The Arts Research Center is thrilled to welcome incoming Director Beth Piatote. She will serve as ARC’s faculty director for the next three years and bring her brilliance, creativity, and political commitments to ARC as she continues to showcase how the arts act as vital research. She takes over from ARC’s incredible past Director, Julia Bryan-Wilson, who finished her tenure this summer.
Beth Piatote is a creative writer, playwright, and scholar. She is the author of two books, including the mixed-genre collection, The Beadworkers: Stories (Counterpoint 2019), which was long-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the PEN/Bingham Prize, and short-listed for the California Independent Booksellers Association “Golden Poppy” Prize for Fiction. The Beadworkers was named the winner of the 2020 Electa Quinney Award for Published Stories. Her full-length play, Antikoni, was selected for the 2020 Festival of New Plays by Native Voices at the Autry, and has been supported by readings with New York Classical Theatre and the Indigenous Writers Collaborative at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Her short play, Tricksters, Unite! was featured in the 2022 Native Voices Short Play Festival at the Autry and the LaJolla Playhouse. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Epiphany, and numerous other journals and anthologies. She is currently completing a poetry collection, Nez Perce Word for Shark; and a novel. She is an Indigenous language activist and a founding member of luk’upsíimey/North Star Collective, a group dedicated to using creative expression for Nez Perce language revitalization. She is one of the co-creators and current Chair of the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization at Berkeley. Her current scholarly projects include articles on Indigenous language revitalization, with a focus on Nez Perce literature and language; and a book manuscript on Indigenous literature, law, and the senses. She is an associate professor of Comparative Literature and English. She is Nez Perce, enrolled with Colville Confederated Tribes.
You can read three of Beth’s poems in the August 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine, also found online at the Poetry Foundation website: 1855, sound installation, and That you would be made of rock. (Image: Kirsten Lara Getchell)