MEMORY KEEPERS INITIATIVE
featuring GREG SARRIS & JANE CIABATTARI
FEB 20, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Greg Sarris and “The Forgetters: An Evolving Story”
Author Greg Sarris, who serves as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, dives into his latest novel The Forgetters—a tender, astonishing, and richly beautiful story cycle about remembering our shared histories and repairing the world. In conversation with fellow author and cultural critic Jane Ciabattari, Sarris will share excerpts from his novel, featuring unforgettable characters in search of a crucial lesson from their past that will help them repair the rifts in their own lives, told in the classic style of Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok creation stories. Greg Sarris has navigated many identities and cultural spheres, as a gay man, born of a German Jewish mother, a southern Pomo/Coast Miwok/Filipino father, as a tribal leader, a professor, a screenwriter, co-producer, always as a storyteller, with books of nonfiction and fiction. Sarris will also recount his journey through academia, literature and film to the highest levels of leadership in his tribe and his community, as well as serving on the UC Board of Regents and as board chair of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Greg Sarris is serving his sixteenth consecutive elected term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. In addition to serving as Chairman of his Tribe, he serves as President of the Tribe’s Economic Development Board, overseeing all of the Tribe’s business interests, including the Graton Resort and Casino. He is Chair to the Board of Trustees for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was appointed by Governor Newsom in June 2023 to the University of California Board of Regents. Formerly a full professor of English at UCLA, and then the Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University, Greg now holds the title of Distinguished Emeritus Graton Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Sonoma State University. Sarris received his Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Walter Gore Award for excellence in teaching. He has written several books, including Grand Avenue, an award-winning collection of short stories, which he adapted for an HBO miniseries and co-executive produced with Robert Redford. He is executive producer of I Am A Noise, a Joan Baez documentary film. His latest book, The Forgetters, was published in April 2024.
RAVE REVIEWS FOR “THE FORGETTERS”
"The Forgetters is…immediately engaging, a revealing glimpse into the lives, places and heritage of our region’s Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok people, and provocative because, with rich detail and lyrical craft, Sarris calls on us to remember the essential way all humans actually come to understand and value our lives.”
- The Press Democrat
FEATURED ARTISTS
GREG SARRIS - Author and Speaker
JANE CIABATTARI - Interviewer
