Nancy Marashio
In high school and college, and even at Boston College for her M.A. in Literature, Nancy Marashio had little exposure to Native American literature. Her interest was sparked when N. Scott Momaday became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, House Made of Dawn. At Wesleyan University, her advisor David McAllester, a Navajo ethnomusicologist, shared what his Navajo teachers taught him about poetry and the Navajo vision of the world; he taught her to see from their perspective. Her Certificate of Advanced Studies essay was entitled, “Native American Literature as Mentor: Vision Through Words.”
Other Native American teachers widened Nancy’s view. Vine Deloria Jr. practiced audacious advocacy as
a lawyer and held an unwavering belief that “we need to glimpse the old spiritual world that helped, healed, and honored us with its presence and companionship. We need to see where we have been before we see where we should go, we need to know how to get there, and we need to have help on our journey.”
The publishing world makes Native American voices readily accessible to all who care to learn from them. Those voices continue to deepen Nancy’s immersion in Native American literature; she looks forward to sharing Native American writings.