1881-1955. Arthur Caswell Parker was an archaeologist, historian, folklorist, museologist and noted authority on American Indian culture. He was director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences from 1924 to 1945, and an honorary trustee of the New York State Historical Association.  Arthur C. Parker was born on the Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York, the son of Frederick Ely Parker, a Seneca Iroquois, and Geneva Griswold, a woman of Scottish and English descent, who taught school on the reservation.

Arthur's Iroquois name was Gawaso Wanneh (meaning "Big Snowsnake"). His grandfather, Nicholas H. Parker, was an influential Seneca leader, whose brother, Ely S. Parker, was a brigadier general and secretary to Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War, and later the first Indian Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Arthur lived on Nicholas Parker’s farm and was strongly influenced by him . . .

Trudy Ann (Call) Parker is the author of Aunt Sarah: Woman of the Dawnland, a book that reveals the complexities of 19th century Abenaki survival through the life of her great aunt, Sarah Jackson (Toxus) Somers, a skilled basketmaker, herbalist, and oral historian who lived to be 108 years old. Trudy conducts workshops and lectures all over Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont . . .

W. S. Penn is of mixedblood Nez Perce, Osage, and Anglo descent. An associate professor of English at Michigan State University, he is a member of the National Advisory Council on Native American Writing and the Native Writers Circle.
Winner of North American Indian Prose Award, 1994.  Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year (Anthology/Collection) Award, 1998 for As We are Now.

Robert L. Perea is a Mexican-American and Oglala Sioux author, Vietnam War veteran and a graduate of the University of New Mexico. He teaches philosophy and history at Central Arizona College near Phoenix. He has written short stories and novels, and his work contains elements of magical realism.  Winner of the bestfirst novel award at the "Returning the Gift" Conference of Native American writers in Oklahoma City in 1992.

His stories have been anthologized in Earth Power Coming and The Remembered Earth and published in the journal The Greenfield Review.

Collector/author of Life With the Little People, Perry is a storyteller and a member of the Chickasaw Nation.

Russell Peters is Wampanoag, born and raised in Mashpee, less than twenty miles from Plymouth Rock.  Mr. Peters has been involved in Native American issues at a state, local and national level. He is the President of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1976 to 1984, a member of the Harvard Peabody Museum Native American Repatriation Committee, a member of the White House Conference on Federal Recognition in 1995 and 1996, a board member of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, a board member of the Pilgrim Society, and the author of Wampanoags of Mashpee (Nimrod Press), Clambake (Lerner Publications), and Regalia (Sundance Press).

Ferguson Plain has written many books for children that speak to the importance of Native American values and of finding one's own place and identity. Books by Ferguson Plain include Amikoonse (Little Beaver), Eagle Feather - An Honour, Grandfather Drum, Little White Cabin, and Rolly's Bear.

Tom Porter (Sakokwenionkwas—“The One Who Wins”)  is the Spokesman and Chief Spiritual Leader of the Mohawk Community of Kanatsiohareke (Ga na jó ha láy:gay) in Fonda, New York. A member of the Bear Clan, he was raised as part of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation in upstate New York. Mr. Porter raised his six children in the traditional Native American fashion and was acting Bear Clan Chief in the traditional longhouse movement, opposite the state-sanctioned Tribal Council. He has served numerous positions on the Mohawk Nation of Chiefs Council for over 25 years.

Mr. Porter has been a nationally recognized figure in Indian Country since the 1960s when he co-founded the White Roots of Peace, a group of Iroquois Elders who toured the country sharing traditional teachings and encouraging Indians to embrace their respective Native traditions. Recognizing that Mohawk language and culture were dying out, he also co-founded the Akwesasne Freedom School for grades K-8, with a curriculum entirely in Mohawk. He also began Partridge House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Mr. Porter is recognized nationally as a compassionate and inspirational speaker about the destructive effects of substance abuse on Indian families, communities and nations . . .

1895-1978. In her book Northern Maidu, Maidu traditionalist Marie Potts, at the age of eighty-one, looked back to the days of her childhood to create an unforgettable and personal account of the history and culture of the Northern Maidu.

While recovering from an appendectomy and coming out of her anesthesia in her hospital bed, Susan Power decided to end her law career to pursue creative writing. When she awoke from her surgery she saw a Dakota Sioux woman standing in her hospital room wearing a sky blue beaded dress. It was this vision spirit who would later become a main character of her first novel, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Novel in 1995.

Born in Chicago in 1961, Power's parents raised her to be politically and socially aware. She had the opportunity to meet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the age of three. With her parents, Power became active in the Civil Rights movement, speaking out for all people. After being named Miss Indian Chicago at the age of 17, Power went on to get an A.B. degree in Psychology at Harvard/Radcliffe, and later she received her Jurice Doctorate from Harvard Law School . . .