Zitkála-Šá had a fruitful writing career, with two major periods. The first period was from 1900 to 1904, when she published legends collected from Native American culture, as well as autobiographical narratives. She continued to write during the following years, but she did not publish any of these writings. These unpublished writings, along with others including the libretto of the "Sun Dance Opera", were collected and published posthumously in 2001 as "Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and the Sun Dance Opera".