Leslie Marmon Silko was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1948 and grew up on the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. She has described her ethnicity as being part Laguna, part Pueblo, part Mexican, and part White. She received her B.A. of English at the University of New Mexico in 1969. Since then, she has worked for many universities and is currently employed at the University of Arizona in Tucson where she is an English professor. Her first work, Laguna Women, was published in 1974, and she has since published eleven more books, which include “After a Summer Rain in the Upper Sonoran”, “Almanac of the Dead”, “Conversations with Leslie Marmon Silko”, “The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters Between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright”, “Gardens in the Dunes”, “Laguna Women”, “Leslie Silko”, ”Sacred Water: Narratives and Pictures”, “Storyteller”, “Yellow Woman”, and “ Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today” . All of her books involve some part of her notable heritage, and, therefore are a reason why she is a respected Native American author.