Board of Directors

The Oceti Sakowin Writers Society Board of Directors are nominated from among the general OSWS membership and elected by a majority of the Board. We are a 100% Native-led and Native-run 501(c)3 non-profit organization incorporated in the State of South Dakota.

Christopher G Bordeaux (Sicangu Lakota) is the executive director of the Oceti Sakowin Education Commission and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. A retired educator with 30 years of experience as a teacher and administrator, most of which was spent guiding gifted and talented students, he lives with his wife and family in Pine Ridge.

Sarah Hernandez (Sicangu Lakota) is an Assistant Professor of American Literary Studies and Director of the Institute for American Indian Research (IFAIR) at the University of New Mexico. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2016. In 2023, she published, We Are the Stars: Colonizing and Decolonizing the Oceti Sakowin Literary Tradition. She is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and lives in New Mexico. Sarah served as coordinator of the Society during her time at SDSU, and was the first Executive Director of the OSWS. She led the #NativeReads collaborative project with First Nations Development Institute and the Society.

Diane Wilson (she/her) is Mdewakanton Dakota and enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She is a writer and educator who has published four award-winning books, as well as essays in numerous publications. Her first picture book, Where We Come From, co-written with John Coy, Sun Yung Shin, and Shannon Gibney, was released in October, 2022. Wilson’s 2021 novel, The Seed Keeper, (Milkweed Editions) received the 2022 Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. Her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past (Borealis Books) won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award and was selected for the 2012 One Minneapolis One Read program. Her 2011 nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life (Borealis Books) was awarded the 2012 Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado. Wilson's middle-grade biography: Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector, was an Honor selection for the 2022 American Indian Youth Literature Award. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies, including: Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations (2021); We Are Meant to Rise (2021); and A Good Time for the Truth (2016).

Previous Board Members

Kim TallBear, PhD, 2022-2024: Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) (she/her) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Dr. TallBear studies genome science disruptions to Indigenous self-definitions and colonial disruptions to Indigenous sexual relations. She is a regular panelist on Media Indigena, has a research group at indigenoussts.com, and is on X (formerly Twitter) @KimTallBear. You can follow her Substack newsletter at Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization. She co-edited This Stretch of the River: Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Responses to the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Bicentennial (an Oceti Sakowin Writers Society anthology).

Mabel Howe, 2020-2023: Mabel (Picotte) Howe is a dual citizen of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and the United States of America. She was educated in the South Dakota public school system till 9th grade when she transferred to Marty Indian School, became a residential dorm student, and graduated in 1994. Mabel received a B.A. Degree in English, with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, Morris in 2003 and a Master of Education in School Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2013. She has also taught Introduction to Lakota Language, Oceti Sakowin Studies, Dakota and Lakota Studies and led a Native Writer’s group. She worked with the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies and Generations Indigenous Ways helping educators, businesses and youth understand Oceti Sakowin history and development. She was the High School Principal for Tiospa Zina Tribal School and led teachers in curriculum development from an Oceti Sakowin and Dakota perspective.

Edward Valandra, Ph.D., 2020-2022: Edward C. Valandra, Ph.D., is Sicangu Titunwan, born and raised on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. He received his B.A. in chemistry from Mankato State University, his M.A. in political science (public policy) from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and his Ph.D. in American Studies (Native Studies concentration) from SUNY-Buffalo. Dr. Valandra has served his nation, the Sicangu Titunwan Oyate, in various capacities. He served a four-year term on the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council (1985–89) and was a representative on the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC) board of directors (1996– 2000). He also served on his nation's seven-member Constitutional Task Force (2004–2006). Click here to access Dr. Valandra's writings at academia.edu; and click here to view Dr. Valandra's profile on LinkedIn.

Gabrielle Tateyuskanska, 2020-2022: Gabrielle Tateyuskaskan (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) is an educator, poet, and artist. She is an art instructor at the Sisseton Wahpeton College and a certified K-12 teacher of Dakota Studies. A member of the OSWS since 1995, she studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She has also served as a school board of Tiospa Zina Tribal School in Agency Village in the Lake Traverse Reservation and served her community in various other capacities. She is currently working on several manuscripts, including one on her relative, Charles Eastman’s unpublished work. Her poetry and historical storytelling has been featured in several anthologies, including the Society’s books and in 2021 the anthology, Voices Rising: Native Women Writers.

Nick Estes, Ph.D., 2020-2022: Nick Estes is an enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and is an Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota.  He studies colonialism and global Indigenous histories, focusing on decolonization, oral history, U.S. imperialism, environmental justice, anti-capitalism, and the Oceti Sakowin. Estes is the author of the award-winning book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (2019), which places the Indigenous-led movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline into historical context. He co-edited with Jaskiran Dhillon Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement (2019), which draws together more than thirty contributors, including leaders, scholars, and activists of the Standing Rock movement, for a reflection of Indigenous history and politics and on the movement’s significance.