In the following essay, Hirsch conveys a connection between the "oral tradition" and the "written word" in "Storyteller."

"I was never tempted to go to those things . . . ," said Leslie Marmon Silko of the old BAE reports ". . . I . . . don't have to because from the time I was little I heard quite a bit. I heard it in what would be passed now off as rumor or gossip. I could hear through all that. I could hear something else, that there was a kind of continuum. . . ." That continuum provides both the structural and thematic basis of Storyteller. Comprised of personal reminiscences and narratives, retellings of traditional Laguna stories, photographs, and a generous portion of her previously published short fiction and poetry, this multigeneric work lovingly maps the fertile storytelling ground from which her art evolves and to which it is here returned—an offering to the oral tradition...