White Magic

Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, “starter witch kits” of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning.

In this collection of intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life–Twin Peaks, theOregon Trail IIvideo game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham–to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule.

Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a nonfiction writer. She is the author ofStarvation ModeandMy Body Is a Book of Rules, named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthologyShapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University.

• Publisher:Tin House Books (April 27, 2021)
• Language:English
• Hardcover:432 pages
• ISBN-10:195114239X
• ISBN-13:9781951142391
• Item Weight:1.3 pounds
• Dimensions:6 x 1.4 x 8.8 inches