Linda Hogan (born 1947) is a Native American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories. She is currently the Chickasaw Nation's Writer in Residence.
Linda Hogan is Chickasaw. Her father is a Chickasaw from a recognized historical family and Linda's uncle, Wesley Henderson helped form the White Buffalo Council in Denver during the 1950s to help other Indian people coming to the city because of The Relocation Act. He had a strong influence on her indigenous identity and she grew up relating strongly to both her Chickasaw family in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and to a mixed tribal community in the Denver area. At other times her family traveled because of the military. Her first University teaching position was in American Indian Studies and American Studies at the University of Minnesota. After writing her first book, Calling Myself Home, she continued to write poetry and her work has both a historical and political focus, but is lyrical and the words all carefully chosen. Her most recent books are The Book of Medicines and Rounding the Human Corners, but she is also a novelist and essayist. Her work is all focused on the world of Native peoples, from both her own indigenous perspective and that of others. She was a full professor of Creative Writing at the University of Colorado and then taught the last two years in the University's Ethnic Studies Department. She currently is the Writer in Residence for her own Chickasaw Nation.
Essayist, novelist, and poet, Hogan has published works in many different backgrounds and forms. Her concentration is on environmental themes (she has acted as a consultant in bringing together Native tribal representatives and feminist themes, particularly allying them to her Native ancestry. All of her work, whether fiction or non-fiction, displays an indigenous understanding of the world.
She has written essays and poems on a variety of subjects, both fictional and nonfictional, biographical and from research. Hogan has also written historical novels. She has at times focused on the historical wrongs done to both Native Americans and the American landscape during the colonisation of North America.
Hogan was a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Oklahoma, and is currently the (inaugural) Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma.
