Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. is the Tilikum Professor of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. He is the author of the Chicago-set story collections Sacred Smokes and Sacred City; a Southern Gothic novella, Pour One for the Devil; the editor of The Faster Redder Road: The Best UnAmerican Stories of Stephen Graham Jones; and the co-editor of Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, which was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. His work has appeared in Southwest Review, The Rumpus, The Journal of Working-Class Studies, Apex Magazine, Indian Country Today, and elsewhere. His debut novel, The El, will be published in 2025, and his third collection of linked stories, Sacred Folks, is out now.
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Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
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Sacred Folks: Stories
"Sacred Folks" brings it all home in the final book of Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.'s urban Native Chicago story cycle. Disciples, demons, gods, gangbangers, and the city itself all meet up to tell unforgettable tales across time and neighborhoods. Our guide through the trilogy, Teddy, is right in the thick of things, and he recounts for us parts of the path to the end and explains how and maybe why we got here and where we might go after all.
