Writing funny stories lies at the center of Tiffany Midge’s artistic practice. “Humor writing is a kind of self-imposed apprenticeship I’ve designed for myself: How can I incorporate humor into poetry? Fiction? An essay?” she says. “And then there is the added challenge of: How can I write humorously about Native issues and topics [in a way that is] accessible to people outside of the culture? Or, more important, that they find funny.” Midge, who is a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, gathers more than seventy such short essays in her second nonfiction book, The Dreamcatcher in the Wry (Bison Books, December 2024). With biting humor, lightness, and discernment, Midge scrutinizes topics as serious as COVID-19 and cultural appropriation and as ordinary as office supplies and beets. “I strive to balance the criticism with the praise,” she writes of her approach. “The celebration with the lament. The complaints with the kudos.” {read}