Michael Dorris's most recent nonfiction book, The Broken Cord (HarperCollins), won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the author of two novels, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (Holt, Warner), and, with Louise Erdrich, The Crown of Columbus (HarperCollins). His first children's book, Morning Girl (Hyperion), will be published this fall, and a collection of his short fiction, Working Men (Holt), in which "Earnest Money" is included, is scheduled for the spring of 1993.