Background
The eldest of seven children, Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, the daughter of Ralph Erdrich, a German-American, and his wife, Rita (née Gourneau). Rita's father, Patrick Gourneau, served as tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in the 1950s.
Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She attended Dartmouth College from 1972 to 1976, earning a BA degree and meeting her future husband, anthropologist and writer Michael Dorris, then-director of the Dartmouth College Native American Studies program.
Before and after college Erdrich worked in a wide variety of jobs, including as a lifeguard, waitress, poetry teacher at prisons, and construction flag signaler. She also became an editor for The Circle, a newspaper produced by and for the urban Native population in Boston.
Erdrich earned a Master of Arts degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University in 1979.
Read more about this topic: Louise Erdrich
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