Debra Magpie Earling received her BA from the University of Washington and her MFA in fiction from Cornell University. Earling held positions in both Native American Studies and English and was the first Native American to serve as director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana, where she was recently awarded an honorary doctorate. She is currently professor emerit and continues to give lectures at conferences and events.
Earling’s work, both fiction and nonfiction, has appeared in Ploughshares, Northeast Indian Quarterly, and many anthologies including Never Whistle at Night Part II, Song of the Turtle (Old World/Ballantine); Contemporary Short Stories Celebrating Women; Circle of Women (Red River Books); Talking Leaves: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Short Stories (Delta), Hearth: A Global Conversation on Community, Identity, and Place, etc.
Perma Red (Blue Hen Books, 2002). The Atlantic featured Perma Red on its prominent list of The Great American Novels, which highlights 136 of the most consequential works of American fiction from the past 100 years. Perma Red also received the Western Writers Association Spur Award for Best Novel of the West in 2003, the Mountain and Plains Bookseller Association Award, WWA’s Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for Best First Novel, a WILLA Literary Award, and the American Book Award. It is a Montana Book Award Honor Book and was chosen by Barnes & Noble as part of its Discover Great New Writers series.
Her latest novel The Lost Journals of Sacajewea (Milkweed Editions, May 2023) was awarded both the American and Montana Book Award[s]. In the citation for the American Book Award, Joy Harjo extolled Earling’s work: “What is so brilliant about this new novel by Debra Magpie Earling is the skill and sensitivity she brings to recreating and righting the historical record of Sacajewea’s part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In Earling’s hands, Sacajewea emerges as living presence, with a voice that gives us a full-bodied sense of what it might have felt and sounded like to be a Native woman in those times of drastic, catastrophic change for Native people. With Earling’s literary skill, the story reads as if we are hearing a Native language spoken in English. This is nearly impossible to accomplish, but Earling has done it.”
Earling is currently at work on a tetralogy about witches set in a fictional town on the Flathead Reservation.
“Debra Magpie Earling delivered an outstanding presentation that beautifully showcased both her intellect and her warmth. Her talk was a masterful blend of thoughtful, well-prepared remarks and spontaneous, off-the-cuff commentary that made the experience feel both insightful and refreshingly personal. She spoke with clarity, confidence, and an ease that immediately drew the audience in. Her authenticity, kindness, and deep connection to her work made the event unforgettable. We were honored to host her and would welcome her back without hesitation.” ― Chautauqua Institution, 2025
