Anna Redsand

My essay collection, Crevice: A Life Between Worlds, has won the Kenneth Johnston Nonfiction Book Award and will be published by Choeofpleirn Press and released on May 1, 2025. The essays are based on my lived experience as a White woman who grew up and worked between postcolonial Diné (Navajo) and Bilagáana (White) cultures. Through stories and reflection, the book explores bicultural belonging and identity, the role of language in identity, and the effects of colonization. I examine my settler heritage as the daughter of evangelical missionaries in the Navajo Nation––from an early age and continuing through the time of my work in Diné bilingual-bicultural education as an adult. I probe how colonization has been part of systemic racism in the US and explore the debt I may owe to the Indigenous culture that continues to play a part in my life. Seven of the thirteen essays have been previously published. The book will be available everywhere that books are sold and also on my website after May 1.

I'm planning a DIY tour with the book. If you're interested in having me come to your community for readings and discussion, please contact me through FaceBook or through the Contact page on my website.

On March 21, 2024, I presented a talk about the well-known Harlem Renaissance author, Nella Larsen, at the Museum of Danish America's Brown Bag Lunch series. The presentation focuses on Larsen's connections with Denmark and with the Black community during the Harlem Renaissance. I read from her autobigraphical novel, Quicksand and talk about the issues she dealt with on both sides of the color line as a biracial woman. The presentation has now been recorded and can be viewed on the museum's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=frn5AFOGMkg If you're not familiar with this author, she's worth getting to know!