FIRST AMERICA INDIGENOUS WRITING WORKSHOP
Monday, April 20 — Tuesday, April 28, 2026
5-7 PM CST | Virtual + In-Person
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Studios
109 MLK Jr. Blvd E. Tulsa, OK 74103
Free & Eligible to Native Writers
First America is hosting two creative writing workshop series for emerging Indigenous writers ages 16–25—one in person in Tulsa and one online.
Through guided sessions and revision support, participants will develop short fiction (1,000–2,000 words) imagining Indigenous nations 250 years in the future. The workshops extend the themes of the First America podcast, which explores Indigenous history 250 years in the past.
Selected pieces will be published online, with one featured on the podcast and awarded a $500 prize. A culminating public reading in Tulsa will follow (date TBD).
Free to attend. Open to Native writers.
Application deadline: March 31, 2026
(or until the first 70 applications are received)
In-Person Sessions
April 20, 22, and 24
5–7 PM CST
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Studios
Online Sessions
April 21, 23, and 28
5–7 PM CST
Zoom
Enrollment or descendant verification is required as part of the application process.
Workshop Leader
Kashona Notah (Iñupiaq)
Questions? Email kashona@umich.edu
ABOUT FIRST AMERICA
In July 2026, the U.S. will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This summer, when media streams are full of an outdated and inaccurate version of the American story, First America will be the counter narrative. First America reveals how the founders’ treatment of Indigenous peoples—and our resistance—fundamentally shaped U.S. democracy. The First America podcast will be written and hosted by Rebecca Nagle, the award-winning journalist behind This Land. The project was developed in collaboration with leading Native scholars and writers, including Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone, Yale), Maggie Blackhawk (Ojibwe, NYU), Nick Estes (Dakota, University of Minnesota), and Phil Deloria (Dakota descent, Harvard).
ABOUT WORKSHOP LEADER
Kashona Notah (Iñupiaq) holds an MFA in fiction from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan and a BA in English from Stanford University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Nimrod International Journal, Oklahoma Humanities, Yellow Medicine Review, and elsewhere. Among other honors, he is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, the Hopwood Award for Fiction, the Hopwood Award for Nonfiction, the Mary Steinbeck Dekker Award, the Luis Sudler Prize, and the National NativeMedia Award. His writing has also received support from Blue Mountain Center, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and the Zell Post-MFA Fellowship. Originally from San Bernardino, California, he currently lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
