Mihku Paul is a writer, visual artist, and storyteller. A Malaseet Indian, Mihku is a member of Kingsclear First Nation, N.B., Canada She was born and raised along the Penobscot river in Maine.
Mihku received a traditional education from her grandfather, a Maliseet trapper and river guide who served in WWII and traveled in a wild west show. She received her MFA from the Stonecoast MFA Program at USM in 2010.
Look Twice: The Waponahki in Image & Verse was her first multimedia installation, and includes archival photographs, poetry and original graphic art. The exhibit was displayed at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine in the spring of 2010 and was the first of its kind. It has also been shown at USM’s Glickman Library.
Mihku is active on student issues of diversity and accessibility in higher education, and most recently co-authored a chapter on culture-based education with Kelly Hrenko, Phd. The chapter is forth-coming in the Indigenous education journal, Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies. She has served for several years as a visiting artist in local Portland schools and done curriculum enrichment on Waponaki culture at the grade school through high school levels.
Her first book of poetry, 20th Century PowWow Playland, was published in 2012 by Greenfield Review Press (Native Author Series), the imprint founded by Joseph Bruchac.
She currently teaches fiction writing at the University of New England and writing workshops for Native woman and youth with Gedakina, a New England non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening Indigenous communities by providing cultural preservation activities, outdoor exploration and leadership programs and health and wellness events.
Her most recent publications include, Song for Machigonne, in Port City Poems and, The Compass and the Rose, for the Tate House Museum.