Charley Flyte

Charley Flyte was born in Provo, Utah and is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (Pine Ridge) and is of Mohawk (Six Nations) and Scottish and English descent. She grew up dancing fancy shawl at powwows as a child, does traditional beadwork in her spare time, and is reclaiming her languages, one day at a time. She is also an artist, like her parents, working in pencil, pen and ink, printmaking, oil and acrylic painting, and sound installation. Charley received her Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media Studies from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. After her academic advisor told her that it was impossible to get a job in production, she talked her way into her first job on The Wire, and after a few jobs in production, moved to NYC to study acting at the T. Schreiber Studio. After a few penniless years doing theatre in New York, she moved to Los Angeles, where she joined the Native Voices at the Autry Ensemble, and, at the encouragement of a Native writer's group, began to write. Her short supernatural horror film script, "Charla", made the finals of the Sundance Native Filmmaker Fellowship Lab. Bird Runningwater, of the Sundance Institute, calls the script "an important film -- genre-bending, yet socially conscious." Readers of her prose poem "Afterschool Special" call it "a striking work","profoundly affecting", "incredibly unique", and report that they were "gutted by [it's] narrative promise."