Erin and Dani’s Book Club

Aaniin, Reading Circle. Welcome to our sixth year! It’s been a journey. Erin and I met when Indigenous Bookstagram was still small. DMs turned into texts, then read-alongs, then a book club. In 2023, I was diagnosed with stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer at 30, Erin flew to Winnipeg to support me through fertility treatments. Afterwards I began rigorous treatment. Some of our long-time book club members might remember that I came to meetings when I could, but often I couldn’t. I was too sick to read, let alone lead but over the last year, albeit slowly, I’ve started to ease back into posting and attending discussions. I’ve shared in meetings that my reading capacity has changed. Before treatment, I read up to 10 books a month. Now I’m lucky to get through one or two. I didn’t understand how much chemotherapy would affect my memory and attention span. And I still struggle. But I’m finding my way back to the page and it’s why Erin and I decided this year would place emphasis on my return and my choices. This year is a return to spirit. And the reading list? Many are titles I’ve longed to read but haven’t yet. A few are rereads, but most are new to me. My body and mind are still healing, but I want to read these with you. I believe the right book clubs can help heal the deepest of wounds and time and time again I’m reminded what a special community we have. Here’s to 2026! (Image descriptions are in the comments) Jan: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe) Feb: Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Mvskoke) Mar: The Devil is a Southpaw by Brandon Hobson (Cherokee) Apr: Real Ones by Katherena Vermette (Métis) May: All I See is Violence by Angie Elita Newell (Liidlii Kue Nation) Jun: The Idea of an Entire Life by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Cree) Jul: Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Penobscot) Aug: Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters (Mi’kmaq) Sep: Small Ceremonies by Kyle Edwards (Ojibwe) Oct: Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr (Métis) Nov: Hunter with Harpoon by Markoosie Patsauq (Inuk) Dec: A Blanket of Butterflies by Richard Van Camp (Tlicho Dene) #indigenousreadingcircle #erinanddanisbookclub

We run this book club as two Indigenous women, entirely on our own time and energy. Every graphic, every post, every discussion comes from our deep love for community and Indigenous literature. Our Patreon helps make this possible. It allows us to keep showing up, to get Indigenous books into Indigenous hands, and create spaces that center Indigenous voices. If you’ve ever felt connected to the work we do, if you’ve found a new favorite author through our page, or if you believe in the power of community-led book clubs, we invite you to support us on Patreon. We have tiered subscription levels with varying costs and every level is immeasurably appreciated as every dollar makes a difference and helps our work continue. Please check out the link in our bio to join or share. Miigwech/Gunalchéesh for your support. ❤️💛🖤🤍

**Updated** FAQ You do not have to be Indigenous to join. Everyone is welcome. However we ask that folks be respectful & mindful during discussions as difficult subject matters dealing with Indigenous issues do arise. How our discussions work & when they happen: Every month a discussion date & time for our Zoom meeting will be announced on our stories. Prior to the discussion, we will post multiple call outs in our story with a poll asking who would like to be added to the IG group chats for the book we’re currently reading. These chats will be where the Zoom link is shared on the date of the discussion. What sort of participation you partake in for the Zoom meeting is entirely up to you! Feel free to join with or without video & audio, audio only, video only, or just through the Zoom chat option! Chi’miigwech & Gunalchéesh for supporting Indigenous book clubs!

Boozhoo, Reading Circle. Our May selection is All I See Is Violence by Angie Elita Newell (Dehcho) Our discussion will take place via Zoom on Sunday May 31st 2026 at 1pm PT. You can subscribe to our Patreon to support our work and get regular updates to your email with our posts, zoom links, and recorded discussions. We also have a broadcast channel you can follow where we post a poll to pick monthly discussion dates and share the Zoom link. Find the links for those in our bio. Also comment below if you’d like to be added to our Instagram group chat! Synopsis: A WOMAN WARRIOR, A RUTHLESS GENERAL, AND A SINGLE MOTHER—THREE STORIES DEFTLY BRAIDED INTO THE LEGACY OF A STOLEN NATION Author Angie Elita Newell has written an intense, poignant, action-packed dramatization of history that leaves readers seeing Indigenous people and history forever differently. The United States government stole the Black Hills from the Sioux, as it stole land from every tribe across North America. Forcibly relocated, American Indians were enslaved under strict land and resource regulations. Newell brings a poignant retelling of the catastrophic, true story of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn and the social upheaval that occurred on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1972 during the height of the American Indian Movement. Cheyenne warrior Little Wolf fights to maintain her people’s land and heritage as General Custer leads a devastating campaign against American Indians, killing anyone who refuses to relocate to the Red Cloud Agency in South Dakota. A century later, on that same reservation, Little Wolf’s relation Nancy Swiftfox raises four boys with the help of her father-in-law, while facing the economic and social ramifications of this violent legacy.

A reminder that our next meeting is Sunday May 3 at 1pm PT via Zoom! We’ll be discussing Real Ones by Katherena Vermette (Métis) Synopsis: June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones. Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family. But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work. The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface.

Aaniin, Reading Circle. Our April selection is Real Ones by Katherena Vermette (Métis.) Our discussion will take place via Zoom on Sunday May 3rd 2026 at 1pm PT. You can subscribe to our Patreon to support our work and get regular updates to your email with our posts, zoom links, and recorded discussions. We also have a broadcast channel you can follow where we post a poll to pick monthly discussion dates and share the Zoom link. Find the links for those in our bio. Also comment below if you’d like to be added to our Instagram group chat! Also I just wanted to share that I don’t believe a treaty card is a true indicator of someone being Indigenous. My dad grew up in community, speaking our language and had to attend Indian Day School but did not have treaty status until he was in his sixties. This doesn’t make him more Indigenous than he was before. A treaty card is a colonial invention. -Dani Synopsis: June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones. Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family. But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work. The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface.

Aaniin, Reading Circle. Our March selection is The Devil is a South Paw by Brandon Hobson (Cherokee.) Our discussion will take place via Zoom on Sunday March 29th 2026 at 1pm PT. You can subscribe to our Patreon to support our work and get regular updates to your email with our posts, zoom links, and recorded discussions. We also have a broadcast channel you can follow where we post a poll to pick monthly discussion dates and share the Zoom link. Find the links for those in our bio. Also comment below if you’d like to be added to our Instagram group chat! Synopsis: A haunting, unforgettable novel of obsession, pride, and forgiveness, exploring the friendship and rivalry between two gifted boys in harrowing circumstances, from the acclaimed writer of The Removed Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented young Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is. A novel within a novel, we read here Milton’s account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew’s extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, sometimes surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of racial and institutional violence and the systemic injustices in our systems of incarceration and so-called reform. Filled with Brandon Hobson’s trademark swirling yet visceral writing, The Devil Is a Southpaw is an ambitious, elegant, and propulsive novel in the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel García Márquez.

“This collection is wholly Indigenous, but it’s also universal in the dynamics of coming of age. That makes it relatable to Native and non-Native teen readers alike. Without trying, it demolishes stereotypes and builds understanding.” -Cynthia Leitich-Smith We recently read Legendary Frybread Drive-In, edited by Cynthia Leitich-Smith, and it was a resounding hit with the Indigenous Reading Circle! We loved these stories: the variety, the depth, the humour, the tenderness. Each one brought something unique, and together they felt like a gathering: vibrant, layered, and full of heart. Our discussion praised how thoughtfully this memorable collection was curated and how powerfully the voices speak to one another while still standing strong on their own. We’re so grateful to have had the opportunity to ask Cynthia about the making of this anthology and the importance of Indigenous YA storytelling. Miigwech/Gunalchéesh @cynthialeitichsmith for generously sharing with all of us! Read the full interview on Patreon. Link in bio. Supporting our Patreon helps us continue running our book club as we host monthly meetings, create content and a space to read, discuss, and uplift Indigenous voices together. Any support is appreciated more than we can say!

Aaniin, Reading Circle. Februarys book is Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee) and features work from a variety of authors from many nations! Our discussion will take place via Zoom on Sunday February 22nd 2026 at 1pm PT. You can subscribe to our Patreon to support our work and get regular updates to your email with our posts, zoom links, and recorded discussions. We also have a broadcast channel you can follow where we post a poll to pick monthly discussion dates and share the Zoom link. Find the links for those in our bio. Also comment below if you’d like to be added to our Instagram group chat! (quotes in photo are from Braving the Storm by Kaua Māhoe Adams.) 🎶 I remember when I was a lad Times were hard and things were bad But there’s a silver linin’ behind every cloud Just poor people, that ‘s all we were Tryin’ to make a living out of black-land dirt But we’d get together in a family circle singing loud Daddy sang bass, mama sang tenor Me and little brother would join right in there Singing seems to help a troubled soul One of these days and it won’t be long I’ll rejoin them in a song I’m gonna join the family circle at the throne 🎶

Giveaway for our February book: Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith! Hello Reading Circle! For our February giveaway we’ve partnered with @EpicReads ! They will be sending 20 copies of Legendary Frybread Drive-In to book club members in the US or Canada. The rules: 1 - Native entrants only 2 - Giveaway ends Monday, Feb 2nd How to Enter: 1 - Comment below with your Tribal Nation and which country you reside in. #IndigenousReadingCircle #IndigenousLiterature

January author: Louise Erdrich Title read: The Mighty Red “Louise Erdrich is an internationally-acclaimed author and prominent literary figure who has numerous professional achievements and philanthropic contributions to her credit. The oldest in a family of seven children, Karen Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, in 1954, and grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her parents worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs School. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Louise graduated from Dartmouth College and received a master of fine arts degree from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of 14 novels, as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel Love Medicine (1984) won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. The Plague of Doves (2008) won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. In November 2012, Louise won the National Book Award for her novel, The Round House. Louise lives in Minnesota and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in St. Paul. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Louise credited her achievements to the support of a widely extended loving family, to her parents, and to “a small, incremental, persistent, insect-like devotion to putting one word next to the next word. It’s a very dogged process.” In one of her poems, “Advice to Myself,” Louise wrote, “Pursue the authentic. Decide first what is authentic, then go after it with all your heart.” Bio found on ND Office of the Governors website. Portrait painted by Vern Skaug

Our first Dani’s Choice reading circle meeting of 2026 is almost upon us! Join us on Sunday, January 25th at 1pm PT via Zoom as we gather to discuss The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe.) All are welcome, we’re a fun & friendly bunch 😊 you can even join & keep your camera off to just listen to the discussion. The Zoom link will be posted on our broadcast channel, group chat, and on Patreon. If you’d like to be added to the Instagram group chat, comment below. The other two options are linked in our bio. “The river was always there in every way. We were always living with its floods in the spring where we would walk through the lower parts of the town and there would be fish in the water. And if you pulled up a sidewalk the earth was so dark and black and fertile because of all of that sediment that had been deposited there over eons or millennia anyway. You would find little seashells in it and it would seem so strange to find seashells in the dirt.” - Louise Erdrich. Quote taken from Talking Volumes.