The Virginia G. Piper
Center for Creative Writing

Susan Devan Harness, author of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption, is a member of the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes. She is a writer, a lecturer, a cultural anthropologist and oral historian. Harness received her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Montana and her M.A. in Cultural Anthropology as well as Creative Nonfiction writing from Colorado State University. Her profession, as well as her experience as an American Indian transracial adoptee, gives her a unique perspective on the history of Native Americans in contemporary culture. She has written many articles about American Indian history and is a highly-regarded speaker on the topics of American Indian history and assimilation policies, including American Indian transracial adoption. Her research of American Indian transracial adoptees, Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958–1967) was published in 2009 by Edwin Mellen Press