{{Short description|Haudenosaunee writer and illustrator from New York, U.S.}} {{Infobox writer <!-- For more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]]. --> | name = Eric Gansworth | honorific_prefix = | honorific_suffix = | image = Eric Gansworth in Speaking Portraits, circa 2004.jpg | image_size = 220px | alt = | caption = Eric Gansworth (c. 2004) | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1965}}<ref name="Buffalo State NA"/><!-- {{Birth date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} --> | birth_place = [[Tuscarora people|Tuscarora]] Indian Nation | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} --> | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at [[Canisius College]] | language = English | nationality = [[Onondaga Nation]], American | education = [[Tuscarora Indian School]], [[Niagara County Community College]], State University College at Buffalo | alma_mater = | period = | genre = [[Native American literature]] | subject = Contemporary Haudenosaunee culture | movement = | notableworks = ''Mending Skins'' (2005); ''Extra Indians'' (2010); If I Ever Get Out of Here (2013) | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = [[American Book Award]] (2011) for ''Extra Indians''; PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award (2006) for ''Mending Skins'' | signature = | signature_alt = | website = {{URL|ericgansworth.com}} }}
'''Eric Gansworth''' (born 1965) is a [[Haudenosaunee]] [[novelist]], [[poet]] and [[visual artist]] from New York. He is a citizen of the [[Onondaga Nation]] and [[Tuscarora people|Tuscarora]] descendant.
==Early life== Gansworth was born in 1965<ref name="Buffalo State NA">{{Cite web|url=http://newsandevents.buffalostate.edu/news/exhibition-examining-native-american-images-past-and-present-opens-october-13|title=All Years}}</ref> and is an enrolled citizen of the [[Onondaga Nation]], belonging to the Eel Clan.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.aclib.us/blog/indigenous-ya-fiction-indigenous-authors |title=Indigenous YA Fiction From Indigenous Authors |website=[[Alachua County Library District]] |date=2022-11-13 |accessdate=2024-11-20}}</ref> He grew up in the [[Tuscarora Nation]] as a descendant of one of two Onondaga women present among the Tuscarora at the foundation of the nation in the 18th century.<ref name="amerinda1">{{cite web|url=http://www.amerinda.org/newsletter/5-3/eric.html |title=Eric Gansworth Bio |publisher=Amerinda.org |date= |accessdate=2015-03-12}}</ref> Gansworth originally qualified in [[electroencephalography]], considered a profession useful to his nation; however, he went on to study literature and to continue a lifelong interest in painting and drawing.
==Work== Gansworth has written five novels, including the award-winning ''Mending Skins'' (2005) and ''Extra Indians'' (2010). In all his novels, illustrations form an integral part of the reading experience. His critically acclaimed first young adult novel, ''If I Ever Get out of Here'', deals with the friendship between two boys, one a resident of the Tuscarora Nation, the other living on the nearby [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] base. In a starred review, ''[[Booklist]]'' stated that the book succeeded in "sidestepping stereotypes to offer two genuine characters navigating the unlikely intersection of two fully realized worlds."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://catalog.wccls.org/Mobile/BakerAndTaylor/Review?ISBN=9780545417303&UPC=&position=1 |title=Title Details - Washington County Cooperative Library Services |publisher=Catalog.wccls.org |date= |accessdate=2015-03-12}}</ref>
Gansworth states that growing up he was struck by an absence of images of contemporary Native American life to use as drawing practice, noting that "I could offer images from the Planet of the Apes, The Towering Inferno, Spiderman and, of course, Batman, but I had a critical shortage of Indian drawings."<ref name="amerinda1"/> Subsequently, in his literary studies he was again critical of the lack of American Indian authored texts offered on his courses. Much of his current literary and artistic drive can be seen as attempting to overcome this lack of attention. Gansworth himself sees the two themes most important to his work as being "the ways history informs the present" and also a strong interest in entertainment culture.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nativelit.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/qa-with-eric-gansworth/ |title=Q&A with Eric Gansworth |work=[[Native American Literature Symposium]] Blog |publisher=NALS |date=September 15, 2011 |accessdate=2015-03-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150407014639/https://nativelit.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/qa-with-eric-gansworth/ |archive-date=April 7, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Critic Susan Bernardin has analyzed Gansworth's writing via [[Gerald Vizenor]]'s concept of [[survivance]], suggesting that his novel ''Mending Skins'' "suggests how Native peoples reimagine patterns of loss into new stories, especially through humored stories of survivance."<ref>Susan Bernardin, "As Long as the Hair Shall Grow:Survivance in Eric Gansworth's Reservation Fictions," in ''Survivance'', ed. Gerald Vizenor (Lincoln: Nebraska UP, 2008), p. 124.</ref>
His nonfiction book ''[[Apple (Skin to the Core)]]'' (2000" won a [[Michael L. Printz Award|Michael L. Printz honor]] for best young adult writing.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2021-01-25|title=ALA announces 2021 Youth Media Awards|url=http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2021/01/ala-announces-2021-youth-media-awards|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-01-25|website=News and Press Center|language=en}}</ref>
==Visual arts== Gansworth's art career began with "trying to hawk my drawings to the folks who lived down the road";<ref name="amerinda1"/> his professional career, however, began with the exhibition ''Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon'' in 1999. Since then, he has exhibited regularly. One of his images was chosen for the cover of [[Sherman Alexie]]'s novel ''First Indian on the Moon''.
==Bibliography== ===Novels=== * {{cite book |title=Indian Summers |series=American Indian Studies |publisher=Michigan State University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0870134791}} * {{cite book |title=Smoke Dancing |publisher=Michigan State University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0870137082}} * {{cite book |title=Mending Skins |series=Native Storiers: A Series of American Narratives |publisher=Bison Books |year=2005 |isbn=978-0803271180}} * {{cite book |title=Extra Indians |publisher=Milkweed Editions |year=2010 |isbn=978-1571310798 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/extraindians0000gans }}
===Young adult=== * {{cite book |title=If I Ever Get Out of Here |publisher=Arthur A. Levine Books |year=2013 |isbn=978-0545417303}} * {{cite book |title=Give Me Some Truth |publisher=Arthur A. Levine Books |year=2018 |isbn= 978-1338143546}} *''[[Apple (Skin to the Core)]].'' Arthur A. Levine Books. 2020.
===Poetry=== * {{cite book |title=Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon |series=American Indian Studies |publisher=Michigan State University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0870135644}} * {{cite book |title=Breathing the Monster Alive |series=Bright Hill Press Word & Image Series |publisher=Bright Hill Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-1892471406}} * {{cite book |title=A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function: Poems and Paintings |series=The Iroquois and Their Neighbors |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0815609001}} * {{cite book |title=From the Western Door to the Lower West Side |publisher=White Pine Press |year=2009 |others=Co-created with [[Milton Rogovin]] |isbn=978-1935210108}}
===Edited anthology=== * {{cite book |title=Sovereign Bones: New Native American Writing |publisher=Nation Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-1568583570}}
==See also== *[[List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas]] *[[List of Native American artists]] *[[Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.fr/2013/05/what-i-like-about-eric-gansworths-if-i.html Discussion of ''If I Ever Get Out Of Here''] by [[Debbie Reese]] for the blog ''American Indians in Children's Literature'' *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frenH_xRu28 Video interview] conducted at [[SUNY]] New York. *[https://www.ericgansworth.com Official website] *[http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/ericg/ Extended bibliography and work online]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gansworth, Eric}} [[Category:1965 births]] [[Category:20th-century American male writers]] [[Category:20th-century American novelists]] [[Category:20th-century Haudenosaunee people]] [[Category:21st-century American male writers]] [[Category:21st-century American novelists]] [[Category:21st-century Haudenosaunee people]] [[Category:American Book Award winners]] [[Category:American male novelists]] [[Category:American people of Tuscarora descent]] [[Category:Eel Clan of the Haudenosaunee]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Native American novelists]] [[Category:Onondaga Nation people]] [[Category:Haudenosaunee artists]] [[Category:Haudenosaunee writers]]