David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Weiden grew up in the Swansea/Elyria neighborhood of Denver, Colorado.^[4] As an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation,^[1][5][6] he spent summers at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota.^[4]

A first-generation college student,^[7] Weiden received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Juris Doctor degree from University of Denver's Sturm College of Law.^[4][3] After practicing law for several years, he decided to pursue academia, earning a PhD in political science from the University of Texas at Austin.^[3][4]

After receiving his doctorate, he taught at Hofstra University, Illinois State University, and the United States Naval Academy.^[4] Following the birth of his children, he decided he wanted to devote time and energy to writing creatively, so in 2011, he began a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree at Vermont College of Fine Arts, later transferring to the Institute of American Indian Arts.^[4]

He is a tenured professor of Native American studies and political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver.^[3][4][6] His academic work focuses on Native American issues and he provides legal assistance to various Native American organizations.^[7] He has been an instructor in the MFA programs at Cedar Crest College and Regis University.^[8][9] In 2022, he served as a mentor for PEN America's Emerging Writers program.^[10]

Weiden lives in Denver with his family.^[11]

Weiden has received two MacDowell Fellowships (2018, 2022)^[12][7] and the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship (2018).^[13][6] He has also been a Ragdale Foundation Resident in Fiction^[11] and a Tin House Scholar (2019).^[7][14]

His debut novel Winter Counts was named one of the best crime novels of the year by The Guardian,^[15] NPR,^[16] and Publishers Weekly.^[17] It was also a New York Times Editors' Choice selection in October 2020.^[18]