Dr. Tacey M. Atsitty is of the Diné tribe and her clans are as follows: she is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People). Her maternal grandfather is Tábąąhí (Water Edge People) and her paternal grandfather is Hashk’áánhadzóhí (Yucca Fruit Strung-Out-In-A-Line People) from Cove, AZ.
She is the winner of the Wisconsin Brittingham Prize for Poetry and is a recipient of the Louis Owens Award, Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, the Corson-Browning Poetry Prize, Morning Star Creative Writing Award, and the Philip Freund Prize. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University and the Institute of American Indian Arts, an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University, and a PhD in Creative Writing – Poetry from Florida State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in EPOCH, POETRY Magazine, Kenyon Review Online, Prairie Schooner, swamp pink, Literary Hub, New Poets of Native Nations, Leavings, and other publications. Her first book is Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press, 2018), and her second book is (At) Wrist (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023).
She is a member of the Board of Directors for Lightscatter Press and a member of the Advisory Council for Brigham Young University’s Charles Redd Center for Western Studies.
She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Beloit College, in Beloit, WI, where she lives with her husband and their puppy Peco.