SOURCE: Brown, Alanna Kathleen. “Pulling Silko's Threads through Time: An Exploration of Storytelling.” American Indian Quarterly 19, no. 2 (spring 1995): 171-80.

In the following essay, Brown elucidates the ways in which Storyteller affected her perception of storytelling and provided insight into her own experiences.

As a teacher I have always tried to speak from those places in my mind and my heart that are moved by a text. I always have wanted to model to students the ways in which literature guides us to be more understanding of ourselves and others through imaginative comprehension. But I was drawn beyond unseen boundaries when I became a Native American scholar. What I thought I knew, even what moved me, was culture-bound. My insights had to expand to include what had been truly foreign to my thinking. That unfolding vision is altering not only what I teach, but how I experience the world...