Nationally and internationally known as a poet, essayist, and storyteller, Marilou Awiakta is also an activist, community leader, and environmental advocate. She weaves her Cherokee and Appalachian heritages with her experience of growing up during the nuclear era in Oak Ridge, TN (a “Secret City” for atomic research) to address current issues and emphasize how important respect, harmony, and diversity are to the web of life. Her work has influenced change at local, national, and international levels for cultural diversity, protection of the environment, women’s rights, and civil rights.

In August 2020, she made a mark in history as one of ten women chosen from Tennessee and 500 nationwide for USA TODAY’S Women of the Century commemorating the 19th Amendment’s 100th anniversary giving women the right to vote. Recognizing women who helped change and are still changing America, Dolly Parton, Pat Summitt, and Wilma Rudolph represent some of Tennessee’s notables while nationwide examples include Oprah Winfrey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Georgia O‘Keefe, and Madeleine Albright.

Marilou Awiakta was born in Knoxville, TN, on January 24, 1936. Graduating Magna Cum Laude from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with an English/French double major and marrying Paul Thompson in 1957, the pair moved to Memphis and then to Laon, France, in 1964 where Paul practiced as a physician while she was a social liaison translator at the U. S. Air Force Base. In 1967, they returned to Memphis.

Her first book, Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet (published 1978), includes poems about her life experiences growing up in the "Secret City" of Oak Ridge during the nuclear era and World War II’s Manhattan Project. Her second book, Rising Fawn and The Fire Mystery (published 1983), is about a young Choctaw girl’s experiences during the 1833 Chocktaw Removal. The Memphis Arts Council used Rising Fawn for a citywide school program as did the school system in Aukland, New Zealand. Both books were selected for the U.S. Information Agency’s 1986 Global Tour of American Writers.

Selu: Seeking the Corn Mother's Wisdom (published 1993) features an intricate weaving of poems, storytelling, and essays about justice and survival as readers are introduced to the Corn-Mother, Selu, who signifies the Life Force of the Cherokee traditional survival principles such as strength, respect, balance, adaptability, and cooperation. These common-sense teachings have a direct bearing on the concerns of today’s society.

Selu addresses stark issues such as the Tellico Dam controversy in East Tennessee, reunion of the Cherokee Councils of East and West, nuclear energy dilemma, perception of a “woman’s place,” and how our lives weave into the web of life. Chosen as a 1994 Quality Paperback Book Club Selection, the audio version received a 1996 Grammy Award nomination. A quotation from Selu is engraved in Nashville TN’s River Wall of the Bicentennial Capitol Mall, and the poem “Motheroot” is inlaid in the University of California’s Fine Arts Walkway, Riverside, CA. Selu has been used in numerous college/university curriculums throughout the U.S. including Radford University/VA, Tufts and Brown Universities/MA, Vanderbilt/TN, Emory University/GA, and the University of New Mexico/NM.

In Selu’s forward, Wilma Mankiller, principal Chief of Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation, said “As you read through this extraordinary book, you will be helped onto a path that will enable you to gain a clear sense that there is a way we can stop destroying the very world that sustains us, and we can return to a time of balance and harmony.”

Biography provided by Marilou Awiakta's daughter, Aleex Conner.