Debra Magpie Earling is Bitterroot Salish and a member of the Flathead Nation. She is the author of the novel Perma Red, and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea.  Her work has also appeared in Ploughshares and the Northeast Indian Quarterly as well as several anthologies including Talking Leaves: Contemporary Native American Short Stories published in 1991 and Montana Women Writers: A Geography of the Heart published in 2006. She has been a recipient of an NEA grant, American Book Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at the University of Montana.