There is a legacy of violence against native women that has gotten worse and worse over time.

The story comes around, pushing at our brains, and soon we are trying to ravel back to the beginning, trying to put families into order and make sense of things. But we start with one person, and soon another and another follows, and still another, until we are lost in the connections.

I have always kept notebooks and I go back to them over and over. They are my compost pile of ideas.

To love another another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection , it is a magnificent task...tremendous and foolish and human.

When small towns find they cannot harm the strangest of their members, when eccentrics show resilience, they are eventually embraced and even cherished.

Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.

It's impossible to write about Native life without humor-that's how people maintain sanity.