EL TECOLOTE (SAN FRANCISCO) -- An author, weaver, and bead-work artist, Shuck finds inspiration in Southeastern Native American culture and tradition, intertwining contemporary urban Indian life with her experience as an Ani Yun Wiya (Cherokee) and Polish-American born and raised in the Bay Area. Her poetry collections include Clouds Running In, Rabbit Stories, Smuggling Cherokee and most recently, Deer Trails, published by City Lights Books as part of the San Francisco Poet Laureate Series.
As a fifth-generation San Francisco resident and a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma — one of 573 federally recognized tribes in the United States — Shuck acknowledges the vast realities people endure each day. Her voice, she notes, is not the rule nor is it representative of all indigenous people or San Franciscans.
Shuck, a former instructor at San Francisco State University and California College of Arts, is one of 13 recipients of the Academy of American Poets inaugural Poets Laureate Fellowships, a program that promotes creative and civic projects around the country like podcasts, poetry readings and writing workshops.