One of the things I learned in the bajillion writing classes I took at The Loft is that when fiction is really good it can teach you things without ever seeming like a lecture or that you’re taking a class. Like, real actual factual things and not just about the tenderness of the human heart.

I learned a lot reading Louise Erdrich’s The Round House. Sure I learned about human hearts and darkness and spirituality, but what stuck with me was the clusterfuck of legal precedents that have made trying to find justice on Native American reservations a nightmare.

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