“In these searing, devastating and often darkly funny stories, we come to know a community of Native people living on a Maine Penobscot reservation in all of their complexity and drive for survival. There's family tragedy, struggle with drugs and deep poverty, but there's also children with a plucky spirit, adults who grapple for purchase against all odds and an abiding love that will stay with you for a long time.” —Good Housekeeping

“I am continually inspired by Morgan—not just by his writing, which is resonant, gorgeous, and deeply human, but also by his gratitude for each of his successes, his abiding love of storytelling, and his overall decency.”

“It was a glass jar filled with hair and corn and teeth. The teeth were white with a tint of yellow at the root. The hair was gray and thin and loose. And the corn was kind of like the teeth, white and yellow and looked hard.”

“. . . at the end of the day, I’m very focused on these characters’ problems and how they’re unique to themselves, but also how we experienced them on a broader level. I’m writing it for Penobscot people, but non-Native folks as well.” — Morgan Talty

“These [Night of the Living Rez] are 12 incredible stories about being Penobscot in the 21st century, set in a Native community in Maine. They are haunting, insightful, and just plain excellent.” — Liberty Hardy

Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Morgan Talty is one of 35 writers who will receive a FY 2022 Creative Writing Fellowship of $25,000.

“A collection of stories set in a Native community in Maine, Talty’s book centers questions of what it means to be Penobscot today—what it means to live through and reckon with historical tragedies. Talty grapples with such complicated inheritances with tenderness and humor, with characters ranging from a boy who finds an old curse in a jar to a grandmother struggling with Alzheimer’s.” — Snigdha Koirala, Lit Hub Editorial Fellow

“Talty’s Penobscot tribal community is eerily unique and tangibly universal. I can’t wait to dive into the pages of NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ to discover triumphs and failures akin to my own Indigenous communities.” — Oscar Hokeah

“Early on Morgan talked about how important the night sky was to him and his characters within Night of the Living Rez. The stories are dark, too, and they are full of a long hard history. Still, there is hope and resiliency and humor in these characters.” — Diane Chonette

Talty, a fiction writer and citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation, earns the prize for his stories “Food for the Common Cold” and “The Gambler.” His previously published work in Narrative includes “Burn,” “Safe Harbor,” and “In a Jar.”