Half-Bead of Fundy

Phyllis Ann Fast is an artist (painter) and a woman of mixed descent (Tleeyegg’e hut’aane which is also known as Koyukon Athabascan and white American). She was born in Anchorage, Alaska in 1946 to Elsie and Oscar Fast, graduated from East Anchorage High School in the year of the 1964 Alaskan earthquake. She earned a BA in English from the University of Alaska then centered in Fairbanks, later an interdisciplinary Master of Arts from the University of Alaska Anchorage, and concluded her education with a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1998. After teaching at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Alaska Anchorage, she retired Professor Emerita in 2014, when she turned to writing fiction. She now lives in the Washington state.