"I sat down to write a book about pain and ended up writing about love," says award-winning Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan. In this book, she recounts her difficult childhood as the daughter of an army sergeant, her love affair at age fifteen with an older man, the legacy of alcoholism, the troubled history of her adopted daughters, and her own physical struggles since a recent horse accident. She shows how historic and emotional pain are passed down through generations, blending personal history with stories of important Indian figures of the past such as Lozen, the woman who was the military strategist for Geronimo, and Ohiesha, the Santee Sioux medical doctor who witnessed the massacre at Wounded Knee. Ultimately, Hogan sees herself and her people whole again and gives an illuminating story of personal triumph.
Linda Hogan is a celebrated author, poet, environmentalist, and member of the Chickasaw, living in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.
Hogan has published 20 titles ranging from works of autobiographies, poetry, and fiction with additional contributions to anthologies and works of non-fiction. In 1991, her novel set during the Osage murders, Mean Spirit, became a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. She is a member of the Chickasaw Hall of Fame and has received 16 awards and recognitions during her career. Hogan is an environmentalist who has worked as an animal rehabilitator for birds of prey.
Dark. Sweet by 
Dwellings by 
A History of Kindness by 
Indios by 
People of the Whale by 
Savings by 
Seeing Through the Sun by 
Woman Who Watches over the World by Dr. Nyla Ali Khan teaches at Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC). She has also taught as a Visiting Professor at the University of Oklahoma. Formerly, she was a professor at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. She received both her Masters in Postcolonial Literature and Theory and her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Oklahoma.
Dr. Khan is on the Oklahoma Governor’s International Team. She is also a member of the Harvard-based Scholars Strategy Network . She has served on the board of Generation Citizen, a nonprofit organization seeking to empower the younger generation through civics education. She is an active member of the multicultural, multinational and multireligious Women’s Interfaith Alliance. In May 2015, Khan was the first Kashmiri woman to be nominated to the advisory council of the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women. The Council serves "as a resource and clearinghouse for research and information on issues related to women and gender bias, to act as an advisory entity on equity issues to state agencies, communities, organizations and businesses of the state, and to establish recommendations for action to improve the quality of life for Oklahoma women, children and families." In March 2019, Khan was appointed Commissioner of the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Woman by the Senator Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma Senate.
Dr. Khan was honored by the Journal Record as one of the fifty women making a difference in Oklahoma in 2019 and 2020. She was also recognized at the OK State Capitol for her human rights work in 2018 and honored by the Oklahoma League of Women Voters as one of the 100 Trailblazers for 2018. She was recently awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award & Silver Medal for her national public speaking and her bridge building work at the community and grassroots level in the state of Oklahoma