Today, we’re excited to chat with Heid E. Erdrich. Heid is an author, researcher, educator, curator and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. 

In 2024, she was the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate and, in 2025, she served as the James and Lois Welch Distinguished Native American Visiting Writer at the University of Montana – Missoula. 

Her recent books are Boundless: Abundance in Native American Art and Literature, which she co-edited, and Verb Animate: Poems, Prose and Prompts from Collaborative Acts.

In our discussion, she examines her fascination with researching family history and with tracing the ancestral migrations that brought her to where she is now. A frequent collaborator, she talks about the power of working alongside literary and visual artists and how one of those partnerships inspired a unique synchronicity involving pink dolphins.

Heid also shares her “best bad habit” and her take on the greatest gift anyone can give a creative artist.

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Hosts / Producers: Leah Lemm, Cole Premo 

Editor: Britt Aamodt 

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger 

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood