I am Mniconjou Lakota and a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, which is located in South Dakota. Taté (pronounced tah-TAY), means "wind" in Lakota; in our origin stories, Taté was the messenger of the spirit beings and commanded the winds to convey correspondence. I'd like to think my passion for communications, writing, visual storytelling, and Indigenous activism helps me live up to my name and heritage.  

 

I am blessed and privileged to live on the O'odham/Piipaash homelands of so-called Phoenix, Ariz. We moved here from Colorado in 2015 and absolutely love the desert - yes, even the heat. Of course, my own homelands will forever be those of the Oceti Sakowi. In my spare time, I write creative fiction and poetry, take photos, try (and fail) to grab funny videos of our house cats (Iko, Sassafras, NiMare, and Solstice + the 9-member feral/outdoor kittehs), read, hike, and play board games with my partner Dalton and our high school-aged kiddo. 

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Here is my official biography: Taté Walker (they/them) is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are an award-winning Two Spirit storyteller. Their first full-length poetry book, The Trickster Riots, was published in 2022, by Abalone Mountain Press.

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Taté, a 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, has written, photographed, and/or edited for various outlets, including The Nation, Yellow Medicine Review, Little Somethings Press, Studies in American Indian Literature, Pipe Wrench, Apartment Therapy, Everyday Feminism, Native Peoples, Indian Country Today, Subaru Drive, and December. They are also featured in several anthologies: FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women, South Dakota in Poems, W.W. Norton's Everyone's an Author, and Good Eats: 32 Writers on Eating Ethically. Their next book, “Indigenous Voices,” is forthcoming in 2025 from The Quarto Group.
 
Taté is a co-founder of the Phoenix Two Spirit Community group, which helps organize the annual Arizona Two Spirit Powwow and Rainbow Gathering. They are also a longtime member of—and also serve on the board of directors for—the Oceti Sakowin Writers Society, which has a mission to mentor, empower, and promote Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota literary traditions. Taté is a 2023 ASU Poetry & the Senses Fellow and the 2023 Storyknife Fireweed Fellow. Taté has 20 years of experience in print/digital journalism and advocacy writing, and is a trusted community builder within/for social justice and tribal education spaces.