The Simon Ortiz RED INK Indigenous Speaker Series

Sponsored by the Labriola Center

Upcoming  |  Past Speakers   |  About the Series

UPCOMING: Monday, October 12, 2020    

Eric Gansworth (Haudenosaunee) 

Apple (Skin to the Core)

Live on Zoom for Indigenous Peoples' Day, Oct. 12: 10:00 a.m. (1:00 p.m. ET / 12:00 p.m. CT / 11:00 a.m. MT)

About "Apple (Skin to the Core)"

The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on the outside, white on the inside."

Eric Gansworth is telling his story in "Apple (Skin to the Core)." The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.

Gansworth shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

About the speaker

Eric Gansworth (Sˑha-weñ na-saeˀ), author of Apple (Skin to the Core), longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award, is the 2020 presenter in The Simon Ortiz RED INK Indigenous Speaker Series, sponsored by the Labriola Center.

Gansworth is a member of Eel clan, enrolled Onondaga, born and raised at the Tuscarora Nation. A writer and visual artist, he has published a dozen books, including the novels, "Mending Skins" (Pen Oakland Award) and "Extra Indians" (American Book Award, NAISA Book of the Year), the young adult novels, "If I Ever Get Out of Here" (Honor Award, American Indian Youth Literary Award; One Book, One Philadelphia 2020) and "Give Me Some Truth" (Whippoorwill Award). He has recorded audiobooks for recent books. His collection of poems and paintings, "A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function," was selected for the NBCC Good Reads List. His newest book, "Apple (Skin to the Core)," a memoir-in-verse and images, was longlisted for the National Book Award. His first play, "Re-Creation Story," was selected for the Public Theater’s Second Annual Native Theater Festival. He is a Professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.

Free of charge and open to the public.

ASU sponsors

• ASU Library
• Department of English
• Humanities division, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Labriola National American Indian Data Center
• RED INK Indigenous Initiative
• Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing

External sponsors

• Arizona Humanities
• Indigenous Peoples' Day Arizona
• Levine Querido

About the series

(Formerly the Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community)

To speak and act on behalf of ourselves as a human, social and cultural world, we are required to speak and act on behalf of land, culture, and community. No matter who we are, no matter what our livelihood is, and no matter what our inclinations are, we are bound by a relationship to the land upon which we live, the cultural knowledge by which we are guided, and the community we share with one another.

The Simon Ortiz RED INK Indigenous Speaker Series sponsored by the Labriola Center at Arizona State University addresses topics and issues across disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences, and politics. Underscoring Indigenous American experiences and perspectives, this series seeks to create and celebrate knowledge that evolves from an inclusive Indigenous worldview and that is applicable to all walks of life.

The Simon Ortiz RED INK Indigenous Speaker Series seeks to speak, act, offer, and share in order to assume responsibility for land, culture, community that is our world.