Oprah Magazine. Tin House books have made the New York Times’ and other national bestseller lists, won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, been longlisted and among the finalists for the National Book Award, and more. Talty, 29, began teaching in the Native studies program at BMCC in 2018. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Native American studies from Dartmouth and a Master of Fine Arts from Stonecoast—University of Southern Maine. He also teaches creative writing at the University of Southern Maine and literature/college writing at Husson University. For Talty, writing has always been a passion. He finds himself inspired by Native writers who have come before him and those telling their stories today. “I’ve always been a storyteller. As I got older, I found writing—fiction and nonfiction—to be my medium through which I told stories,” says Talty. “Like so many Native tribes, there is very little representation in popular culture—there is nothing in popular culture about Penobscot people, and I wanted there to be. Mainstream literature/publishing needs more diverse voices, voices that have been marginalized for far too long.”