Aunt Moon's Young Man By Linda Hogan Analysis

Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, and activist. She was born on July 17, 1947 in Denver, Colorado to father Charles Henderson, a Chickasaw from Oklahoma, and Cleo Bower Henderson, a woman of German descent. Since her father was in the military, the family moved often throughout her youth. However, Hogan felt a deep connection to Oklahoma where her father’s family lived, and she considers this her home. Initially, she did not show an interest in literature, but later in life, while working, she began reading and writing on her lunch breaks. She attended the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for her undergraduate degree, and in 1978 she received her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In that same year she published her first collection of poetry, Calling Myself Home.

Her body of work contains a number of novels, poetry collections, and short stories that have won numerous awards. In 1986, she received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her poetry collection Seeing Through the Sun. In 1989, her short story “Aunt Moon’s Young Man” was featured in Best American Short Stories, and a year later her novel Mean Spirit was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Since then she has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for another poetry collection, The Book of Medicines, and in 1998 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. She has also been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a Guggenheim Grant in Fiction, and the Lannan Award for Outstanding Achievement in