Gladys Cardiff
(b. 1942)

Gladys Cardiff's mother was Irish and Welsh and her father was a member of the Owl clan of the North Carolina Cherokee. In her poems, Cardiff often celebrates her Native American traditions. Her connection to her father's heritage is shown in her use of Cherokee place names, including her references to rivers that run through Native American areas of the southeast United States.

Cardiff grew up in Seattle, Washington, and she received her Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in creative writing from the University of Washington. She gives workshops at universities on the writing of poetry, and she has traveled throughout schools in the state to teach young people to appreciate poetry by writing poetry themselves.

Cardiff has won prestigious awards for her work, including the Governor's Writer's Award for a first book, which she received in 1976 for To Frighten a Storm.

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