A photo of Chelsea T. Hicks' 2022 book A Calm and Normal Heart.

Join Labriola Center Book Club: Chelsea T. Hicks’ A Calm & Normal Heart

The cover of Chelsea T. Hick's 2022 book A Calm and Normal Heart.
A Calm & Normal Heart (Unnamed Press, 2022)

A Calm & Normal Heart is Chelsea T. Hicks’ first book, a collection of short stories depicting the complicated desires of young Native people. Some stories, like “Tsexope,” take place in our modern world, blending history with current culture; others, like “A Fresh Start,” dive into the past. Each story is united by its incorporation of poems in Wazhazhe ie, the Osage language.

Hicks is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. She currently lives in Oklahoma, where she offers creative writing workshops to writers using Indigenous languages. Her writing has appeared in LA Review of Books, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, the Believer, The Audacity, Yellow Medicine Review, Indian Country Today, and elsewhere.

Register here to join the Labriola Center Book Club’s discussion of A Calm & Normal Heart. This event is free and takes place online from 10am – 12pm on Sunday, August 28. The Labriola National American Indian Data Center focuses on both current and historical Indigenous authors across the globe.