Diane E. Benson

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Diane Benson

Diane E. Benson (born 1959) is an Alaskan playwright, actor, poet and politician.

Benson was born in Yakima, Washington of White, her father, and Tlingit, her mother, ancestry (Tax' Hit, Snail House, of the Raven Moiety) and describes herself as "a lifelong Alaskan" [1]. She received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2002. Benson founded the Alaska Native Performance and Film Commission in 1993, and went on to act in its first fully Alaskan production, Kusah Hakwaan (2001).

Benson made local and national news in 2001 for raising claims of racism against Anchorage poet and professor Linda McCarriston, though federal civil rights investigators cleared the charges.

Benson's play When My Spirit Raised its Hands, a one-woman piece centering on early civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich [2] has earned acclaim from Native journals and writer's groups, and was performed in March 2006 as part of the Smithsonian Institution's contribution to Women's History Month. [3]

Benson unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Alaska in 2002 on the Green Party of Alaska ticket. She lost in 2006 as a Democratic candidate for Alaska's At-large congressional district, to long-time incumbent Representative Don Young and finishing with roughly 40% of the vote.^[1]

Benson lives in Chugiak, Alaska, a community of Anchorage, and has one foster daughter and one son. Her son, Latseen Benson, is an army veteran who was severely wounded in Iraq in November 2005. [4]

[edit] Bibliography

"Standing Up Against the Giant", in American Indian Quarterly, 27.1&2 (2003) pp. 67-79, reproduced on line.
Witness to the Stolen, Raven's Word Press, 2002.
Sister Warrior, 2002. (play)
When My Spirit Raised its Hands: The Story of Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alaska Civil Rights, 2001. (one-act play, see article below)
Spirit of Woman
Freight, Moon and Inconvenience, 2000.
When Raven Cries (with Kadashan and Bertrand J. Adams), 1997. ISBN 1-890693-01-4
Umyuugwagka: My Mind, My Consciousness. An Anthology of Poetry from the Arctic Regions ISBN 1-873918-14-3.
Benson's history of the Tlingit peoples (encyclopedia entry)
"Recovery" and "Potlatch Ducks", in Callaloo, 17:1 (Winter 1994) (Available via J-STOR, requires login.