Eric Gansworth
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Eric Gansworth, Onondaga poet, novelist & artist
Eric Gansworth, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, was born and raised at the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Western New York. He is a Professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of six books: Indian Summers; Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon; Smoke Dancing; Mending Skins; Breathing the Monster Alive; and A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function. He also conceptualized and edited the anthology, Sovereign Bones, New Native American Writing.
His books all feature paintings as integral parts of their narratives. A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function was voted to the number 3 position on the Spring 2008 National Book Critics Circle Good Reads List for poetry. Mending Skins won a PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award in 2006. Other awards include a residency from the Seaside Institute, in Seaside, Florida, a Special Opportunities Stipend Award from the New York Foundation for the Arts and an Individual Artist’s Grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. Work of his--fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction--has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals, The Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, Third Coast, Cold Mountain Review, Shenandoah, The Cream City Review, and American Indian Quarterly, among others, and has been widely anthologized. He was invited to write the entry for American Indian Literature in the Encyclopedia of New York State. He is a member of the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers and the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
Gansworth began his creative work as a visual artist, and eventually expanded to writing as a way of furthering the narratives he had developed visually. He has exhibited in a number of group shows throughout New York State, including Revisiting Turtle Island, and In the Shadow of the Eagle, and has had solo exhibitions at the Olean Public Library, the Castellani Museum and at Bright Hill Center. One of his paintings was the cover of Sherman Alexie's book First Indian on the Moon. Others have been included in texts on American Indian Art. He served eleven years on the Board of Directors of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center and has served terms on panels for the Arts Council of Buffalo and Erie County and the New York State Council on the Arts Literature Panel, and on the Artists Advisory Committee for the New York Foundation for the Arts. He was also an artist in the Herd About Buffalo Project.
Gansworth's work is a commentary on the oral tradition existing within Haudenosaunee culture and its fluid nature. He uses iconography recognizable in the context of the mythic Haudenosaunee world, yet alters it to reflect issues relevant to a more contemporary Haudenosaunee existence.
Awards & Residencies
National Book Critics Circle Good Reads List voted A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function to the number 3 position in poetry for Spring 2008.
Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Individual Artist’s Grant, for Fiction, 2007.
PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for the novel, Mending Skins, 2006.
Escape to Create Artist Residency, the Seaside Institute, FL, 2005.
Writer-in-Residence, Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, MN, 2004.
Writer-in-Residence, just buffalo literary center, Buffalo, NY 1999.
Indian Summers, chosen for the Readers and Writers on the Air program on North Country Public Radio, October 1999.
Indian Summers was selected for the College Libraries' America Reads 2000 project.
Writing Available Online
American Heritage in Publishers Group West catalog page for Eating Fire, Tasting Blood anthology
My Good Man in Boston Review
Prologue: Opening Addresses from Mending Skins (PDF)
Iroquois Backboard Rebound Song (I)
Iroquois Backboard Rebound Song (II)
Walking a Mile in His Wingtips
Native American Calling interview with Eric on the Book of the Month: Mending Skins
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Books by Eric Gansworth
A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function, Syracuse University Press
Sovereign Bones: New Native American Writing, The Nation Books
Breathing the Monster Alive, Bright Hill Press.
Mending Skins, Univ. Nebraska Press.
Smoke Dancing, Michigan State University Press.
Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon, Michigan State University Press.
- Review in ForeWord Magazine by Gabrielle Shaw
- Publisher's page
Indian Summers, Michigan State University Press.
Anthologies
My Good Man, Wade Wakes Me with Sweat, Tears and Yes, the Rest Too, Reception, in Working Class Indigenous, Allison Hedge Coke, ed., (forthcoming).
American Heritage, personal essay in Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: Breaking the Great Silence of the American Indian Holocaust, Thunder’s Mouth Press, July 2006.
Vulnerability, reprinted in a twentieth anniversary anthology for Blueline, Syracuse University Press, 2004.
Identification Pleas, personal essay, in Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing, The Nation Books, 2003.
The Raleigh Man, reprinted in Fishing for Chickens: Stories of Rural Youth in America, Persea Press, 2001.
Unfinished Business, in Nothing but the Truth: An Anthology of Native American Literature, Prentice Hall, 2000.
It Goes Something Like This, in Children of the Dragonfly, University of Arizona Press, 2000.
Late August Sunsets, The Final Cut The Last Dance, in The Second Word Thursdays Anthology, 1999.
Benefit Dinner, in For Winter Nights: Native American Storytellers, (anthology) White Pine Press, 1999.
As The Crow Flies, in QUARTET, chapbook, just buffalo literary center, 1997.
Getting Used to It, Black Leather Jacket, and Sirens, in Iroquois Voices, Iroquois Visions, Bright Hill, 1996.
The Raleigh Man, in Blue Dawn, Red Earth: An Anthology of Native American Writers, Doubleday, 1996.
The Ballad of Plastic Fred, in Growing Up Native American, Morrow, 1993.
Magazines and Journals
No Heart, Yellow Medicine Review, Winter 2008.
Beneath the Constellations, the Smoke Moves Home, My Mother Delivers a Quick Lesson in Survival and History, Patriot Act, Stone Canoe 2, Winter 2008
Night in the Ruts, Third Coast, Fall, 2007.
The Ways We Gather, Talking Stick, Fall 2007.
True Crime, The Kenyon Review, Fall, 2006.
Dreamcatcher, Learning to Speak, in To Topos, Poetry International, Winter 2006.
Billy the Chicken, Shenandoah, Fall, 2006.
The Rain, the Rez, and Other Things, Cold Mountain Review, Spring 2006.
Dakota I, II, III, Histamine, Holding the Shell to My Ear, Slipstream 26, 2006.
Finding a Voice from Home: Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, essay in Conversations, Fall 2006.
My Good Man, in Boston Review, Feb, 2005.
Review of Flaming Lips’ CD, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Talking Leaves/New World Records Guide, Winter 2005.
Thinking in Subversion, personal essay and poem, in American Indian Quarterly Journal, Volume 30: 1 & 2, 2005.
Loving that Land O’ Lakes Girl, Shenandoah, Winter, 2004.
Where the Dawes Act Finds Its Voice Even Now in Northern New York, A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function, in The Cream City Review, University of Wisconsin, Issue 27.1, Spring, 2003.
War Pony, in The Buffalo News, March 7, 1999.
Vulnerability, in Blueline, literary magazine, Potsdam, NY, 1998.
Iroquois Backboard Rebound Song (I), (II), Mystic Powers(II), Traditional Blanket, On the Lack of Needing My Indian Celebrity Sunglasses, in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, UCLA, 1998.
Mystic Powers (I), in phati'tude, volume 1, #2, Indian Summer issue, 1997.
My Sister's Back Yard, Stinkpot, Walking a Mile in his Wingtips, in Slipstream, issues 14, 15, Fall, 1994.
Just Lately, Roadkillbasa, poetry audio tape, Slipstream,1994.
Art & Art Criticism
Inclusion of paintings and references to visual art in the academic anthropological text: Pictures and Power: Haudenosaunee and Iroquoian Paintings and Visual Representation, A.D. 166-2004, by Neal Keating, University of Oklahoma Press (forthcoming).
Cover and internal paintings for each book: Indian Summers (1998); Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon (2000); Smoke Dancing(2004); Mending Skins (2005); Breathing the Monster Alive (2006); A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function (2008).
How to Make a Cornhusk Doll (I, II, III), While Hendrix Played a Solo, exhibition catalogue, Milton Rogovin Native American Series, March, 2007.
Mark Lavatelli’s Treescapes: The Confines of a Natural World, critical essay for individual artist’s show, of Mark Lavatelli’s recent works, Buffalo Arts Studio publications, January 2004.
Cover painting, Spring 2004 Catalogue, Michigan State University Press.
Painting in The Cream City Review, University of Wisconsin, Issue 27.1, Spring, 2003.
Exhibit Catalogue, The Pan-American Exposition Centennial: Images of the American Indian, Burchfield-Penney Art Center, 2001.
Cover painting, Fall 2000 Catalogue, Michigan State University Press.
Exhibit Catalogue, Herd About Buffalo, Burchfield Penney Art Center, 2000.
Inclusion of a painting, and references to fiction and visual art in the academic history text: As Long as the Grass Shall Grow and Rivers Flow: A History of Native Americans, by Clifford Trafzer, Harcourt Brace, 2000.
Links to Obscurity critical essay for Artist's Residency Exchange art catalogue of Charles Agel's Monuments to The Industrial Revolution, Hallwalls, 1998.
Painting in Iroquois Voices, Iroquois Visions, Bright Hill, 1996.
Painting in Premiere Issue, Akwesasne Notes, 1994.
Cover painting, First Indian on the Moon, by Sherman Alexie, Hanging Loose, 1993.
See Also
Critical Mass: National Book Critics Circle Announces the Spring 2008 Good Reads List
Eric's resume as a painter with examples on the Native American Artist Register
"Native Son" Interview with Eric by R. D. Pohl in Buffalo Spree Magazine
"On Eric Gansworth" by Jerry Harp in the Kenyon Review blog
Eric's Education and Teaching Experience
Eric's Professional Associations and Publications
The man behind the camera: Milton Rogovin at CAM discusses the ways Eric's poems contribute deeper meaning to the photographs.
Gansworth’s Mending Skins Wins National Literary Award
Eric's profile on Poets & Writers
A short biography from the Internet Public Library's Native American Authors Project.
This page is part of the Storytellers: Native American Authors Online project.
