"It is not a coincidence the two of us met here, where a girl’s story can fall across an entire town, like pine needles."
Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe. Native to the Pacific Northwest, she draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city. She writes with a focus on trauma and resilience, ranging topics from PTSD, sexual violence, the work her great grandmother did for the Lushootseed language revitalization, to loud basement punk shows and what it means to grow up mixed heritage. Sasha explores her own truth of indigenous identity in the Coast Salish territory.
Sasha’s work holds both tenderness and strength, inviting readers to sit with grief, joy, memory, and the powerful act of surviving with our hearts intact.
Through poetry and prose, Sasha centers lived experience and ancestral knowledge in all of her work, reminding us that healing often begins when stories are both told aloud and witnessed with deep care. Her work doesn’t shy away from complexity; instead, it creates space for honesty, reflection, and connection—values that resonate deeply here at the Lopez Island Family Resource Center.
Sasha’s writing reminds us that community is not just a place, but a practice: listening deeply, holding one another with dignity, and making room for stories that shape who we are and who we’re becoming.
We invite you to explore Sasha LaPointe’s work and learn more about her writing and art at sasha-lapointe.com. Her books are also available through the Lopez Bookshop and the Lopez Library as a few copies on hand. We hope her words offer you the same sense of grounding and connection they’ve brought to us.
At LIFRC, we see every day how care and storytelling are intertwined. Whether it’s families gathering for shared meals, youth finding their voices through leadership and advocacy, or elders passing down wisdom, resilience on Lopez is built collectively. Like Sasha’s work, our programs honor the whole person—acknowledging history, identity, and the strength people carry with them into the present.
As always, thank you for being part of a community that believes that care, creativity, and resilience are strongest when they’re shared.
We hope to see you at this year’s Summer Social on Saturday, July 11th.
Contact barbara@lifrc.org for more information.