The Osage News is excited to announce the hiring of Osage author Chelsea T. Hicks as its newest staff writer.
Hicks, Wahzhahze of the Pawhuska District, and belonging to the Tsizho Washtake clan, is a descendant of Ogeese Captain, Cyprian Tayrien, Rosalie Captain Chouteau, Chief Pawhuska I, her iko Betty Elsey Hicks, and is the daughter of Brian and Holly Hicks.
She is the author of “A Calm & Normal Heart,” which won the 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation and was long-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award. She holds an MA from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Hicks joins the News staff at a historic time in the Osage Nation’s history. With the success of the Wahzhazhe Health Center and the recent groundbreaking for its new state-of-the-art multimillion-dollar facility, Hicks will cover the Nation’s health system programs which cover a wide array of services. She will also lend her considerable talents to writing features of the Osage people and Osage life.
“We are very excited to have Chelsea on board,” said Osage News Editor Shannon Shaw Duty. “We feel fortunate to have a writer of her caliber on staff, who is eager to tell the stories of the Osage people. With her knowledge of the Wahzhazhe language and linguistics in general, I am excited to see how she uses this knowledge in her writings.”
Hicks’ advocacy work has included recruiting with the Virginia Indian Pre-College Outreach Initiative (VIP-COI), Northern and Southern California Osage diaspora groups, and heritage language creative writing and revitalization workshops. She is a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation 2021 LIFT Awardee, and her writing has been published in McSweeney’s, Yellow Medicine Review, the LA Review of Books, Indian Country Today, the Believer, The Audacity, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. The Ford Foundation awarded her a 2021 honorable mention for the promotion of Indigenous-language creative writing.
Hicks is also a 2021-2023 Tulsa Artist Fellow. Hicks was also recently featured in the documentary “A Bridge Over the Ocean,” by French filmmaker Francis Fourcou.
