Help Lini Share Diné Wisdom Globally

As a Diné (Navajo) elder, I am driven and guided by a strong sense of grounding from my deeply rooted upbringing on the Diné reservation in Arizona and my experience surviving Indian boarding school. I not only survived, but thrived thanks in no small part to the love, teachings, and stories my grandmother and mother shared with me. My name is Lini Tsii'łibe' Wilkins and I invite you to help me preserve the stories of my grandmother and my people to share them with the global community. 

As a playwright, author, and 30-year teacher, these are my most important stories that urge to be told. Having far-reaching human significance these stories hold ancient teachings of the Diné on how to be a good five-fingered relative. These stories touch candidly and humorously on relationships with ourselves and with each other. They hold historical traumas and show that through the sharing of our most intimate selves we may bring together the fragments of our own lives onto a path of renewal. A path where we reestablish our connections to K’é (kinship) and Hozho (compassion, love, kindness, respect, joy) and right-relationship. These stories need to be told and embodied as we find new paths forward based on the wise wisdom of our elders. 

Bio

Lini Tsii'łibe' Wilkins has a BA degree in Education from the University of Arizona. Playwright of three plays: The Visitor, performed at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis as a part of a larger play called Stories From the Drum, an Indigenous-led performance in June 2019. Parable, Don’t Put Your Moccasins Under Your Pillow, performed by New Native Theatre in December 2020. And Mushrooms Will Make You Go Blind with Ilbijerri Theatre Company in Australia performed in November 2021. In 2018, Lini performed in over 30 shows with New Native Theater’s production of Red Running Into Water by Diné Playwright, Blossom Johnson, and Virtual Medicine Man by Anishinaabe Playwright, Deanna Standing Cloud. Lini is featured in the film, A Winter Love written and directed by Diné Playwright, Rhiana Yazzie. Lini was selected as one of Twin Cities PBS's emerging artists in 2022.

Your generous support will provide: 

• Editor - $2000

• Website - $1,500 

• Illustration application - $250

• Self publishing - $6,250

Levels:

What will people get for their donation?

$100 - Signed copy of the book

$250 - Signed copy of the book, invitation to virtual book reading

$500 - Signed copy of book and invitation to small in-person book reading