Marnie Walsh

Dakota native and Sioux writer Marnie Walsh earned a BA in history and English from Pennsylvania State University and an MA in creative writing from the University of New Mexico. As a graduate student, Walsh received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Walsh is the author of novels Dolly Purdo (1975) and The Four Colored Hoop (1976), as well as a collection of poetry, A Taste of the Knife, which was published in 1976 and has since been reissued by Ahsahta Press. A Sioux writer whose work has been called a precursor to that of Louise Erdrich, Walsh’s poems and novels depict the harsh realities of Native American and reservation life in spare, unforgiving language.

Walsh’s work has appeared in From the Belly of the Shark, Voices from Wa’Kon-Tah, Dacotah Territory, Scree, the South Dakota Review, and The Third Woman: Minority Writers of the United States.