Reclaiming the Vision has its genesis in a gathering of more than 200 North American Native writers which took place in July of 1992. That landmark conference, called Returning The Gift, made the encouragement of Native American youth one of its main goals.

Through major funding from the Bay Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, that conference and a series of Outreach Workshops conducted by Native American writers in Native classrooms around the continent - from New York City to Alaska - focused on the place of literature in the lives of young Native Americans. Special attention was paid to the ways in which writing can foster hope, build self-esteem, provide guidance and shape a vision of a better future.

A Dissemination Grant was provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to help share some of the results of the festival through a special publication.

The result is this carefully edited volume that blends together work from many of the Native writers who have been a part of Returning The Gift and Wordcraft Circle, the mentoring organization that is an outgrowth of the 1992 festival.

Edited by Lee Francis and James Bruchac, it includes transcripts from the plenary sessions of Returning The Gift, sections on storytelling, the writing of poetry, fiction and autobiography, exercises which use Native American writing to generate work from student writers, and an anthology of poetry and prose by American Indian students.

Reclaiming the Vision is a book to be treasured by anyone interested in Native American literature or the teaching of Native American students. If you are looking for a vision, look this way.