Creative Work

Greg Sarris has been involved in a number of creative projects from many different disciplines. Use the links below to navigate to the section you wish to view.

Stories

Apr 16 2024

The Forgetters

Perched atop Gravity Hill, two crow sisters—Question Woman and Answer Woman—recall stories from dawn to dusk. Question Woman cannot remember a single story except by asking to hear it again, and Answer Woman can tell all the stories but cannot think of them unless she is asked. Together they recount the journeys of the Forgetters, so that we may all remember. Unforgettable characters pass through these pages: a boy who opens the clouds in the sky, a young woman who befriends three enigmatic people who might also be animals, two village leaders who hold a storytelling contest. All are in search of a crucial lesson from the past, one that will help them repair the rifts in their own lives. Told in the classic style of Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok creation stories, this book vaults from the sacred time before this time to the recent present and even the near future. Heralded as a “a fine storyteller” by Joy Harjo, Greg Sarris offers us these tales in a new genre of his own making. The Forgetters is an astonishment—comforting and startling, inspiring reveries and deepening our love of the world we share.

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“Greg Sarris once again tells us a story filled with stories that lift the spirits in troubled times. A wonderful read that transports us to a realm of beauty, kindness, and love of life.”

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Memoir

Apr 05 2022

Becoming Story

For the first time in more than twenty-five years, Greg Sarris—whose novels are esteemed alongside those of Louise Erdrich and Stephen Graham Jones—presents a book about his own life. In Becoming Story he asks: What does it mean to be truly connected to the place you call home—to walk where innumerable generations of your ancestors have walked? And what does it mean when you dedicate your life to making that connection even deeper? Moving between his childhood and the present day, Sarris creates a kaleidoscopic narrative about the forces that shaped his early years and his eventual work as a tribal leader. He considers the deep past, historical traumas, and possible futures of his homeland. His acclaimed storytelling skills are in top form here, and he charts his journey in prose that is humorous, searching, and profound. A gently powerful memoir, Becoming Story is also a master class in the art of belonging to the place where you live.

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“A fascinating and evocative memoir in essays.”

Kirkus, starred review

Novel

Jul 01 2021

Watermelon Nights

This new edition of the novel features a revised preface by the author and an afterword by Reginald Dyck, who identifies broader contexts important to our understanding of the novel, including tribal sovereignty, federal Indian policy, and the effects of historical trauma. Gritty yet rich in emotion, Watermelon Nights stands beside the works of Louise Erdrich, Stephen Graham Jones, and Tommy Orange.

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Stories

Oct 10 2017

How A Mountain Was Made

Now available in paperback! In the tradition of Calvino’s Italian Folktales, Greg Sarris, author of the award-winning novel Grand Avenue, turns his attention to his ancestral homeland of Sonoma Mountain in Northern California. In sixteen interconnected original stories, the twin crows Question Woman and Answer Woman take us through a world unlike yet oddly reminiscent of our own: one which blooms bright with poppies, lupines, and clover; one in which Water Bug kidnaps an entire creek; in which songs have the power to enchant; in which Rain is a beautiful woman who keeps people’s memories in stones. Inspired by traditional Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo creation tales, these stories are timeless in their wisdom and beauty, and because of this timelessness their messages are vital and immediate.

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“These are charming and wise stories, simply told, to be enjoyed by young and old alike—’stories need us if they are to come forth and have life too.’”

Kirkus Reviews

Novel

Mar 19 2015

Grand Avenue

Grand Avenue runs through the center of the Northern California town of Santa Rosa. One stretch of it is home not only to Pomo Indians making a life outside the reservation but also to Mexicans, blacks, and some Portuguese, all trying to find their way among the many obstacles in their turbulent world.

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“I admire Greg Sarris’s sense of the gritty passion of life. A resonant thread of myth and laughter pulls the tales together. He allows the story to overtake him, the sign of a fine storyteller.”

Joy Harjo

Stories

Oct 01 2003

Enfants D’Elba (Les)

Coincé entre un champ de courses et une route peu fréquentée, South Park est le quartier déshérité de Santa Rosa, en Californie. Ses habitants, des Indiens, des Noirs et des Mexicains, vivent à mille lieues du rêve américain. C'est dans ce décor atypique que Greg Sarris a choisi de retracer, à travers trois générations marquées par des liens profonds et tragiques, le destin d'une tribu indienne. Les voix de Johnny, un garçon de vingt ans, d'Elba, sa grand-mère, et d'Iris, sa mère, tissent des récits qui se juxtaposent, se complètent et se heurtent parfois pour composer une fresque étonnante et nous raconter l'âpre combat d'un peuple pour la survie de sa culture. Ambitieux et poignant, ce premier roman a été salué par l'ensemble de la presse américaine.

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Novel

Nov 01 1999

Watermelon Nights

A Native American saga that spans generations chronicles the deep connections among members of Johnny Severe’s family, as his mother’s and grandmother’s pasts retain a fascinating hold over his present. A first novel.

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“Fans of Michael Dorris should be excited and reassured by Watermelon Nights that there are other, equally compelling voices in American Indian literature.”

San Francisco Chronicle

Novel

Jan 01 1994

Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream

A world-renowned Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman, Mabel McKay expressed her genius through her celebrated baskets, her Dreams, her cures, and the stories with which she kept her culture alive. She spent her life teaching others how the spirit speaks through the Dream, how the spirit heals, and how the spirit demands to be heard.

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“Wonderful, and urgently needed in these days of confusion over Native American identity and spirituality. . . . Vibrant testimony to the survival of American Indians and the power of the old spirits.”

Leslie Marmon Silko

Anthology

Jan 01 1994

The Sound of Rattles and Clappers

In this anthology of poetry and fiction, ten Native Americans of California Indian ancestry illuminate aspects of their respective native cultures in works characterized by a profound love of place and people, as well as by anger over political oppression and social problems.

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“A wonderful, empowering book”

Michael M.J. Fischer

Essay

Aug 05 1993

Keeping Slug Woman Alive

This remarkable collection of eight essays offers a rare perspective on the issue of cross-cultural communication. Greg Sarris is concerned with American Indian texts, both oral and written, as well as with other American Indian cultural phenomena such as basketry and religion. His essays cover a range of topics that include orality, art, literary criticism, and pedagogy, and demonstrate that people can see more than just “what things seem to be.” Throughout, he asks: How can we read across cultures so as to encourage communication rather than to close it down?

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“This stunning collection puts humanity and mystery back into the text where they profoundly belong. . . . A must for any serious student of native literatures, or for any serious student of life.”

Joy Harjo