A poet, artist, and scholar, Gwen Westerman lives in southern Minnesota, as did her Dakota ancestors. Her roots are deep in the landscape of the tallgrass prairie, and reveal themselves in her art and writing through the languages and traditions of her family. She is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and is a Distinguished Faculty Research  Scholar in English and Humanities at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Westerman is co-author of the award-winning Mni Sota Makoce: Land of the Dakota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012), a history of Dakota land tenure in Minnesota. Her articles and essays have appeared in the Albany Government Law Review, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Western American Literature, Ramsey County History, and Great Plains Quarterly. She has presented at the Western History Association Conference, Western Literature Association Conference, Folklore Society of America Conference, and Modern Language Association. Westerman is also the author of Follow the Blackbirds (Michigan State University Press, 2013), a poetry collection in Dakota and English, and War Mothers Song which will be out soon.