skip to main content

openmikes.org

US and Canadian Open Mikes - by musicians, for musicians

User profile: Ridley Maria

Details:

With countless high school State records, All-Americans and Athletes of the Year, by 15, Ridley was runnning in the PAC-10 and for the USA in Cross Country and Track. At 18, she ran the fastest time in the nation in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters on the track before getting injured. Becoming a debate champion, she tutored ESL, eventually traveling to Japan teaching Engish. After a researcher on Supreme Court cases and Federal Indian Policy for sovereignty on Lummi Nation's Treaty Protection Task Force, she entered the print world, managing Kinko's, and began writing poems. With six brothers and a sister, growing up in the same small cedar house built by her Great Great Grandpa Julius Charles at the mouth of the Nooksack River, Fish Point Village, Lummi Nation --- her short stories range from purse seine fishermen to alcoholic elders who sober up to ghosts at burnings to run away lesbian daughters. She lives in Bellingham and writes for the Squol Quol, Lummi's tribal newspaper.