Elissa Washuta on Unsolvable Magic

Photo: Marcus Jackson

“I can’t know right now whether I’ve been good enough to avoid Hell. That was always a question for me, as a Catholic kid. Witchcraft was another facet of that, in a way— a mystery I could approach but not fully exhaust.”

Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a nonfiction writer. She is the author of White Magic, My Body Is a Book of Rules, and Starvation Mode. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and Potlatch Fund. Elissa is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University.