Gwen Westerman

Gwen Westerman (?) teaches at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She completed B.A. and M.A. degrees at Oklahoma State University and received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas. She is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate and a speaker of the Dakota language. Westerman is a professor at the University of Minnesota, Mankato, where she teachers American Literature, Technical Communication, and American Indian Literature. Her roots are deep in the landscape of the tall grass prairie. This connection with the landscape reveals itself in her art and writing through the languages and traditions of her family.

Westerman and co-author Bruce White wrote Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota which won a Minnesota Book Award in 2013 and a Hognander Minnesota History Award in 2014. Her poetry collection Follow the Blackbirds is written in Dakota and English. Westerman is also an award-winning visual artists, making quilts and textiles reflective of Indigenous culture. Some of her work is permanently housed in a collection at the Red Cloud Heritage Center Museum in South Dakota and some is housed by the Minnesota Historical Society.

More information on Gwen Westerman from the Minnesota Writers Directory.