Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North and a citizen of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. His multi-award winning third book, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, was published by Milkweed Editions on August 20, 2024. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large (2018, Riverfeet Press) won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award. His book of haiku and haibun poetry, Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel, was published in 2021 by Foothills Publishing.
Chris served as the 2025 Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Montana and was awarded the 2025 Montana Heritage Keeper Award by the Montana Historical Society. He has facilitated workshops for The Missoula Writing Collaborative, Yellowstone Forever, the Freeflow Institute, Writing the Wild, Orion, and others.
Chris writes the weekly newsletter “An Irritable Métis” and lives near Frenchtown, Montana. He is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023–2025.
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Join us in welcoming Montana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray for the paperback release of his bestselling memoir, Becoming Little Shell. “Nothing less than the history of a people in the form of an absorbing and emotionally searing memoir.”—David Treuer, author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee “I’m committed to uncovering the culture of my people.
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