Thommy Ahneesan (Santee Tribe, Dakota Nation) emerged from the cornfields of Iowa and pierced the cloud-forest of Seattle to begin her life’s work as a musician, poet, world traveler and all-purpose rock n roll troublemaker. She was featured by Forterra as one of the Pacific Northwest’s essential artists. Her poetry explores mixed-blood identity, the camaraderie found in poverty and intergenerational trauma with sparkling resilience, humor and tenderness. As a newly anointed single mother, she spends her time making stuffed animals talk while secretly wondering, “maybe this is my salvation, at long last?” A soft corner, all her own, where authentic freedom is possible in the silent and peaceful world-building that is happening between Thommy and her daughter, Una Roo. Her new book, Ruin Everything, forthcoming from Writ Large Projects, is her life story up until this very moment. It might be about chaos, ghosts, curses. Fighting and giving up fighting.