Acknowledged as one of the most influential and interesting of American Indian writers, Linda Hogan ranges far beyond any expected Native subjects. While her award-winning poetry, fiction, plays and essays often promote an earth-based spirituality, Hogan broadens that territory via modern environmentalism and feminism. In “Breaking” she asks, “How does water do it, / strip a world to its bones, / how does it dance that way / without feet, / sing without a voice, / caress with no hands / and follow the moon / without a single eye?”

The writer, a Chickasaw originally from Oklahoma, teaches at the University of Colorado. Winner of Guggenheim, NEA and Lannan Fellowships, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas in 1998. Her work has won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Colorado and Oklahoma Book Awards, among many others. Her poetry collection The Book of Medicines was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and her first novel, Mean Spirit, was one of three finalists for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent work includes The Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir (2001), Sightings: The Gray Whales’ Mysterious Journey (non-fiction with Brenda Patterson, 2002) and the editing of Face to Face: Women Writers on Faith, Mysticism and Awakening (2003). Linda Hogan brings her holistic sense of the human experience to the Kellogg Writers Series at the University of Indianapolis Schwitzer Student Center Room 10, on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 8 p.m. Call Elizabeth Weber, 788-3373, for further information.