Rain Gomez is the winner of the 2009 First Book Awards competition in poetry from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas, for her manuscript of poetry, Smoked Mullet Cornbread Memory. Rain has a M.A. and Postgraduate work in American Studies from Michigan State University, and a B.A. in English from Seton Hill College. She is a mixedblood of Mvskogean (Louisiana Choctaw, Creek), Louisiana Creole descent, paternally, and Canadian Nakoda métis, and CelticAmerican descent maternally. Her poetry has appeared in several journals and most recently in Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry (To Topos: Poetry International). Her academic article “Brackish Bayou Blood: Weaving Mixed Blood Indian Creole Identity Outside the Written Record,” was recently published in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Rain's research is primarily concerned Mvskogean (Choctaw/Creek/Chickasaw) Diaspora and Louisiana Creole Indigeneity as manifested in material culture ways and literature.Rain is the SW/TX PCA conference Co-Chair of Native/Indigenous Studies, Currently Rain has accepted a Sutton Fellowship to the University of Oklahoma for her Ph.D. in English, Literary and Cultural Studies.


**Disclaimer: As a mestizo/metis person of multiracial Indigenous descent, in no way do my personal statements or experiences reflect/speak for ALL Indian peoples, or ANY Sovereign Nation in the Americas.