Ernestine Hayes

Ernestine Hayes is a member of the Kaagwaantaan clan of the Tlingit nation (Lingít). She has been Alaska State Writer Laureate (2017-2018), a Rasmuson Distinguished Artist (2021), and a United States Artist Fellow (2023), and is author of The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir (University of Washington Press, 2019), and the American Book Award winner Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir (University of Arizona Press, 2006). Her essays, articles, stories, and poetry have appeared in Studies in American Indian Literature, Alaska Quarterly Review, Tipton Review, A History of Western American Literature, and other venues, including permanent installations at Totem Bight State Park and Alaska State Museum. Grandmother of four and great-grandmother of three, Hayes makes her home in Juneau, where she was born and raised.