For Native American Heritage Month, observed annually during the month of November, we asked our member presses and literary magazines to share with us some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration.
Poetry
Gnashing Teeth Publishing | 2025
ISBN: 978-1966075035
According to brice maiurro, this collection is “an invitation to live a more curious existence, to embrace the ‘penumbra’: the something between shadow and illumination.”
Word-Made World by Chee Brossy
The Word Works | 2025
ISBN: 9781944585884
According to Jennifer Elise Foerster, the poems in this collection “exude a deep respect for language, land, and cultural belonging, illuminating our ephemeral word-made worlds.”
April on Olympia by Lorna Dee Cervantes
Marsh Hawk Press | 2021
ISBN: 9780996991261
According to Camille Dungy, the poems in this collection “reveal just what lives are most imperiled and how we might go about protecting them.”
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Graywolf Press | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64445-014-7
Diaz’s collection “demands that every body carried in its pages—bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers—be touched and held as beloveds.”
The Maybe-Bird by Jennifer Elise Foerster
The Song Cave | 2022
ISBN: 978-1737277552
In Foerster’s collection, “a cast of voices—oracles, ghosts, water—speaks to a long history of genocide, displacement, and ecological devastation.”
Cicadas: New & Selected Poems by Roberta Hill
Holy Cow! Press | 2013
ISBN: 9780985981808
According to Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Hill’s poems “carry our burdens, release us, remind us to lift ourselves, sing elegies for those we lose, bring us altitudes, summits, winged entry, then cradles our looming falls.”
Bury Me in Thunder by syan jay
Sundress Publications | 2020
ISBN: 978-1939675958
In Bury Me in Thunder, “a mother gives birth in a field of flowers, a child emerges from the stomach of a whale, while the speaker keeps working to locate ‘the epicenter of tenderness.’”
Dark Traffic by Joan Naviyuk Kane
University of Pittsburgh Press | 2021
ISBN: 9780822966623
This poetry collection “creates landmarks through language, by which its speakers begin to describe traumas in order to survive and move through them.”
Trio House Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781949487480
Kim’s debut collection “evokes modes of language and culture that shape the contours of memory and expose the fault lines of family and self.”
Graywolf Press | 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55597-809-9
Edited by Heid E. Erdrich, New Poets of Native Nations “gathers poets of diverse ages, styles, languages, and tribal affiliations to present the extraordinary range and power of new Native poetry.”
Blood Wolf Moon by Elise Paschen
Red Hen Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781636282084
These poems grapple with “a dark period of American history, ‘The Reign of Terror,’ when outsiders murdered individual members of the Osage for their oil headrights.”
Through a Red Place by Rebecca Pelky
Perugia Press | 2021
ISBN: 978-0-997807-65-3
Written in English and Mohegan, this story-in-poems “assembles the author’s research into her Native and non-Native heritage in the land now known as Wisconsin” and “relates narratives of people who converged on and impacted this space in myriad ways.”
Birds, LLC | 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9914298-6-8
Pico’s book is “a sweaty, summertime poem composed like a long text message, rooted in the epic tradition of A. R. Ammons, ancient Kumeyaay Bird Songs, and Beyoncé’s visual albums.”
Horse Tracks by Henry Real Bird
Lost Horse Press | 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9844510-5-0
According to M. L. Smoker, in Horse Tracks Real Bird “reminds us again and again of our own interrelation, of our responsibility to all beings, all places that make up our world and beyond.”
Dragonfly Weather by Lois Red Elk
Lost Horse Press | 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9883166-5-2
According to Tiffany Midge, in this collection Red Elk “keeps to the tasks which enable Wiconi—the good way of life: keep busy, be thankful, pray.”
Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California
Scarlet Tanager Books | 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9768676-5-4
According to Ruth Nolan, the poems in this anthology “sculpt a momentous geography in image and verse that’s as breathtaking and deeply imprinting as the lay of the California landscape itself.”
Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker
Hanging Loose Press | 2005
ISBN: 978-1-931236-51-5
The title poem in this collection begins, “And to think I had just paid a cousin twenty dollars to shovel the walk. / He and two of his buddies, still smelling of an all-nighter, arrived at 7 am to begin their work.”
Fiction
Bitter Over Sweet by Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Santa Fe Writers Project | 2025
ISBN: 9781951631512
These stories “of resilience offer readers a glimpse behind the bird-of-paradise curtains and a look at what’s not in the travel magazines.”
Fire in the Village by Anne M. Dunn
Holy Cow! Press | 2016
ISBN: 978-0986448058
These seventy-five stories “represent a lifetime of master story-telling and offer keen, loving insights into the mythic origins of the natural and supernatural worlds around and within the reader.”
Under Nushagak Bluff by Mia C. Heavener
Red Hen Press | 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59709-809-0
Heavener’s novel is “a generational saga of strong, stubborn Yup’ik women living in a village that has been divided between the new and the old, the bluff side and the missionary side, the cannery side and the subsistence side.”
Aunt Lute Books | 2001
ISBN: 9781879960619
Howe’s novel asks, “Why was Red Shoes, the most formidable Choctaw warrior of the 18th century, assassinated by his own people? Why does his death haunt Auda Billy, an Oklahoma Choctaw woman, accused in 1991 of murdering Choctaw Chief Redford McAlester?”
Graywolf Press | 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64445-203-5
Set in and around Flagstaff, the stories in Sinking Bell “depict violent collisions of love, cultures, and racism.”
This Fierce Blood by Malia Márquez
Acre Books | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-946724-44-1
This novel “combines magical realism with themes of maternal ancestral inheritance, and also explores the ways Hispano/Indigenous traditions both conflicted and wove together.”
The Divining Season by Gwendolyn Paradice
Aunt Lute Books | 2026
ISBN: 978-1951874124
In this novel, eleven-year-old Emily’s “arrival in Larissa, Texas, changes the search for the missing children and the way the women of Larissa relate to each other.”
More Enduring for Having Been Broken by Gwendolyn Paradice
Black Lawrence Press | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62557-832-7
According to Trudy Lewis, in these stories Paradice “calls us to witness the surreal spectacle of our own decline, depicting the Wheel of Fortune as a manic Ferris wheel, then a monstrous carnivorous plant imprisoning passengers in its pods.”
The Wolf’s Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves by Thomas D. Peacock
Holy Cow! Press | 2020
ISBN: 9781513645629
According to Marcie Rendon, this is “a story of zaagi’idiwin, the story of love—the love of the wolves for each other and their family, the Anishinaabe people. A story of the love the Creator has for what has been created.”
Pour One for the Devil by Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.
Lanternfish Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1941360712
According to Jeremy Robert Johnson, this horror novella “dives headlong into all the liquor, lies, and long-simmering moral horrors one could hope for from a Southern Gothic, and finds unique gravity in its lively layering of American atrocity.”
Nonfiction & Multi-Genre Works
Empty Bowl Press | 2025
ISBN: 9798991740050
Told through the life story of Port Gamble S’Klallam elder Ron Charles, this book “makes an original contribution to the growing body of treaty-rights literature, Salish Sea history, and Native American oral history.”
Verb Animate: Poetry and Prose from Collaborative Acts by Heid E. Erdrich
Trio House Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1949487503
This collection of poems and reflections “explores the nuances and joys of Erdrich’s artistic collaborations with Twin Cities choreographers, visual artists, digital artists, and others.”
Haymarket Books | 2024
ISBN: 9798888900826
Newly available in paperback, this book features a new afterword by Estes about “the rising indigenous campaigns to protect our environment from extractive industries and to shape new ways of relating to one another and the world.”
Growing Papaya Trees by Jessica Hernandez
North Atlantic Books | 2025
ISBN: 979-8889840978
Hernandez’s book “offers readers an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs.”
SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide by Cannupa Hanska Luger
Ayin Press | 2025
ISBN: 9781961814264
Part graphic novel, part art book, SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide “seeks to reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population.”
The Structure of Love: Anatomy of a Novel by Mona Susan Power
Sundress Publications | 2020
This craft chapbook—one in a series of ebooks aiming to democratize creative writing education—features an essay by Power concerning the craft of writing a novel.
Positively Uncivilized by Rena Priest
Raven Chronicles Press | 2025
ISBN: 979-8-9914032-3-8
These twelve essays “emphasize the necessity of community to overcome the damage done by human socioeconomic and political systems designed to isolate and shame those vulnerable to those unfair systems.”
Feral House | 2025
ISBN: 978-1627311571
Featuring archival film posters, set photos, and other images, Rhodes’s essay collection “examines dozens of movies and tv series, sold to the unsuspecting public as documentaries.”
Through the Eye of the Deer: An Anthology of Native American Women Writers
Aunt Lute Books | 1999
ISBN: 9781879960589
This anthology of fiction and poetry edited by Carolyn Dunn and Carol Comfort is “retelling and reshaping traditional narratives, by recalling their ancient wisdom and renewing their spirit in new contexts.”
When No Thing Works by Norma Wong
North Atlantic Books | 2024
ISBN: 9798889840992
Wong’s book features “spiritual and community lessons for embracing collective care, co-creating sustainable worlds, and responsibly meeting uncertain futures.”
Literary Magazines
“Ho‘oulu: Our Time of Becoming” by Manulani Aluli Meyer
Dark Matter: Women Witnessing | 2020
This excerpt begins, “Ke welina mai nei. I wanted to spend a few moments with you before you dip into the muliwai—where sea water meets fresh; where theory meets practice.”
“The Stroke of a Pen” by Christina Berry
Open Secrets Magazine | 2023
This essay begins, “It was August 13, 2022. Early that Saturday morning, after an evening of drinking wine and watching movies, I awoke to use the bathroom.”
“Cold Touch” by Devon Borkowski
Baffling Magazine | 2024
This story begins, “The girl was splayed on the grass between two Honey Locusts, their yellow leaves like sunspots on bluing skin.”
“Asterism” by Jennifer Elise Foerster
Adi Magazine | 2023
This poem begins, “Were we an echo of an invented people / who left in our wake as we fled from each other, / belts of precious metals, pigment, spice…”
Joy Harjo in Conversation with Darlington Chibueze Anuonye
The Hopkins Review | 2024
In this interview, Anuonye and Harjo discuss Harjo’s collection Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light as well as names, the nature of time and success, realizing oneself through poetry, and more.
“Tenpin Buttons” by Travis Hedge Coke
beestung | 2023
This poem begins, “Fantastic at what cannibal love story is found at Reddit / but, there will bean ending at Grandma’s house in 1985.”
Four Poems by Dominique Hunter
Another Chicago Magazine | 2025
The poem “Deer Hide is Thicker Than a Tribal ID” begins, “Out of the fog, she came / A woman with no name / A woman, a doe: the same…”
Indigenous Futures and Imagining the Decolonial
ANMLY | 2018
Co-edited by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, BBP Hosmillo, and Sarah Clark, this folio collects work by “Indigenous people and peoples impacted by colonialism to create a collection of writing and art.”
Another Chicago Magazine | 2025
The poem “Two weeks later I will still be thinking about your mouth” begins, “You are talking Dionysus / All new moon pupils and Pop Rocks dissolving snap-cracking / on the shelf mushroom of your stuck-out tongue…”
“What Language Do You Pray In?” by Michele Kriegman
Lilith | 2023
This essay begins, “In the lobby of an old hotel along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, an annual conference for Japanese-English interpreters and translators was underway.”
“Steinway & His Sons” by D. K. Lawhorn
Baffling Magazine | 2024
This story begins, “There are only two things your husband doesn’t let go to ruin in the wake of you. One is the 6×8 framed picture of you both in Prospect Park on your third date.”
“Dawn and Her Brother’s Ghost” by Jess Masi
Adi Magazine | 2024
This story begins, “The ghosts have learned how to whistle. You can hear their lips pressed into the cracks of the floorboards.”
“on Alan Turing as we meet in quarantine again and again” by Tori Ashley Matos
beestung | 2021
This poem begins, “what looks back at me from the mirror / is the guardian of my memory. / what we really are is just a river of / what we will never forget.”
“Picking bloodroot for deer lady” by Ana W. Migwan
West Trestle Review | 2025
This poem begins, “Slice their roots down the middle, peel open, and drop them / into boiling water. The dye is keen—ruby beads…”
“Limb from Limb” by Dan Musgrave
New England Review | 2024
This essay begins, “There are three screws in the body of a G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero figure, but the only one that matters is the one in the middle of their back.”
Plantcestors: The Indigenous Issue
ALOCASIA | 2025
This issue of ALOCASIA features poetry by Shauna Osborn, Rebecca Kinkade-Black, June Beck, Jake Salazar, Jenny L. Davis, and more.
“Bloodthread” by Mona Susan Power
The Georgia Review | 2024
This essay begins, “My mother is Susan Power. And I am Susan Power. People call us ‘Big Susie and Little Susie,’ all in one breath as if we are a single creature with two heads and four hands.”
ANMLY | 2020
Editor tanner menard says, “I sought to gently weave a space where Indigenous poets & artists who exist outside of heteronormative realms of gender & sexuality could reveal their wisdom & share their hearts with the literary community as a single but diverse chorus of voices.”
“fallen angels in the west branch narraguagus” by Suzanne S. Rancourt
Pangyrus | 2025
This poem begins, “she recalls don knotts in that movie where he becomes a fish / after he left mayberry, of course. / he wears a thin lapelled tweed suit jacket, black bow tie / makes fish lips.”
“The [Unintelligible]” by Morgan Talty
The Georgia Review | 2021
This story begins, “Men are coming to take Mom’s bed. Her quilts and blankets and sheets and throws are covered with cigarette burn holes.”
IHRAM Literary Magazine | 2024
Wesley’s short story is published in the December 2024 issue of IHRAM Literary Magazine, titled Heart, Hope, and Land: Indigenous Voices.
