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A Reading List for Native American Heritage Month 2024

For Native American Heritage Month, observed annually during the month of November, we asked our members—independent presses, literary journals, and others—to share with us some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration.

 

Poetry

 

Cover of Copper Yearning by Kimberly Blaeser, featuring an illustration of lily pads on a pond with pink clouds and black reeds reflected on its surface. Copper Yearning by Kimberly Blaeser

Holy Cow! Press | 2019

“Whether resisting threats to effigy mounds or inhabiting the otherness of river otter,” the poems in Blaeser’s fourth collection “voice a universal longing for a place of balance, a way of being in the world—for the ineffable.”

 

 

 

Cover of Halchita Red by Paige Buffington, featuring an illustration of a tall red rock in yellow sand against a light blue background. Halchita Red by Paige Buffington

Middle Creek Publishing & Audio | 2025

Buffington’s forthcoming collection is “a cinematic series of poems & prose poems drawn from memory and sampled fragments of conversation—external and internal—as an antidote to the record becoming warped or lost.”

 

 

 

Cover of Ghosts by Albert Ayler by Merry Fortune, featuring faded brown and yellow text on a cream-colored background. Ghosts by Albert Ayler by Merry Fortune

Futurepoem | 2004

According to Steve Dalachinsky, in this collection Fortune creates “edgy musical messages, just as Ayler’s strange, simple, melancholic melodies shared space with his weird impassioned howling and plaintive, overflowing cries.”

 

 

 

Cover of Cicadas: New & Selected Poems by Roberta Hill, featuring white text over a highly saturated photo of a tall tree with green leaves taken from below. Cicadas: New & Selected Poems by Roberta Hill

Holy Cow! Press | 2013

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Season Unleashed by Anna Odessa Linzer, featuring an illustration of three black crows sitting on an arched branch overlooking a body of water, a bridge, and blue trees in the distance. Season Unleashed by Anna Odessa Linzer

Empty Bowl | 2024

Linzer’s latest poetry collection “evokes the dramatic yet subtle beauty of the Salish Sea bioregion in intimate detail based on the author’s long acquaintance, close attention, and deep reflection.”

 

 

 

Museum of False Starts by Chip Livingston

Gival Press | 2010

According to Joy Harjo, in this poetry collection Livingston “makes a distinct trail of poems, through Mvskoke ancestral country, through the maze of American myths, through bars and parties at the edge, through disturbance and awe.”

 

 

 

Cover of Blood Wolf Moon by Elise Paschen, featuring white text on a red and purple background with a portion of a white hand-drawn map in the shape of a bison.Blood Wolf Moon by Elise Paschen

Red Hen Press | 2025

The core of Paschen’s forthcoming poetry collection “grapples with a dark period of American history, ‘The Reign of Terror,’ when outsiders murdered individual members of the Osage for their oil headrights.”

 

 

 

Cover of Through a Red Place by Rebecca Pelky, featuring blue text on an orange background and a painted illustration of three blue figures against a background of teal, orange, black, red, and yellow lines. Through a Red Place by Rebecca Pelky

Perugia Press | 2021

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of IRL by Tommy Pico, featuring a peach background with gradient pink, gray, and blue text that has a black and white photograph of a masked face inside of it.IRL by Tommy Pico

Birds, LLC | 2016

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Blood Quantum & Other Hate Crimes by Marsheila Rockwell, featuring white text on a red painted background with a handprint and a symbol with two loops.Blood Quantum & Other Hate Crimes by Marsheila Rockwell

Fallen Tree Press | 2024

According to Chris La Tray, in this chapbook about family, culture, the disappearance of indigenous women and children, and more, Rockwell “has delivered nothing less than a howl of defiance against erasure.”

 

 

 

Cover of A History of Echoes by Rod Carlos Rodriguez, featuring red text on a yellow background and a photograph of a large statue of a man’s face surrounded by vegetation.A History of Echoes by Rod Carlos Rodriguez

Gival Press | 2024

According to Mihir Shah, in this book Rodriguez “preserves the rich history of Taíno culture with incredible tact and tenacity in a compilation that is a clinic on narrative poetry.”

 

 

 

Cover of A Woman’s Life on the Edge of the Sea by Irene Skyriver featuring blue text on a light blue background and a fisheye lens photograph of six people’s silhouettes dancing on a beach.A Woman’s Life on the Edge of the Sea by Irene Skyriver

Green Writers Press | 2023

In this debut collection, Skyriver “delves deep into her family and heritage and into the richness of nature and Mother Earth.”

 

 

 

Cover of Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker, featuring yellow and white text on a red background and an illustration of Native Americans in colorful clothing gathered around a man putting red and yellow fabric on a tall brown pole. Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker

Hanging Loose Press | 2005

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of A Light to Do Shellwork By by Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez, featuring dark blue text and a photograph of multi-colored seashells and a starfish on sand that is reflecting orange sunlight. A Light to Do Shellwork By by Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez

Scarlet Tanager Books | 2022

According to Joy Harjo, Valoyce-Sanchez’s book is “a beautiful masterwork on how to take care of the light of knowledge given to her by family, by the lands and the waters.”

 

 

 

Anthologies

 

Cover of How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America, featuring white block text over a half-orange-tinted photograph of various wooden signs pointing to different Native tribes. How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America

Haymarket Books | 2020

Edited by Sara Sinclair, this anthology “shares contemporary Indigenous stories in the long and ongoing fight to protect Native land and life.”

 

 

 

Cover of Indian Country Noir, featuring white text and a black background over a sepia-toned photograph of large white clouds and a tall, pointed rock. Indian Country Noir

Akashic Books | 2010

Edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martínez, this noir anthology is a journey “through the north, south, east, and west of Indian Country.”

 

 

 

Cover of Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations, featuring teal text on a mint green background with an abstract pattern of multicolored, concentric rectangles. Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations

Tupelo Press | 2019

This groundbreaking anthology, edited by CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader, offers “a diverse collection of stories told by Indigenous writers about themselves, their histories, and their present.”

 

 

 

Cover of New Poets of Native Nations, featuring gradient orange text over a white background and a black and white photograph of a hand holding a long, slightly curved piece of wood in front of the ocean. New Poets of Native Nations

Graywolf Press | 2018

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California, featuring cream-colored text on a burgundy background with an illustration of a blue and beige fish against a yellow outline of California. Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California

Scarlet Tanager Books | 2016

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.”

 

 

 

Fiction

 

Cover of A Generous Spirit: Selected Work by Beth Brant, featuring orange and white text over a black and white photograph of the writer, looking into the camera with her hands to her cheeks. A Generous Spirit: Selected Work by Beth Brant

Sinister Wisdom | 2019

Edited by Janice Gould and a finalist for the 2020 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction from the Publishing Triangle, this selection of Brant’s work is a “portrait of survival and empathy at the intersection of Native American and lesbian experience.”

 

 

 

Cover of The Chugalug King & Other Stories by Andrew Brown, featuring white text over an illustration of a red hilly landscape and a yellow and white sky. The Chugalug King & Other Stories by Andrew Brown

Passager Books | 2016

According to Margaret Osburn, the ten stories in this collection “are grisly, ironic, lyrical battles.”

 

 

 

Cover of Under Nushagak Bluff by Mia C. Heavener, featuring black text on a green background, and an illustration of a nude child curled up inside two large red and green fish. Under Nushagak Bluff by Mia C. Heavener

Red Hen Press | 2019

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Sinking Bell by Bojan Louis, featuring white text over a photograph of a vast blue sky, a long, single-story pink building, and a light blue pickup truck on brown grass. Sinking Bell by Bojan Louis

Graywolf Press | 2022

Set in and around Flagstaff, the stories in Sinking Bell “depict violent collisions of love, cultures, and racism.”

 

 

 

Cover of Living on the Borderlines by Melissa Michal, featuring dark purple text on an illustration of a pink gradient sky with white outlines of people, and six women in colorful dresses dancing on green grass surrounded by flowers. Living on the Borderlines by Melissa Michal

Feminist Press | 2019

“Both on and off the rez, characters contend with identity as contemporary Haudenosaunee peoples” in these short stories.

 

 

 

Cover of The Wolf's Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves by Thomas D. Peacock, featuring white text and an illustration of the silhouette of a wolf howling in a green forest beneath a sky made up of light blue, green, and white swirling circular patterns. The Wolf’s Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves by Thomas D. Peacock

Holy Cow! Press | 2020

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Little by David Treuer, featuring black text and an illustration of a child’s silhouette standing in a body of water that is reflecting a blue sky, white clouds, and black outlines of trees. Little by David Treuer

Graywolf Press | 2022

First published by Graywolf Press in 1995, in this novel Treuer “uncovers in even the most frost-hardened ground the resilience and humor of life in Poverty.”

 

 

 

Cover of Pour One for the Devil by Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., featuring white text over a green and yellow-tinted photograph of a tree lined dirt road leading to a mansion, and green and yellow illustrations of two moths over it. Pour One for the Devil by Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.

Lanternfish Press | 2024

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

 

Cover of The Mason House by T. Marie Bertineau, featuring black text, an illustration of a white and blue house with a red and yellow tree in front of its door, and a light blue background. ​​The Mason House by T. Marie Bertineau

Lanternfish Press | 2020

This memoir is “an elegy for lost loved ones and a tale of growing up amid hardship and hope, exploring how time and the support of a community can at last begin to heal even the deepest wounds.”

 

 

 

Cover of Warrior Princesses Strike Back by Sarah Eagle Heart and Emma Eagle Heart-White, featuring pink text over a sepia-toned photograph of two women with serious expressions looking into the camera and a lightning-filled sky in the background. Warrior Princesses Strike Back by Sarah Eagle Heart and Emma Eagle Heart-White

Feminist Press | 2023

“Interspersing personal memoir with radical notions of self-help and collective recovery,” this forthcoming book “focuses how Indigenous activist strategies can be a crucial roadmap for contemporary truth and healing.”

 

 

 

Cover of Verb Animate: Poetry and Prose from Collaborative Acts by Heid E. Erdrich, featuring an illustration of a person with black braids sitting on a chair in a blue room, wearing a long blue robe and blue hat with cat ears, and knitting a blue garment. Verb Animate: Poetry and Prose from Collaborative Acts by Heid E. Erdrich

Trio House Press | 2024

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes, featuring lime green and orange text over a brown-tinted photograph of a large group of people in winter clothing standing in a snowy landscape. Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes

Haymarket Books | 2024

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of Beer-Breath Kisses by Damon McKinney, featuring white text in a neon orange border and a photograph of white and orange candy bars inside a silver vending machine. Beer-Breath Kisses by Damon McKinney

Belle Point Press | 2023

The speaker of this hybrid prose collection “grieves the loss of both a place and the people that made it home while remaining hopeful that Beer-Breath Kisses may linger a little longer.”

 

 

 

Cover of I Can't Forgive a Dead Man by Damon McKinney, featuring white and orange text over a photograph of a small antenna television showing static, sitting on top of a wooden stool against a wood-paneled wall. I Can’t Forgive a Dead Man by Damon McKinney

Belle Point Press | 2024

This follow-up chapbook to Beer-Breath Kisses “depicts loss and loyalty in a world where death can be both sudden and sacred.”

 

 

 

Cover of Guard the Mysteries by Cedar Sigo, featuring black text over a white background with orange and blue illustrations of overlapping hook shapes. Guard the Mysteries by Cedar Sigo

Wave Books | 2021

In this compendium of five talks for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series, Sigo “plumbs the particulars of modern critique, identity politics, early influences, and poetic form to produce a singular ‘autobiography of voice.’”

 

 

 

Literary Magazines

 

Cover of New England Review, featuring a photograph of a long blue dress on a hanger gravitating upwards while the bottom is wedged between the cushions of a light green chair in a white room with a stone floor. An Interview with Annie Wenstrup

New England Review | 2024

In this interview, Nico Amador and Wenstrup—whose poems “Exhibit D: Unsent Memo” and “Ghost Pixels” appear in Issue 44.4—discuss her revision process, experimenting with form, representing time on the page, the power of curiosity, and more.

 

 

 

Logo of Alta, featuring large red text with a small white subheading on a black background. “Portraits of the Artists” by Jason Asenap

Alta | 2023

This essay begins, “‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,’ said Leslie Halfmoon as she moved her flashlight across a series of dusty Polaroids.”

 

 

 

Logo of Terrain.org, featuring dark blue text and an outlined illustration of a flower with a light green center and teal petals. “The Beginning” by Byron F. Aspaas

Terrain.org | 2024

This piece begins, “The first school I attended was an Indian boarding school. I remember the first day of kindergarten. I remember seeing my mom leave quickly when I ran towards her.”

 

 

 

Logo of Full Bleed, featuring a bright red circle with white text in the center. Assimilations: An Interview with John Feodorov

Full Bleed | 2024

In this interview, Elise Dean Wolf and Feodorov discuss influential cultural and art objects from his childhood, his use of text and found images, feeling in between identities and worldviews, his approach to starting new pieces, and more.

 

 

 

Logo of Chicago Story Press, featuring black and gray text next to a black outline of the Chicago skyline with white text inside. “Especially in Absentia” by Tommy Cheis

Chicago Story Press Literary Journal | 2024

This essay begins, “On the first day of sixth grade at Sierra Vista Middle, I check in at the office, receive my schedule, then trudge down the hallway toward my first class. I am the only Indian in the entire school.”

 

 

 

Cover of “The Bear Essentials” by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, featuring a yellow background with a red silhouette of a bear surrounded by a cerulean outline. “The Bear Essentials” by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Salvation South | 2024

This essay begins, “On an exceptionally sweltering midsummer day in 1981, a crowd gathers at the edge of downtown Cherokee, North Carolina.”

 

 

 

Cover of “Where’s the Reservation?” by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, featuring a photograph of a round gray stone with markings etched into it and a tree’s shadow cast over it. “Where’s the Reservation?” by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Salvation South | 2023

This essay begins, “There is a certain kind of summer heat that pulses through a souvenir store in Cherokee, North Carolina.”

 

 

 

Cover of “Life and Limb” by Jenny L. Davis, featuring an illustration of a person with their nervous system visible over a black and white photograph of a forest full of thin trees. “Life and Limb” by Jenny L. Davis

West Trestle Review | 2020

This poem begins, “Sometimes I / think of myself as / an octopus working / without an arm.”

 

 

 

Logo of Alta, featuring large red text with a small white subheading on a black background. “NDN Heartbreak Song” by Kinsale Drake

Alta | 2024

This poem begins, “Albuquerque phone booth: / Next door a boy I loved / who loved my cousin…”

 

 

 

Logo of Wellspringwords, featuring brown text over a black and white photograph of multiple open notebooks filled with writing stacked on top of each other. “My Journey to Identity” by Emily

Wellspringwords | 2024

This essay begins, “I remember sitting in church, learning that Jesus was white. I remember seeing all the photos of Jesus and God and all the surrounding angels, never seeing coloured people.”

 

 

 

Logo of The Baltimore Review, featuring gray and black text next to a black stylized capital “R” that is missing its vertical line. “The Sleepwalkers” by Coby-Dillon English

The Baltimore Review | 2024

This story begins, “We wanted out. Inside, it was dark and warm. We wanted to take those ragged breaths of night air, inhales sharp enough to shred our throats.”

 

 

 

Logo of Orca, featuring dark blue text with a shadow effect over a blue-gray subheading with white text on it. “Wóiksape” by Jim Genia

Orca | 2024

This story begins, “A week after his uncle died and already Elliott Red Feather could feel the resentment creeping in.”

 

 

 

Cover of Frozen Sea, featuring a white outline of an axe and white text over a black square with gray waves drawn on it. “Santa Fe Poem” by Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake

Frozen Sea | 2023

This poem begins, “the windows were down the day / you found me / opened / splayed / like the figs on the glass plate in front of me / ripening / sweetening my bloodstream…”

 

 

 

Logo of Terrain.org, featuring dark blue text and an outlined illustration of a flower with a light green center and teal petals. Three Poems by Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake

Terrain.org | 2024

The poem “In the Beginning” begins, “In the beginning, there was only this lake / pounding harsh against the jagged rocks— / this brutal beating below bark shadowed…”

 

 

 

Logo of Ayin Press, featuring two black intertwining line patterns, one made up of triangles and one made up of loops, with a black dot over it and black text underneath it. “Watȟéča” by ​​Cannupa Hanska Luger

Ayin Press | 2022

The poem in this multimedia work begins, “There is a valuable lesson in the nature of the scavenger. / They thrive by destroying death. Immune to the diseases of rotting flesh.”

 

 

 

Logo of Ayin Press, featuring two black intertwining line patterns, one made up of triangles and one made up of loops, with a black dot over it and black text underneath it. “Future Ancestral Technologies” by ​​Cannupa Hanska Luger

Ayin Press | 2021

According to the editor’s note, the multimedia work in this series “develops an ongoing narrative in which Indigenous people harness technology to live nomadically in hyper-attunement to land and water.”

 

 

 

Cover of “Those Who Know: Exterminate All the Brutes and the Limits of Rewriting the Narrative” by Nick Martin, featuring a collage with a yellow map forming an arch pattern over a photograph of three men wearing all black standing on a green cliff overlooking a body of water. “Those Who Know: Exterminate All the Brutes and the Limits of Rewriting the Narrative” by Nick Martin

The Drift | 2022

This essay begins, “An Indigenous woman steps onto a white beach. Several others follow her carefully, winding their way through nearby palm trees and squinting out over warm Atlantic waters.”

 

 

 

Cover of The Hopkins Review Issue 16.3, featuring an illustration of various pink, green, yellow, and blue geometric patterns inside a rectangle against a red, yellow, and blue gradient sky filled with small gray clouds. “A Small Fan in the Window” by Ruby Hansen Murray

The Hopkins Review | 2023

This poem begins, “The kind of neighbor I am walks when the red sun slips / behind Nikolai like a coin.”

 

 

 

Logo of SWWIM featuring text in white against a black ink splatter.“My Body Fleeting” by Ruby Hansen Murray

SWWIM | 2024

This poem begins, “We watched white flecks, birds / far up against the ridge. Bright / against blue-green, a trick of evening.”

 

 

 

Logo of Full Stop: Reviews, Interviews, Marginalia featuring gray text and a pattern of purple concentric circles with red spots over it. “The Native American Horror Story” by Ali Nahdee

Full Stop | 2024

According to guest editor Gillian Joseph, Nahdee’s video essay “dives into what makes Indigenous Horror its own unique genre and tackles topics like authentic representation, reframing what a ‘monster’ is, and the importance of sovereignty in horror stories.”

 

 

 

Cover of Native American Voices: A Narrative Anthology featuring purple text over a background with a pink, orange, and yellow geometric pattern. Native American Voices

Narrative | 2024

This anthology contains stories and poems by Kenzie Allen, Sherwin Bitsui, Morgan Talty, Natalie Diaz, and more.

 

 

 

The manywor(l)ds.place logo, featuring the text "manywor(l)ds" in blue on a white background.“trans NDN archive” by Kai Minosh Pyle

manywor(l)ds | 2024

This piece begins, “in the aftermath of everything indigenous scientists discovered ways to determine the precise shade of depressionanxietyadhdautismcptsdschizoborderline-induced delirium trans ndns were experiencing at any given moment.”

 

 

 

Logo of ANMLY with the text in black inside a twisted mobius shape colored in with multicolored patches, against a pale purple background.Queer Indigenous Poetics

ANMLY | Issue 30

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.”

 

 

 

Cover of “Black & Tan” by Suzanne S. Rancourt, featuring the author’s name in white text over a blurred photograph of the silhouettes of trees against a pink background. “Black & Tan” by Suzanne S. Rancourt

West Trestle Review | 2023

This poem begins, “I stretch through extended neck and angled chin / tap sunlight’s edge as it leaks over window sills frosted by sub zero temps.”

 

 

 

Logo of ANMLY with the text in black inside a twisted mobius shape colored in with multicolored patches, against a pale purple background.Two Poems by Noʻu Revilla

ANMLY | 2021

The poem “Mercy” begins, “This morning I kissed a woman with a brick in her clay hands. / I am building a house, she said. Brick in her hands, tongues in her mouth.”

 

 

 

Cover of Bellevue Literary Review Issue 47, featuring black text and an illustration of a woman’s figure made up of a mosaic pattern in various shades of brown, green, yellow, and gray. “Letter from a Code Talker, 1945” by Sean Sam

Bellevue Literary Review | 2024

This poem begins, “The enemy skin seems a similar shade, / sometimes glowing in atolls bombed / or when it flaps and droops like a flag…”

 

 

 

Logo of ANMLY with the text in black inside a twisted mobius shape colored in with multicolored patches, against a pale purple background.“Let’s Try It This Way for the Last Ones” by Allison Akootchook Warden

ANMLY | 2023

This poem begins, “peace living on our own land. / an island, ocean freezes. / berry spots for family. / we kept moving, then settled here, / and the peace was here and it was good.”