Sara Marie Ortiz

Citizen of the Pueblo of Acoma

Sara Marie Ortiz is a Seattle-based educator, Native education, arts, literature, and culture specialist, teaching artist, and writer of creative nonfiction, poetry, and mixed-genre work. She is an enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Acoma, a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts (BFA in creative writing) and Antioch University Los Angeles (MFA in creative writing). She has studied, formally creative writing, law, Indigenous education, journalism, oral traditions, radio, film, and theater. She has published widely, has been featured in such publications as the Kenyon Review, the Florida Review, Ploughshares, among many others, and she has presented widely from her beloved birthplace in New Mexico, throughout the Pacific Northwest, and all the way to Johannesburg, South Africa and Geneva, Switzerland. Sara Marie is a passionate Native educator and advocate in the realm of Native education, arts, culture, literature, Tribal languages, and community. She has done theater performances – both as a creator and an actor – for two decades, including co-composing a short theater piece with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon (Diné) at the University of New Mexico. Ms. Ortiz is a graduate of the ABC Disney Summer Film & TV Institute which took place at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and formerly co-hosted a radio program called Moccasin Wire on the solar-powered radio station KTAO in Taos, New Mexico. She currently serves as the Native Education Program Manager for Highline Public Schools in Burien, Washington and the Westside Urban Representative on the WA State Native Education Advisory Committee to the Washington State Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction. Ms. Ortiz is an avid cinephile, loves poetry/spoken word & live performance of all iterations, loves listening to all kinds of music (especially chilled electronic, old timey blue grass, hip hop, and outlaw county) and has a fluffy orange cat named Mr. Pickles.