Nora Marks Dauenhauer was born in 1927 in Syracuse, N.Y but was raised in Juneau and Hoonah, as well as on the family fishing boat and in seasonal subsistence sites around Icy Straits, Glacier Bay, and Cape Spencer. Her first language is Tlingit.  She obtained her B.A. degree from the Alaska Methodist University, Anchorage in 1976. She has been the Tlingit language researcher, Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, 1972-73. She is president of the Shax'saanikee 'Weavers.  She has been the Commissioner of the Alaska Historical Commission, and awarded the 1978-81 "Humanist of the Year" award.

Robert Davis's tribal affiliation is Tlingit on his father's side. During his chiidhood his family spent part of each year in Michigan where his mother's family came from, while they spent the summers fishing in Kake, Alaska. In 1964 the family moved permanently to Kake where Rcbert became interested in Tlingit culture and art. Davis makes a living as an artist. In addition to writing poetry, Robert also paints, carves wood, and teaches woodcarving workshops. Robert uses his writing as well as his visual art to express "the hopes and despair, the loss of traditional values, the pain of accuituration' and the flavor of the people and history of the place . . ." His poems have been published in Raven's Bones, Journal of Alaska Native Arts, Orca Anthology, In the Dreamlight: 21 Alaskan Writers, as well as in the Harper's Anthology of Twentieth Century Native American Poetry. A volume of his poetry, Soulcatcher, was published by Ravens Bones Press in 1986.

Martha Kreipe de Montano, a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi, is the curator of the Resource Center for the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, part of the Smithsonian Institution. She is also a playwright (of Harvest Ceremony: Beyond the Thanksgiving Myth) and author.

Belle Deacon was born in 1905. She is an Athabascan basketmaker who lives in Grayling, Alaska. She writes bilingual stories of Athabascan folklore, culture and traditions.  She received the National Heritage Award in 1992.

Charlotte Declue was born in Enid, Oklahoma, in 1946. Declue's poetry is marked by skillful use of the conversational idiom and trenchant wit. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in this country and Europe. 

 "I am from the place where I, and my people, continue to make our stand in Indian Territory, despite concentrated efforts to annihilate us. For the last several years my work as a Native poet has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and magazines, in the United States and in Europe. My most recent work has appeared in Ten Good Horses, in a book entitled Stiletto The Disinherited. Since then I have been working on a series of fictional character sketches and short stories."

Susan Deer Cloud was born 1950, in Livingston Manor, New York. She obtained both her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Binghamton University in 1980 and 1982 respectively. Clements is deeply involved in Indian issues and expresses this in her work. She is primarily interested in writing both stories and poetry that often contain an interweaving of Indian themes. She is also published under the name Susan Clements.

Ada Deer was born in 1935 in Keshena, Wis. She obtained her M.S.W. from the School of Social Work, Columbia University, in 1961. When, unable to pay property taxes, Menominee Enterprise began to sell the tribe's former holdings, Ada Deer led a grassroots movement to stop the land sale. This led to the signing of the Menominee Restoration Act by President Nixon on December 22, 1972, redesignating the Menominee a federally recognized tribe. Because of this Deer was appointed as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs in 1993. She became the first Native American woman to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1889-1971. Ella Deloria was born in 1899, on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. She attended Oberlin College before obtaining her B.S. from Columbia University in 1915. She was an anthropologist, linguist, novelist, and a leading authority on Sioux culture and language. She wrote fictional works, and also served as a translator.  A bilingual and bicultural Lakota ethnologist and linguist, she wrote hundreds of traditional narratives, autobiographies, anecdotes, and reminiscences in both Lakota and English during the 1920s and 1930s.

Recognized as one of today's leading Indian spokesmen. He has been executive director of the National Congress of American Indians and a Member of the National Office for Rights of the Indigent. He is a practicing lawyer and is currently a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, at the Center of Native American Studies...Among his many other accomplishments, Vine Deloria, Jr. was awarded the Native Writers Circle of the Americas 1996 Lifetime Achievment Award.

Eugene Delorme was born in Marty, South Dakota and has spent much of his life in prison for theft and parole violations. In his writings, he describes prison life and the problems faced by Native Americans. He co-authored a book on prison language and culture, and his autobiography describes his journey from South Dakota to a troubled childhood in Aberdeen, Washington and finally to the Washington State Penitentiary.