M.L. SMOKER belongs to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation in north-eastern Montana. She is Montana’s current Poet Laureate. She holds an MFA from the University of Montana in Missoula, where she was the recipient of the Richard Hugo Fellowship. She is also a graduate of Pepperdine University, and attended UCLA and the University of Colorado. Smoker Broaddus currently works for the Office of Public Instruction as the Director of Indian Education. She has spent the past seven years overseeing the work of statewide Indian Education for All Efforts and the Schools of Promise initiative, which seeks to turnaround the states lowest performing schools. In 2015, she was named the Indian Educator of Year by the National Indian Education Association. She was also recently appointed to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education by President Barack Obama. She was formerly an administrator in her home community of Frazer, Montana for three years. She has taught courses at Fort Peck Community College and the University of Montana. She has published one collection of poems, Another Attempt at Rescue (Hanging Loose Press, 2005). She has also served as a writer and consultant on the PBS documentaries Before There Were Parks and Indian Relay (which earned her a regional Emmy award).