Carnival Lights

Chris Stark (Anishinaabe & Cherokee) is an award-winning writer, researcher, visual artist, and national and international speaker. Her first novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, was a Lambda Literary Finalist. Her essays, poems, academic writing, and creative non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, including The Palgrave International Handbook on Trafficking; University of Pennsylvania Law Review; Dignity Journal; The WIP; Florida Review; The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prize-Winning Essays; When We Became Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwest Experience; Hawk and Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability; and many others. Her poem, "Momma's Song," was recorded by Fred Ho and the Afro Asian Music Ensemble as a double manga CD. She is also a co-editor of Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography; and a co-author of the ground-breaking research "Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota." Primary research she conducted with Native women survivors of prostitution and trafficking on the ships in Duluth, Minnesota is included in her article "Strategies to Restore Justice for Sex Trafficked Native Women." She is also co-author and co-researcher of "Evidence of Survivor, Agency, and Researcher Collaboration: An Example of an Emerging Model of Survivor Wellbeing." Stark's writing has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. In 2012, she was named a "Changemaker" by the Women's Press and she was a Loft Series Mentor Finalist. In 2019, she received the International Social Justice Citizen Award from the International Leadership Institute. She has appeared in numerous media, including NPR, MPR, PBS, Justice Talking, and Robin Morgan's radio show. She has spoken at law schools, conferences, rallies, and at the United Nations (four times). She has taught writing and humanity courses at universities and community colleges for twenty years and she was the Two-Spirit program director at Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center. Currently, she facilitates art and writing groups at Breaking Free in St. Paul, consults with a variety of local and national organizations, and teaches writing and literature at Central Lakes Community College in Brainerd, Minnesota. She is a member of the Minnesota Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Taskforce. She has an MFA in Writing and a Master's in Social Work. For more information, visit: www.christinestark.com