Seeds of Language, Seeds of Stories: Siihasin (Reflection and Thinking Ahead)
In partnership with AZ Humanities and the Labriola Center, this session is the final four of a four-part creative writing program that is open to storytellers at all levels and to the general public. This is the final workshop session for Seeds of Language, Seeds of Stories, hosted by Manny Loley at AZ Humanities on Saturday, March 7, 2026 from 3:00 p.m. to 4 p.m.
About Workshop Session
The final session of this series will take place at the Blue Corn Fest in March 2026. In this final session, we will reflect on what we’ve learned in previous sessions and think about creative ways we can pass on this knowledge. Now that we’ve thought about corn, planting, and growth, what are some ideas that we’ll take away from this experience and how can we incorporate those ideas into our living? What are some creative ways that we can pass on this knowledge? What are some bigger ideas or epiphanies we’ve had in this process? Participants will create some kind of object to pass on ideas from this series. We will brainstorm and work together to create these objects in our time together.
Materials needed: something to write and take notes with.
Dr. Manny Loley is ‘Áshįįhi born for Tó Baazhní’ázhí; his maternal grandparents are the Tódích’íi’nii and his paternal grandparents are the Kinyaa’áanii. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing-Fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Dr. Loley is an inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow, a founding member of Saad Bee Hózhǫ́: Diné Writers’ Collective, and the editor for Leading the Way: Wisdom of the Navajo People. Since 2018, he has served as director of the Emerging Diné Writers’ Institute. His work has found homes in Poetry Magazine, Pleiades Magazine, the Massachusetts Review, the Santa Fe Literary Review, Broadsided Press, the Arkansas International, The Gift of Animals, Nihikéyah: Navajo Homeland, and the Diné Reader: an Anthology of Navajo Literature, among others. His writing has been thrice nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Dr. Loley is at work on a novel titled They Collect Rain in Their Palms. He is from Tsétah Tó Ák’olí on the Navajo Nation.
