Tobi Iverson writes large-scale cinematic stories from inside the world she comes from.
That story has a source.
It begins with Arthur Wellington Clah — her great-great-grandfather, who learned English from a missionary, having first taught the missionary his own language. For fifty years he kept a diary in that hard-won English through one of the most devastating periods in Northwest Coast history, including the 1862 smallpox epidemic.
After his death in 1916, the diaries were taken to London, where they remained for more than a century. In boxes. Waiting.
Iverson knew of them for years before she finally opened them herself.
In Clah's own words:
He was not writing from the outside. He was writing what his people lived.
That history gave rise to Wild Woman of the Woods — and the world around it.
She holds degrees in Anthropology and American Indian Studies from the University of Washington, Seattle. A former cultural interpreter and guide in Southeast Alaska, she also served as Washington State Tribal Census Lead across 29 tribes.
She is represented by entertainment attorney Caitlin DiMotta at Troy Gould PC.
Iverson writes from inside a living culture — one she has inherited, studied, and witnessed firsthand. Her work is shaped by the art, ceremony, and people still carrying this world forward. She writes what she sees, so others can feel its power.
For me, this work is not separate from culture. Storytelling and myth-making are among our oldest forms of cultural expression — this film is my way of carrying that tradition forward in a contemporary medium.
Some carve stories with a blade. I use a pencil.
