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Sara Marie Ortiz is a young Acoma Pueblo writer, poet, speaker, and scholar born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico and currently residing in Santa Fe. She is a recent graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts with her BFA in Creative Writing and is currently attending Antioch University Los Angeles, working towards her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in creative nonfiction. Most recently, Ms. Ortiz was chosen by the United Nations Office of the High Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples as a beneficiary and Indigenous Delegate, attending the 1st Session of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva, Switzerland in October of 2008. Ms. Ortiz is a committed advocate of the rights of Indigenous women and children. Ms. Ortiz is the current host and curator of the Pihtya literary/spoken word/film and new mixed media series at the Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Arts. Ms. Ortiz has been accepted to Penn State University School of Law, Michigan State University School of Law, Denver Sturm School of Law, Arizona State University Sandra Day O'connor College of Law, and the University of New Mexico School of Law. Ms. Ortiz will begin her law study at the University of New Mexico School of Law with a concentration in International law and Indian Law in the fall of 2009. Ms. Ortiz is the recipient of several prestigious awards, among them, the Truman Capote Literary Award Fellowship (2003) and a first place award in creative nonfiction, which she was awarded by The Southwest Writers Workshop at the age of fifteen (1997). Among other recent achievements, Ms. Ortiz has been chosen as an American Indian Graduate Center Fellow, to continue work on her MFA in creative writing and is also a member of the American Indian Professionals Association. Ms. Ortiz' latest publications include works of poetry and creative nonfiction in Letters from Young Activists ("Letter to My America") published by Nation Books(September 2005), A New Vision of/for Native Literature published in THE Magazine (August 2006), RELATIONS: Indigenous Dialogue ( A New Vision of/for Native Literature and other notes on Native writing/writers art/artists-- July 2006) and Scrimshaw: Neo-Modern Literature from the Institute of American Indian Arts (Preface, Holocaust Poetry, Dangerous American, Inertia, Entropy), of which she is also co-editor (May 2006). Her latest publication is a work of creative nonfiction called Creation Story published in a collection of new creative nonfiction-- the Amerinda Inc./Nation Books Sovereign Bones: New Native American Writing (edited by Eric Gansworth) and is awaiting a forthcoming publication in Sentence, the premiere literary journal of the prose poem, and an upcoming issue of the Kenyon Review. In 2005, Ms. Ortiz founded the IAIA Women's Society, a first-of-its-kind advocacy-in-action organization founded by and for the Native women artists of the IAIA established with the intention of engaging in creative advocacy-in-action projects for Native women artists and families at the Institute and throughout Indian Country, in addition to addressing health and wellness issues specifically pertaining to Native women studying at the Institute, such as sexual violence and high rates of suicide among young Native men and women as well as the role of art, scholarship, spirituality and ceremony in curbing this violence. Ms. Ortiz' proposal for a documentary on violence against Native women in the United States was chosen as a finalist in the 2007 NM Film Office's NM Governor's Cup Award. Ms. Ortiz is wholly committed to mentoring/collaborating and supporting up-and-coming Native educators and creative talent (particularly Native women and youth)-- emergent writers, scholars, MCs, filmmakers, producers, performing artists, visual artists, et al-- returning to the Institute of American Indian Arts with her MFA to teach creative writing, and in serving the institution in a leadership capacity. Ultimately, Ms. Ortiz has aspirations of using her J.D. to run for the the New Mexico State Legislature. Ms. Ortiz can be contacted at www.myspace.com/nativescientist
Nine Inch Nails - Something I can never have (still)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEW8riKU_tE