Schedule of Events

Prairie Gate Literary Festival (PGLF) 2022

Thursday, October 6-Saturday, October 8

Thursday, Oct. 6

• 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Registration for Workshops, Student Center
• 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Author Readings: (Gwen Nell Westerman) and (Joshua Whitehead) Briggs Library Main Level Note: Book selling and refreshments available starting at 7:00 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 7

• 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Registration for Workshops, Student Center
• 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Coffee With a Queer Creative Writer, Student Center TMC
• 3:00 p.m-4:00 p.m. Author Panel Discussion, Briggs Library Main Level
• 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Author Readings: (Thomas Peacock) and (Teresa Peterson/Walter LaBatte), Briggs Library Main Level

Saturday, Oct. 8 Note: Book selling and refreshments available starting at 7:00 p.m.

• 9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. Same Day Registration for Workshops, Student Center
• 10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Craft Talk Workshops

Workshop #1: Joshua Whitehead
Title: On Bodies of Writing
Location: Briggs Library, McGinnis Room
Description: Participants will discuss and work through issues of writing of and from the body (here expanding our idea of body into: bodies of land, water, literature, ancestor) while also taking up issues of what gender means to genre and what "literary realism" means to BIPOC writers. This workshop will include mini-lectures, writing prompts, and oral storytelling/sharing.

Workshop #2, Teresa Peterson & Walter LaBatte
Title: Weaving Stories: A Glimpse Into the Writing and Research Process
Location: Briggs Library, SmartBoard Room #240
Description: Authors Teresa Peterson and Walter LaBatte will share their writing and research process, the challenges they faced, and the compromises and solutions they applied to complete their project Pejuhutazizi: Dakota Stories and Storytellers. Teresa will also share her first children’s book, Grasshopper Girl and the support she received from Native owned publisher, Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing. If time allows, Teresa will also share a piece and writing prompt from her current writing project. Topics covered in the workshop include: digging into research sources, challenges (e.g. multiple voices, stories vs history, family/community/Dakota people representations, language translations & interpretation, maintaining voices vs editor).

• 12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Craft Talk Workshops

Workshop #3, Gwen Nell Westerman
Title: Listening to the Land
Location: Briggs Library, McGinnis Room
Description: The workshop will include short writing exercises that focus on learning to listen to the land and our connections to it. Through observing and re-presenting images, participants will move through the process of free-writing to collecting lines to building poems.

Workshop #4: Thomas Peacock
Title: Talking Story: Authentic Voice in Writing
Location: Briggs Library, SmartBoard Room #240
Description: The presenter will use selected passages of his own writing about Native characters, animal characters, and reservation life, as well the writing of audience participants, to engage in conversation about finding one’s authentic voice.