Jan.12, 1998
	                                            Contact: Lisa Russ Spaar
	                                                     (804) 924-6675

                   AWARD-WINNING NATIVE AMERICAN WRITER 
                   SIMON ORTIZ TO READ JAN. 27 AT U.VA.

	Simon Ortiz, an award-winning Native American poet, fiction
writer and essayist, will read from his work on Tuesday, Jan. 27, at 8
p.m. in the University of Virginia Bookstore.  A book signing will
follow the reading.
	"One of the most significant Native American writers of the
latter part of the 20th century," according to the "Dictionary of
Literary Biography," Ortiz has published more than a dozen books of
poetry and short fiction and has been the editor of several
anthologies of Native American literature. 
	He is the author of "After and Before the Lightning" (1994),
"Fightin': New & Collected Stories" (1983), "From Sand Creek" (1981),
"Fight Back" (1980), "A Good Journey" (1977), and "Going for the Rain"
(1976), among other works.  Ortiz also wrote the script for "Surviving
Columbus: The Story of the Pueblo People," a 1992 PBS television
documentary.
	His awards and honors include the 1981 Pushcart Prize for
Poetry, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lila
Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a Humanitarian Award from the
New Mexico Humanities Council, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from
the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers. 
	Over his thirty-year career Ortiz has attempted to give voice
to what he calls the "ageless oral tradition of indigenous
storytelling that affirms a sense of culturally conscious existence."
	An exponent of the vernacular tradition in American poetry,
which runs from Whitman to the Beats and beyond, Ortiz may be the
Native American poet best known to other Native Americans.  Yet as
Kenneth Lincoln has noted, "Simon Ortiz sings an inclusive poetry of
walls and looms, carpentry and pottery, interwoven with teachings and
observances, remembrances and prayers.  His language appeals to the
traditional moralities of 'home' for any people -- land, family, the elders,
the clan, kin, animals, plants, stones, and the gods."
	Originally from Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, Ortiz has taught
at San Diego State University, the University of New Mexico, Colorado
College, and Lewis and Clark College, among other institutions.
	He is currently a resident of Tuscon, Ariz., where he is
working on two collections of fiction and nonfiction, as well as a new
literary work, entitled "The Man Who Found The Man."
	His U.Va. reading is sponsored by the Special Lectures
Committee, the Office of Student Affairs, the Henry Hoyns Fund, and
the Department of Anthropology.
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