Greg Sarris

Greg Sarris received his PhD in modern thought andliterature from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Walter Gore Award for excellence in teaching. He has published several books, including Grand Avenue, an award-winning collection of short stories, which he adapted for an HBO miniseries and co-executive produced with Robert Redford. He is serving his sixteenth consecutive elected term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. In addition to serving as Chairman of his Tribe, he serves as President of the Tribe’s Economic Development Board, overseeing all of the Tribe’s business interests, including the Graton Resort and Casino. Formerly a full professor of English at UCLA, and then the Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University, Sarris now holds the title of Distinguished Emeritus Graton Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, where he taught a number of courses in creative writing, American Lliterature, and American Indian literature. His book How a Mountain Was Made, a collection of stories, was awarded a Bronze Medal from Independent Publisher Book Awards. His book Becoming Story: A Journey among Seasons, Places, Trees, and Ancestors was released in 2022. He is executive producer of I Am a Noise, a Joan Baez documentary film, appointed as Chair to the Board of Trustees for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Co-Chair of Smithsonian Campaign, and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.