As a writer of Chickasaw heritage, Linda Hogan centers herself and, consequently, her readers on what nature has to teach human beings and on the regenerative female forces that shape the world. The Chickasaw were matrilineal and matrilocal in precontact times; other tribes, though patriarchal, revered their women as the creative life force of the universe. Domination by Christian Europeans has altered the traditional tribal balance between male and female power in American Indian life. In her works Hogan seeks to restore that balance and to offer ancient wisdom about nature in mythological yet contemporary terms.

Born in Denver on 17 July 1947 to Charles Henderson, a Chickasaw, and Cleona Bower Henderson, a white, Hogan was raised in various locations as her father was transferred from post to post by the army. But she has always regarded Oklahoma, where her father's family lives, as her home. In a 1990 interview she...