Likely the last in her family line to qualify for tribal citizenship with the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, Leigh Myers elegantly blends Native folklore, personal history, and the search for identity in this highly anticipated memoir, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity.

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Join us online over Zoom webinar as Myers discusses her memoir. There will be time for audience Q&A following the talk.

About the book

Because of her tribe’s strict blood quantum laws, Leigh Myers may be the last of her family to be formally recognized as a member of her tribe. For her, this realization carries with it a responsibility to preserve her heritage and her ancestors’ memory. Thinning Blood is Myers’s attempt to capture a record of her family’s history, presenting the stories of four generations of women. Beginning with her great-grandmother, the last full-blooded Native member in their lineage, she connects each woman with her totem to construct her family’s totem pole: protective Bear, defiant Salmon, compassionate Hummingbird, and perched on top, Raven. Myers weaves together tribal folktales, the history of the Native genocide, and Native mythology. With fresh perspectives and profound insight, she offers crisp and powerful vignettes of her own life between White and Native worlds. Thinning Blood is at once a bold reclamation of her female identity and a searingly honest meditation on heritage, family, and what it means to belong.

About the author

Photo by Blane Burroughs

Leah Myers received an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of New Orleans, where she won the Samuel Mockbee Award for Nonfiction two years in a row. She now lives in Alabama, with roots in Georgia, Arizona, and Washington.

This program is part of the American Inspiration Series from American Ancestors/NEHGS and presented in partnership with the GBH Forum Network. Copies of these books will be made available for ordering by Porter Square Books.

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