Natanya Ann Pulley
Photo by Anginet Page
Bio
Natanya Ann Pulley is Diné and her clans are Kinyaa’áani (Towering House) and Táchii’nii (Red Running into Water). Her short story collection With Teeth was the winner of the 2018 Many Voices Project competition through New Rivers Press and published in October 2019. She’s published in the Massachusetts Review, Phantom Drift, Split Lip, and the Offing (among others). Her most recent anthologized essays are included in Shapes of Native Nonfiction and The Diné Reader. Pulley is the founding editor of Hairstreak Butterfly Review and an assistant professor of English at Colorado College where she teaches texts by Native American writers, fiction writing, and experimental forms in ethnic literature. She is at home in the mountains and the desert, and she loves collage, low-stakes crafts, and her many families, including the pack of once-wolves in her home.
I don’t believe we write as individuals or for oneself. We are shaped by the ways of those that came before us and those that will come after. Our stories are echoes outside of time and our words have traveled lands and many tongues to live through us. This means making a promise to my ancestors and our earth when sharing a story. It’s a promise to humble my thoughts, to speak outside myself, and to open my senses to the vibrations, environments, and people surrounding me. For my current project and with the support of the National Endowment of the Arts, I’ll be taking time away from my job and entering our stories past and future by walking through them: visiting historical and sacred sites, connecting with elders and communities, and finding ways to honor more than my own story—but the ones gifted to me.