City Lights, ALTA Journal, and Heyday Books celebrate the publication of

The Forgetters: stories

by Greg Sarris

published by Heyday Books

Also celebrating the paperback release of

Becoming Story: A Journey Among Seasons, Places, Trees, and Ancestors

by Greg Sarris

published by Heyday Books

Celebrated storyteller and tribal leader Greg Sarris offers a contemplative and enchanting story cycle in The Forgetters, a collection that blends into an unsuspected harmony shimmering dream trance with waking life, human and animal forms, and eras bygone and still-to-come. Borrowing from the cadence of Native American creation stories and the quiet enchantment of magical realism, these tales combine to reveal the foibles and folly that beset us and the lessons that recall us to ourselves and the world.

The Forgetters excavates multilayered tales of California’s Indigenous exiles, camp workers, shapeshifters, and medicine people as they interweave with the paths of settlers, migrants, and other wayfarers across the arc of recent centuries and beyond. Narrated by the enigmatic crow sisters, Question Woman and Answer Woman (who first appeared in Sarris’ 2017 How a Mountain Was Made—lauded as “a stunning array of […] contemporary allegories” by the Los Angeles Review of Books), this collection returns to Sonoma Mountain and traverses the homelands of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo. Rooted in today’s Marin and Sonoma counties, these transporting tales glimmer with an intimate connection to place and past—from ancient mythic time when all the animals were people to a speculative future when the people return as environmental refugees to the mountain from which they came.

This collection of tales, interwoven with the memorable banter of the crow sisters, chimes a moral chord that reminds us why we need each other, that all our stories are connected, and that the words we remember become the words we live by—and to forget them is to risk peril. Heralded as a “fine storyteller” by former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Sarris’ latest is a triumph of craft that showcases the enduring power of story to make and remake our world anew.

Greg Sarris is currently serving his sixteenth term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and his first term as board chair for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. His publications include Keeping Slug Woman Alive (1993), Grand Avenue (1994, reissued 2015), Watermelon Nights (1998, reissued 2021), How a Mountain Was Made (2017, published by Heyday), and Becoming Story (2022, published by Heyday). Greg lives and works in Sonoma County, California. Visit his website at: greg-sarris.com

Blaise Zerega is Alta Journal's editorial director. His journalism has appeared in Conde Nast Portfolio (deputy editor and part of founding team), WIRED (managing editor), the New Yorker, Forbes, and other publications. Additionally, he was the editor of Red Herring magazine, once the bible of Silicon Valley.

Alta Journal is a quarterly publication exploring ​​​​​​California and the West. From arts and culture, to technology and the environment, to food and fashion, ALTA is for anyone seeking an insider’s take on this most forward-thinking region. Each large-format issue (the West demands a wide lens) demystifies the region with provocative essays, cultural commentary, deeply reported investigations, original fiction and poetry, sumptuous photos, topical cartoons, and more.

Heyday is an independent, nonprofit publisher founded in 1974 in Berkeley, California. They are a diverse community of writers and readers, activists and thinkers. Heyday promotes civic engagement and social justice, celebrates nature’s beauty, supports California Indian cultural renewal, and explores the state’s rich history, culture, and influence. Heyday works to realize the California dream of equity and enfranchisement.

What has been said about the work of Greg Sarris

“Greg Sarris once again tells us a story filled with stories that lift the spirits in troubled times. A wonderful read that transports us to a realm of beauty, kindness, and love of life.”

—ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

This event made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.