. She has received the Artists Trusts Innovator Award which is awarded to artists with exceptional talent and abilities.[19] She has won the 4Culture Art Project Award which is granted to an individual in King County, Washington, to help to share their work.[20] My Body Is a Book of Rules was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in 2015.[21]

Publications
Essays
  • "The wrongheaded obsession with 'vanishing' indigenous peoples" (November 2013, Salon.com)[22]
  • "I am not Pocahontas" (September 2014, The Weeklings)[23]
  • "This Indian Does Not Owe You" (September 2014, Buzzfeed News)[24]
  • Consumption (June 2015, Electric Literature)[25]
  • "They Just Dig: On Writing, Coal Mining, and Fear" (March 2016, Literary Hub)[26]
  • "Apocalypse Logic" (November 2016, The Offing)[27]
  • "White City" (March 2017, The Offing)[28]
  • "Shark Girl" (April 2017, CityArts Magazine)[29]
  • "Wednesday Addams Is Just Another Settler" (November 2017, Electric Literature)[30]
  • "The Sun Disappears" (November 2018, Canadian Art)[31]
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References
  1. "Nonfiction Book Review: My Body Is a Book of Rules by Elissa Washuta. Red Hen, $16.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-59709-969-1". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  2. Doench, Meredith (2018-09-27). "This body is an inheritance: A Conversation with Elissa Washuta". The Adroit Journal. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  3. "Rewriting the Rules with Author Elissa Washuta". Bitch Media. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  4. "Elissa Washuta". Department of English. 2017-10-05. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  5. "How Much Indian Was I? My Fellow Students Asked"
  6. Washuta, Elissa (2013-06-09). "How Much Indian Was I?, My Fellow Students Asked". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN 0009-5982. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  7. "Cowlitz Indian Tribe now has reservation, 2015". Archived from the original on 2019-05-03.
  8. Washuta, Elissa (August 26, 2018). "Elissa Washuta" (PDF). english.osu.edu.
  9. "Q&A: Essayist Elissa Washuta on being the Fremont Bridge's first writer-in-residence, another recent award and her upcoming book". UW News. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  10. "Narrative Momentum in Memoir [Elissa Washuta]". Hugo House. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  11. "Seattle Channel: Fremont Bridge Writer-in-Residence | Elissa Washuta". washuta.net. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  12. "Institute of American Indian Arts, August 2015 | Elissa Washuta". washuta.net. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  13. ""Maybe abusive authors don't belong on my bookshelf. But what about in my classroom?"".
  14. "Zalaznick Reading Series | English Faculty: Cornell Arts & Sciences". english.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  15. Washington Post
  16. "Home for the Holidays: A Conversation with Claire Dederer, Margot Kahn, and Kelly McMasters". Tin House. 2017-12-19. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  17. New York Times
  18. "Literature Fellowships list". NEA. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  19. "Money - Artist Trust". artisttrust.org. Archived from the original on 2019-05-02. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  20. "Art Projects". 4Culture. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  21. "2.12 Author Elissa Washuta". wp.wwu.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  22. "The wrongheaded obsession with "vanishing" indigenous peoples". Salon. 2013-11-24. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  23. "I Am Not Pocahontas | The Weeklings". Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  24. "This Indian Does Not Owe You". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  25. "ESSAY: Consumption by Elissa Washuta". Electric Literature. 2015-06-22. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  26. "They Just Dig: On Writing, Coal Mining, and Fear". Literary Hub. 2016-03-16. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  27. Washuta, Elissa (2016-11-21). "Apocalypse Logic". The Offing. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  28. andrea (2017-03-02). "White City". The Offing. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  29. Washuta, Elissa (2017-04-24). "Shark Girl". City Arts Magazine. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  30. "Wednesday Addams is Just Another Settler". Electric Literature. 2017-11-22. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  31. Washuta, Elissa. "The Sun Disappears". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
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