CHADRON – A wide range of attendees, including professional writers, retirees, casual writers, faculty from several colleges, CSC students, and more than a half dozen Western Colorado University students attended the annual Story Catcher Writing Workshop and Festival June 6-9 at Custer State Park hosted by the Sandoz Society. Faculty members represented a range of indigenous cultures.
Four Young Lance Fellowship award recipients also attended a session June 5 at CSC. Diné poet Orlando White, who spoke at CSC earlier in 2023 as part of the Distinguished Writer series, joined Beth Piatote, a scholar of Native American/Indigenous Literature and Law at the University of California – Berkeley, as instructors.
Workshop faculty for the sessions in South Dakota included Navajo author and faculty member at the University of Oklahoma, Jake Skeets, who discussed the relationship between poetry, language, and time. He also covered a wide range of topics such as stepping into the field of the page, the compression of time in a poem, the purpose and influence of margins, and the purpose of white space.
Gerry Robinson, an author of books about his Cheyenne heritage, shared slides of his hometown in Montana and stories about his ancestors, encouraging participants to research their own histories.
Anna Lee Walters, author of nine books and an instructor at Dine’ College in Tsaile, Arizona, asked audience members a series of questions to consider before they write. The questions included: Who will be the hero of the story? Who will be the scoundrel? Who is my narrator speaking to? And in what language? Why haven’t I written this story yet? What is at stake in my story?
Piatote led a session guiding participants to find their true voice and vision. She shared several of her writings that included sound effects of shucking corn and harvesting snap peas. She also shared a traditional Nez Perce story related to addictions, self-destruction, self-preservation, and dangerous relationships.
CSC student Vernon Plenty Bull of Allen, South Dakota, and former Chadron resident Tom Swiftbird of Rapid City, South Dakota, attended the Young Lance pre-workshop and the sessions in South Dakota.
Plenty Bull, a Criminal Justice major, said attending Story Catcher for the first time helped him get in touch with his creative side.
“After a few days of meeting different writers and different speakers, I got to understand how to develop my style,” he said.
Workshop attendee and CSC student Erin Hayhurst of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, said she enjoyed her third Story Catcher.
“The main thing is really just meeting people. You have these great speakers who come in and help you do writing exercises. You get to hear them read published work, they answer a lot of questions, and they really help. We also usually meet in these beautiful places that inspire us. So, the workshop has kind of always been one of my favorite experiences,” Hayhurst said.
CSC alum Lisa Hare of Gordon, Nebraska, said the workshop was a wonderful experience around other writers, faculty, and people from CSC.
“Many moons ago I went to Chadron State and I’ve had an interesting, long, very twisted path as a writer myself. It was really good being around other like-minded people, people that love language and words, and who enjoy sharing and expressing that with others. I look forward to coming back next year,” Hare said.
Another Gordon resident, Kim Dukat, said she enjoyed the workshop.
“I highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful setting, you’re surrounded by other people who are being creative. I haven’t had a lot of published works and all my life I’ve had people telling me I need to write a book or write these stories, and I finally decided to attend a workshop and start there,” Dukat said.