Phillip and Judy Tuwaletstiwa are collaborating on The Laughing Spiders, a novel set in the American Southwest during the eighth and twentieth centuries.

Fern Green is a character in the contemporary section of the novel. As a child, Amanda Devine, the protagonist, reads her book, Frog Dreaming. It profoundly influences how Amanda thinks about dream and story, space and time when she becomes an archeologist.

There was a real life Fern Green. She was Judy's Aunt, an artist who suffered from debilitating mental illness. Her name lives on in the novel because of her endurance and creative spirit.