The University of Arizona Press
Date: Monday, November 23, 2026
Time: 7 p.m., PDT
Place: THE 222, 222 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg, CA
Admission: General admission is $20, children under 18 and students with ID enter free, tickets are here.
This Music: Record of a Poet Becoming is the final, intimate work of celebrated Koyoonk’auwi (Concow) poet and essayist Janice Gould, completed posthumously by a collective of close friends and literary scholars. Janice Gould, a northern California Indigenous woman, was a poet, essayist, musician, photographer, professor, activist, and theorist. Two of the book’s editors, Kim Shuck and Jennifer Foerster, will celebrate the book’s launch at an event sponsored by the Healdsburg Literary Guild. Kim Shuck (Cherokee) is a former San Francisco Poet Laureate, essayist and fiber artist, and Jennifer Foerser (Mvskoke) is a published poet, arts administrator, and professor.
The celebration will take place at THE 222 on Monday, November 23, 2026, at 7 p.m. PST. General admission to this event costs $20, and children under 18 and students with ID enter free.
About the book:
A vital contribution to Indigenous and LGBTQ+ literatures, this book offers readers a rare and powerful account of gender, sexuality, and Native identity in mid-century and contemporary America. Told through lyrical prose poems and personal photographs, this memoir traces Gould’s life as a queer/Two-Spirit California Native coming of age in the late 1960s, navigating family, identity, activism, and art.
With reflections on her mixed-blood heritage, her experiences in lesbian feminist circles, and her journey as a poet and musician, Gould’s voice resonates with clarity, tenderness, and fierce honesty. Ideal for readers of poetry, memoir, and Indigenous literature, this book will resonate deeply with scholars, students, and anyone drawn to stories of resilience, creativity, and the enduring power of memory.
