Author Talk: Bestseller David Treuer With Public Historian Heather Bruegl

The Author Series Committee welcomes New York Times bestselling writer and academic David Treuer. Treuer will be discussing his highly anticipated new book, The Savage Mind (Little, Brown and Company, 2026). David will be joined by public historian, decolonial education consultant, and published author Heather Bruegl.

In the wake of George Floyd’s M**der and the January 6 insurrection, as America seemed to be falling apart, David Treuer decided to hold himself and his family together the only way he knew how: he sat down to write a letter. What resulted isThe Savage Mind, the most personal and powerful work of his storied literary career.

How do we understand America, ourselves, and the impulses that seem intent on destroying both? Ranging from Treuer’s upbringing on the Leech Lake reservation in Minnesota to the experiences of his parents, a Jewish Holocaust refugee and the first American Indigenous woman judge,The Savage Mind reveals the terrifying essence of our nation: frontier violence, which has defined our country, our culture, and our very selves. The frontier, Treuer shows, was a site of epic, phantasmagoric bloodshed, initiated by white settlers but perpetuated by all of us. And after the geographic frontier closed in the late 19th century, it did not vanish—quite the opposite.

Today, Treuer explains, America’s frontier—and all its violent pathologies—has migrated overseas and into our hearts and minds. The atrocities in Gaza and the school shootings in the American heartland are bound together by this invisible filament—one that Treuer makes visible in The Savage Mind, and which he offers hope for weaving, once and for all, into a better cloth.

Copies of David and Heather's books will be available from 27th Letter Books.

About David: New York Times bestselling author and editor David Treuer is Ojibwe from Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, three Minnesota Book Awards, and fellowships from the NEH, Bush Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and was a Fellow at the American Academy Berlin.

Treuer’s forthcoming book, The Savage Mind: An American Legacy, will be released on October 6, 2026. His most recent book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, was a New York Times bestseller, a National Book Award Finalist, a Minnesota Book Prize winner, a California Book Prize winner, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Harper's. He is a contributing writer for Atlantic Monthly Magazine and is an editor-at-large for Pantheon Books.

He divides his time between his home on the Leech Lake Reservation and Los Angeles, where he is a professor of English at the University of Southern California.

About Heather: Heather Bruegl is a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and first-line descendent Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican. She is a graduate of Madonna University in Michigan and holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in U.S. History. Her research encompasses numerous topics related to American history, including early colonial and revolutionary history, presidential history, civil rights and social justice movements, the legacies of colonization and Indigeneity, the history of American Boarding Schools, and the issues of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Heather has presented her work at academic institutions, including the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bard College, Vassar College, and Brooklyn Law School.

Heather consults for various museums and universities and is a frequent conference lecturer on topics ranging from intergenerational racism and trauma to the fight for clean water in the Native community. She has been invited to share her research on Indigenous history, including policy and activism, museum equity, and Land Back initiatives, for institutions such as the Tate Modern in London and the Brooklyn Public Library. Heather opened and spoke at the Women’s March Anniversary in Lansing, Michigan, in January 2018 and at the first-ever Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, DC, in January 2019. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, Heather spoke at the Crazy Horse Memorial and Museum in Custer, South Dakota, as part of its Talking Circle Series.

Heather is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where she studies First Nations Education. Her dissertation research focuses on the importance of telling the truth in history in museums and cultural institutions. Heather is also a public historian and activist who works with institutions and organizations for Indigenous sovereignty and collective liberation.

This is NOT a ticketed event, which means seats are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Registering for David's talk is highly encouraged in order to receive important updates about his visit.

Questions? Email [email protected]!