Pulitzer Prize nominated author Linda Hogan said people become writers because there are some things speech can’t convey — and so they turn to stories.

At the final event of the 24th Annual Symposium on American Indians, Hogan read passages from her new book, “Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World” and poetry selections to an audience of nearly 100 people.

The reading took place in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

“Dwellings” explores a lifelong love of the living world and questions responsibility to the planet through the stories of indigenous people.

“All land on this continent had language and stories before the other languages were here,” Hogan said.

Hogan, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, said she has realized the intelligence and wisdom of elders and ancestors, who long ago came to the same conclusions that contemporary western science is just now coming to — especially conclusions in the area of natural sciences.

“They knew we live in a world of unending relationships. Ecology is an unending relationship,” she said.

Hogan told the story of a friend who works with the U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Service who brought health to local waters. This task brought a procession of native grasses, birds and other wildlife back.

“He said we need to come back now,” she said.

In the process of writing “Dwellings,” Hogan said she became interested in the concept of land and maps.

“Early fur trading was the first time we had a near extinction of species — the beaver. I saw a change in maps over time. I realized beavers are the makers of land and the change came from their not being there,” she said.

“Indigenous people had original place names in the form of the creator’s body. People never lost track of the connection between land and the creator and their tribe,” she said.

She said many indigenous people are a people of place and need to protect endangered land, referring to an ongoing fight to save the caribou calving grounds in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge from oil prospectors.

Hogan, the author of several books and volumes of poetry, teaches creative writing at the University of California. Her book, “Mean Spirit” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1991.