Natalie Diaz grew up in Fort Mojave Indian Village
in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River.
She is a Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian
Community.
After playing professional basketball in Europe and Asia
for several years, she completed her MFA in poetry and fiction
at Old Dominion University.
Her first book, When My Brother Was an Aztec,
was published in June 2012, by Copper Canyon Press.
She currently lives in Mojave Valley, Arizona,
and directs a language revitalization program
at Fort Mojave, her home reservation.
There, she works and teaches with the last Elder speakers
of the Mojave language.