This image is a reprinted illustration from The Birchbark House series. My mother, Rita Gorneau Erdrich, sat with me when I was little and taught me to draw. I used my children and their friends as models for some of these little drawings, as well as Ojibwe objects from around my house. —Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore. Description text goes here