Dr. Joseph Bruchac, Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate, is a writer and traditional storyteller who lives in the Adirondack Mountains Region of northern New York in the house he was raised in by his grandparents. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. An enrolled member of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, much of his writing draws on his Native ancestry.

His education includes a B.A. from Cornell University, a Master’s Degree from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. from the Union Institute (Ohio). He is the winner of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts writing fellowship and a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship.

He and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, who are also storytellers and writers, work together teaching martial arts and in projects involving the preservation of Native culture, Native language renewal, teaching traditional Native skills, and environmental education at their Ndakinna Education Center. (ndakinnacenter.org). They recently teamed up with Abenaki artist Amy Hook-Therrien on a collaborative bilingual Abenaki  children's picture book, "Gluskonba and the Maple Trees."

His experiences include teaching at Skidmore college, Columbia University and Hamilton College, 8 years of running a college program in a maximum security prison, and 3 years of teaching in West Africa.

Author of over 160 books in several genres for young readers and adults, his best-selling PathFinder novel is Found, a title about a teenage survival expert finds all his skills tested as he’s pursued through the Canadian wilderness by men determined to silence him. ALA Booklist says "This high/low adventure is the epitome of an adrenaline rush." 

Selected List of Awards include:
2023 Poet Laureate, Saratoga Springs

American Book Award for Breaking Silence
Horn Book honor for The Boy Who Lived with the Bears
Scientific American Children’s Book Award for The Story of the Milky Way
Cherokee Nation Prose Award
Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children’s Literature
2005 Virginia Hamilton Literary Award
2001 Parents Guide to Childrens' Media Award for Skeleton Man
2000 Parents Choice Gold Award for Crazy Horse's Vision
1999 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas
1999 Jane Addams Childrens Book Award for Heart of a Chief
1998 Writer of the Year Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas
1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas
1997 Paterson Award for Dog People
1996 Boston Globe Book Award for The Boy Who Lived with the Bears
1995 Knickerbocker Award

See more at JoeBruchac.com