Louise Louise ErdrichErdrich

1954-1954-

"People in [Native American] families make everything into a story . . . People just sit and the stories start coming, one after another. I suppose that when you grow up constantly hearing the stories rise, break, and fall, it gets into you somehow."

From and intervierw with Michael Schumacherin Writer's Digest

Short Biography

• Born in 1954, in Little Falls to aFrench Ojibwe mother and German American father• Member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa • Grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota• Parents worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs• Entered Dartmouth University in 1972 where she met author,Michael Dorris• Taught poetry and writing to young people through parttime position at the State Arts

Council of North Dakota • Worked a variety of low-paying jobs, from waitressing to weighing trucks on the

interstate • Received an M.A. degree from the John Hopkins University in 1979 • Editor of the Boston Indian Council newspaper, The Circle. • Became writer-in-residence at Dartmouth and Dorris in 1981• Began writing collaboratively with husband.• First book of poetry, Jacklight, was published in 1984, and was followed by a second

collection, Baptism of Fire, in 1989 • Husband, Michael Dorris committed suicide in 1997 • Lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small

independent bookstore.

Major Themes

Draws on her Chippewa heritage to examine

• Family

• Sexual relationships

• Full and mixed blood Native Americans and their struggle with questions of identity in a culture dominated by white European ethnicities

Major Works• Novels

Imagination - 1980 Love Medicine - 1984 Jacklight- 1984 The Beet Queen - 1986 Tracks - 1988 Baptism of Desire - 1989 The Crown of Columbus - 1991 (with Michael Dorris) The Bingo Palace - Erdrich, Louise1994 The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year - 1995 Tales of Burning Love - 1996 Grandmother’s Pidgeon - 1996 The Antelope Wife – 1998The last report on the miracles at Little No Horse - 2001The Master Butcher's Singing Club: A Novel.- 2003The Painted Drum - 2005

• Poetry

Jacklight, Holt, 1984. Baptism of Desire, Harper, 1989.

Awards and Achievements

• Best First Fiction Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters

• John Simon Guggenheim Award, 1985.• Novel, Love Medicine won the National Book

Critics Circle Award • Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year (Prose -

Children's Literature) award, 2000 (for The Birchbark House.