After college one of her many jobs was waitressing. Jacklight contains a section of poems entitled 'The Butcher's Wife.' A butcher shop is also featured in her novels The Beet Queen and Tracks. Erdrich moved to Minneapolis, only a few hours away from her parents in North Dakota.Įrdrich's fiction is influenced both by her heritage and her life experiences. Later Erdrich revealed that her husband had been depressed and suicidal during their marriage. Additional family problems put a strain on the marriage and the two separated after fifteen years of marriage. In 1991, their oldest child was killed in a car accident. Erdrich also adopted them and the couple had three more children together. Erdrich won this $5,000 award in 1982 with 'The World's Greatest Fisherman.' This story later became the opening chapter for Love Medicine.ĭorris had adopted three children when he was single. Only two works, however, contain both Erdrich's and Dorris's names, The Crown of Columbus and Route Two, a collection of travel essays.Īs Erdrich's agent, Dorris persuaded Henry Holt and Company to publish Jacklight and convinced Erdrich to compete for the Nelson Algren Fiction Award. They also collaborated on Erdrich's other novels for which Dorris offered editorial suggestions on Erdrich's writing. Milou was a combination of their first names, and north referred to their location. The two first wrote romantic fiction under the name Milou North to earn extra money. Dorris became a collaborator and agent for Erdrich. Dorris returned to Dartmouth that same year and the two were married in October of 1981.Įrdrich's marriage to Dorris began not only a domestic partnership but also a literary one. In 1981 Erdrich returned to Dartmouth as a writer-in-residence in the Native American Studies Program. The two exchanged addresses and began a lengthy correspondence while he was in New Zealand and she in New Hampshire.

After John Hopkins, Erdrich worked at The Circle, the Boston Indian Council Newspaper.Įrdrich met Michael Dorris again when she was invited to return to Dartmouth to read her work. For her thesis Erdrich wrote poetry that would later be published in the collection Jacklight. In 1979, Erdrich earned her Master of Arts degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University. She majored in English and creative writing, and took courses in the Native American Studies program headed by her future husband, Michael Dorris. In 1972, Erdrich was among the first women admitted to Dartmouth College. In high school, Erdrich continued her writing by keeping a journal. Her father paid her a nickel a story and her mother made covers for her first books.

At an early age Erdrich was encouraged by her parents to write stories. She grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school. The eldest of seven children, Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota on July 6, 1954.

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