Park Welcomes Award-Winning Poet and Novelist Eric Gansworth
October 4th, 2023
Multi Award-Winning Novelist, Poet, Artist, and Buffalo Native Eric Gansworth to Visit Park, Honoring Indigenous People’s Day & National Native American Heritage Month
October 4, 2023: The Park School of Buffalo will welcome award-winning poet and novelist Eric Gansworth, Sˑha-weñ na-saeˀ, (Onondaga, Eel Clan) to campus on Thursday, October 19. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 6:00pm with a question-and-answer session and book signing to follow.
This past summer, the English Department revamped its summer reading program to launch an all-Upper School (Grade 9-12) read. Some of the goals of the program include creating a shared reading experience among our students, faculty, and staff, and building community out of the academic and creative conversations that follow.
The inaugural book selection for Upper School was Gansworth’s Apple (Skin to the Core). This memoir-in-verse narrates the author’s experience growing up, north of Buffalo, in Tuscarora Nation, the relationship between his Indigenous identity and U.S. settler-colonial culture, and the creative modes he embraced to tell his own story. Each of these themes resonates, to some degree, with Park students as they grow into their own identities and learn to advocate for themselves and each other.
The choice of this book also strongly identifies with Park’s DEIB Statement, which strives to create a diverse community that cultivates a deep sense of belonging in all its members and ensures that all those members feel respected, celebrated, and valued by the school. There is a Native American community of students that attend Park, and it is the school’s duty to foster a just, equitable, and inclusive learning environment so that all are affirmed in their individual identities and their place in our larger community.
Park is happy to host Gansworth just a week after the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day, a day that our Nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations. It’s also a great start to National Native American Heritage Month, recognized throughout the month of November. The event is on Park’s campus and open to the public on Thursday, October 19 from 6pm – 7:30pm. RSVP is strongly encouraged prior to attending; you may do so HERE.
ABOUT ERIC GANSWORTH
Eric Gansworth is a Professor and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius University. He has been widely published in journals and anthologies and as a visual artist, has had numerous solo and group exhibitions.
Apple (Skin to the Core) was a Printz Honor Book, longlisted for the National Book Award, won the American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award and was chosen for Time Magazine’s 10 Best YA and Children’s Books 2020. It was recently listed by NPR as a top selection for diverse representation in young people's media and chosen by the Texas Library Association for its 2022 Topaz Non-fiction Reading List. The audiobook, recorded by the author, also received an Audiofile Earphones Award.
Gansworth’s other books include Mending Skins (Pen Oakland Award), Extra Indians (American Book Award), If I Ever Get Out of Here (American Indian Youth Literary Honor Award; One Book, One Philadelphia 2020), Give Me Some Truth (Whippoorwill Award), and the collection of poems and paintings, A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function, (NBCC Good Reads List). His play, Re-Creation Story, was selected for the Public Theater’s Native Theater Festival.
