The first white woman to have a sand painting prepared in her honor and the first permitted to film the sacred Mountain Chant ceremony for distribution as a feature-length movie, Laura Adams Armer was a noted painter and photographer for many years until she turned her hand to writing. She published her first book, Waterless Mountain (1931), at the age of 57 and received both the Newbery Medal and the Longmans, Green & Company's prize for juvenile fiction.