Canyon Sam

Canyon Sam is an author, performance artist, and Tibetan rights activist.[1] Her honors include the 2010 PEN American Center's Open Book Award, a National Endowment for the Arts scholarship, a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist's grant in literature, and a Screenwriting Fellowship from the Center for Asian American Media, among others.[2] She has published fiction, non-fiction, and drama in many publications.[3]

Biography

She was born and grew up in San Francisco, and took the name Canyon Sam as a teenager after having a dream "about a beautiful canyon".[4][5] She later earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State University.[5]

She first visited Tibet when it first opened to foreign tourists in 1986.[6] In February 1987, the first international conference on Buddhist nuns was held in Bodh Gaya, India, and Canyon Sam worked there; later back in America she raised funds for Tibetan nuns in exile, which became the Tibetan Nuns Project.[6]

In 2007, she returned to Tibet and interviewed various Tibetan women; in 2009, she published a book that "recounts Tibet's recent past through the lives of four Tibetan women," titled Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History.[7]

In 2011, a short documentary about her life premiered, titled A Woman Named Canyon Sam. [8][9]

Canyon Sam also created a one-woman show called The Dissident, about her travels in China and Tibet and her human rights work with Buddhist nuns, which played at the Walker Art Center, the Asia Society, New York, and the Solo Mio festival, and headlined the National Women's Theater Festival.[3] It was later made into a film.[10]

She is openly lesbian.[11]

References
  1. "Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History". Silkwormbooks.com. 2010-01-23. Archived from the original on 2012-09-10. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  2. "Friday Seminar with Canyon Sam | California College of the Arts". Cca.edu. Archived from the original on 2012-03-20. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  3. "AATC presents Canyon Sam". Aatrevue.com. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  4. "Canyon Sam, author of Sky Train, at the 2011 Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival". Tales Told From The Road. 2011-04-18. Archived from the original on 2011-04-24. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  5. "Canyon Sam". Canyon Sam. 2010-12-18. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  6. "Canyon Sam: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  7. Ponlop, Dzogchen (2009). Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History (9780295989532): Canyon Sam: Books. ISBN 978-0295989532.
  8. "Help fund A Woman Named Canyon Sam". channelAPA.com. 2011-04-14. Archived from the original on 2011-08-26. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  9. "Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival | A program of the Honolulu Gay & Lesbian Cultural Foundation". Hglcf.org. Archived from the original on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  10. "Sky Train". Canyon Sam. 2010-12-18. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  11. "More gay stuff at the Asian Film Festival". www.dallasvoice.com. Archived from the original on 2011-08-23.
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