Evelina Zuni Lucero
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Evelina Zuni Lucero, Isleta/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo novelist
Evelina Zuni Lucero is Isleta/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. She spent the first eight years of her life at Isleta Pueblo. Later when her family moved, she attended public schools in Ignacio, Colorado, and Carson City, Nevada, where she graduated from high school. She attended Stanford University at the onset of its Native American program where she majored in journalism and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Communications. For a number of years she worked in the journalism field with Native organizations as a news reporter, and communications specialist.
She received her master's degree in English from the University of New Mexico in the creative writing program.
She currently is on the creative writing faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where she teaches courses in fiction writing, creative nonfiction, Native American literature, Native fiction, and Native American journalism.
Lucero says, "My concerns for Indian people are reflected in my novel, Night Sky, Morning Star. I wanted to deal with issue of historical trauma Indian people have suffered for over 500 years now, and the unresolved pasts that go hand in hand with the trauma. The characters illustrate the unresolved pasts shoved into the closet and not dealt with. When I gave it thought, a Native prisoner was a fitting characterization of the Indian experience in the Americas." Her concern has extended to community service by acting as an advisor for the documentary film, Domestic Violence; It's Not A Tradition, on domestic violence in Pueblo communities in 1995. She has also acted as the coordinator of a reading series for Isleta Pueblo Headstart and Isleta community in 1992. She organized a series of readings and performances by Pueblo poets/storytellers which culminated in a joint cultural event of storytelling, poetry and music.
Excerpts from the novel were published in various journals and anthologies, including Blue Mesa Review, Northeast Indian Quarterly, Returning the Gift Anthology, Women On Hunting, Native American Literature and Native Roots & Rhythms.
Evelina is the chair of the creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. She is working on a second novel, Silicon Coyote, in which the reservation casino becomes the point of intersection of history, myth, and imagination, the point of discovery for the narrator. She lives at Isleta Pueblo with her husband and children.
Awards
Evelina's book, Night Sky, Morning Star, her first novel, received the 1999 First Book Award for Fiction from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. This book was selected as the October Book of the Month by "Native America Calling," in 2000.
Evelina was granted a Civitella Ranieri Fellow, International Writers Residency at the Civitella Ranieri International Artist Center, Umbertide, Italy, Sept 6-Oct 11, 2004. She was the recipient of an Ata’a’xum Fellowship for Native American artists, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, June 2004. She received a residency at the Hedgebrook Women Authoring Change program at Widbey Island in June 2006 and a recipient of a 2007 Mabel Dodge Luhan House residency in Taos, New Mexico.
Writing available online
Prologue: Julian-June 1996 from Night Sky, Morning Star
The Silicon Coyote: Where Past Meets Future in the American Southwest
Books by Evelina Zuni Lucero
Fiction
Night Sky, Morning Star, University of Arizona Press.
- Review of Night Sky, Morning Star by Annette Van Dyke
- Publisher's page
Anthologies
Stories for a Winter's Night, Maurice Kenney (Editor), White Pine Pr.
Women on Hunting, Pam Houston (Editor), Harpercollins.
Native-American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology, Gerald Vizenor (Editor), Longman Pub.
Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers' Festival, (Sun Tracks, Vol 29), Joseph Bruchac (Editor), Univ. Arizona Pr.
Journals
"Soul of Albuquerque," Alibi 9-15, Nov. 2000: 32-33.
"Commentaries: When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away...," American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 17.3 (1993).
"Sacred Wraps," Native Roots and Rhythm, 1.1 (1999): 7.
"Seasons," Northeast Indian Quarterly, Fall 1991: 31-42.
"Fancy Dancer," Blue Mesa Review, Spring 1989: 79-91
Interviews
Here First, "On the Tip of My Tongue," Arnold Krupat (Editor), Brian Swann (Editor), Random House
October Book of the Month, "Native America Calling," Interview, KUNM radio, November 14, 2002 (Audio)
See Also
Evelina's faculty page at the IAIA
This page is part of the Storytellers: Native American Authors Online project.
