Amber Blaeser-Wardzala is an Anishinaabe writer, beadwork artist, and jingle dress dancer. She is a first-degree descendant of White Earth Nation in Minnesota and grew up in southeastern Wisconsin. She received her MFA from Arizona State University and was the 2024-25 George Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy. Her writing has appeared in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, The Iowa Review, Joyland, Passages North, CRAFT, and others. She has received support from Storyknife Writers Retreat, Vermont Studio Center, the Hambidge Center, Ragdale Foundation, Write On Door County, the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, the Virginia G. Piper Center, and the Women’s National Book Association. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Fiction at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio where she lives with her overactive dog, Fern.
“Another Name for Red is a beautifully written, poignant and propulsive debut novel about loss, hope, and the difficult relationships in the life of an Anishinaabe woman. I absolutely devoured this novel. Amber Blaeser-Wardzala is an engaging and extraordinary new voice in Native American literature. You will not be able to put this book down!” —Brandon Hobson, National Book Award finalist and author of The Removed