Open to the public, the event will begin with a reading, by Tommy. There There tackles issues of identity and belonging for Native people living in urban environments and battles against the monolithic stereotype often applied to Native people and their culture. The reading will be followed by a conversational-style interview, hosted by Boston Globe Correspondent, author and carpenter, Nina MacLaughlin, and will explore issues of Native struggles, the Native renaissance, what it means to be Native today and Tommy’s own experiences growing up Native in a big city.

Orange is a recent graduate from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is a 2014 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Oakland, California, and currently lives in Angel’s Camp, California.

Nina MacLaughlin works as a writer and a carpenter and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She's a columnist for the Boston Globe and her first book, “Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter” was published in 2015. MacLaughlin'swork has also appeared in the Paris Review, Boston Magazine, the LA Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, the Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

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