First, in the Saturday Essay, Laura Da’ laments the near-eradication of the Shawnee language. Da’ provides a litany of broken treaties, each one an “artifact of unimaginable suffering,” and attempts to redefine the treaty for herself in today’s world.

Then, industrious author Christine Sneed talks to Floyd Skloot in the Sunday Interview. Sneed looks back on her experiences teaching and traveling and the way those experiences influenced her work, including her acclaimed collection, Portraits of a Few People I’ve Made Cry and her forthcoming collection, The Virginity of Famous Men.