Susan power author biography john
Mona Susan Power Interview, plus links to author biography, book summaries, excerpts and reviews.
In her fiction and nonfiction, Power draws on her own experiences as the daughter of a Sioux mother and Irish American father, growing up in..
Mona Susan Power
Native American author from Illinois and Minnesota, U.S.
Not to be confused with Susan Powers or Susan Kelly Power.
Mona Susan Power (Standing Rock Dakota, born 1961) is an Native American author based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Her debut novel, The Grass Dancer (1994), received the 1995 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for Best First Fiction.
Early life
Power was born in Chicago, Illinois,[3] and is a Yantonai Dakota enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota.[4][5] Her mother, Susan Kelly Power, Gathering of Stormclouds Woman (Standing Rock Dakota, 1925–2022), was an activist who helped found the American Indian Center of Chicago.[4] Susan's mother, Mona's grandmother, Josephine Gates Kelly was three-term tribal chairperson for the Stand Rock Sioux Tribe.[4] Mona's great-grandmother was Nellie Two Bear Gates.[6] She is a descendant of Sioux Chief Mato Nupa (