Mona Susan Power

Power was born in Chicago, Illinois, 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. Mona's great-grandmother was bead artist Nellie Two Bear Gates. She is a descendant of Sioux Chief Mato Nupa (Two Bears). Power's father, Carleton Gilmore Power, a European-American from New England, worked in publishing as a salesman. One of his great-great-grandfathers was Governor of New Hampshire. == Education ==

Power earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School. In 1992 she received an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. == Career ==

Power's 1994 debut novel, The Grass Dancer, follows four generations of Native Americans, with the plot stretching from 1864 to 1986. She released the collection Roofwalker in 2002 and the novel Sacred Wilderness in 2014. Power's novel A Council of Dolls was released in 2023. The novel was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. Her short fiction has been published in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Voice Literary Supplement, Ploughshares, Story, and The Best American Short Stories 1993. She is a professor emeritus at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. == Honors and awards ==

The Grass Dancer won the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. In 2024, A Council of Dolls won a Minnesota Book Award in the Novel & Short Story category. == Bibliography ==