diff --git a/docs/src/fts.md b/docs/src/fts.md
index 78c20f6b..721a5cf1 100644
--- a/docs/src/fts.md
+++ b/docs/src/fts.md
@@ -75,6 +75,18 @@ applied on top of the full text search results. This can be invoked via the fami
 table.search("puppy").limit(10).where("meta='foo'").to_list()
 ```
 
+## Configurations
+
+By default, LanceDB configures a 1GB heap size limit for creating the index. You can 
+reduce this if running on a smaller node, or increase this for faster performance while
+indexing a larger corpus.
+
+```python
+# configure a 512MB heap size
+heap = 1024 * 1024 * 512
+table.create_fts_index(["text1", "text2"], writer_heap_size=heap, replace=True)
+```
+
 ## Current limitations
 
 1. Currently we do not yet support incremental writes.
diff --git a/python/lancedb/fts.py b/python/lancedb/fts.py
index eb5c37e3..f9667fcc 100644
--- a/python/lancedb/fts.py
+++ b/python/lancedb/fts.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 
 """Full text search index using tantivy-py"""
 import os
-from typing import List, Tuple
+from typing import List, Optional, Tuple
 
 import pyarrow as pa
 
@@ -56,7 +56,12 @@ def create_index(index_path: str, text_fields: List[str]) -> tantivy.Index:
     return index
 
 
-def populate_index(index: tantivy.Index, table: LanceTable, fields: List[str]) -> int:
+def populate_index(
+    index: tantivy.Index,
+    table: LanceTable,
+    fields: List[str],
+    writer_heap_size: int = 1024 * 1024 * 1024,
+) -> int:
     """
     Populate an index with data from a LanceTable
 
@@ -68,6 +73,8 @@ def populate_index(index: tantivy.Index, table: LanceTable, fields: List[str]) -
         The table to index
     fields : List[str]
         List of fields to index
+    writer_heap_size : int
+        The writer heap size in bytes, defaults to 1GB
 
     Returns
     -------
@@ -87,7 +94,7 @@ def populate_index(index: tantivy.Index, table: LanceTable, fields: List[str]) -
             raise TypeError(f"Field {name} is not a string type")
 
     # create a tantivy writer
-    writer = index.writer()
+    writer = index.writer(heap_size=writer_heap_size)
     # write data into index
     dataset = table.to_lance()
     row_id = 0
diff --git a/python/lancedb/table.py b/python/lancedb/table.py
index ea4d62bb..0ffbea74 100644
--- a/python/lancedb/table.py
+++ b/python/lancedb/table.py
@@ -709,7 +709,11 @@ class LanceTable(Table):
         self._dataset.create_scalar_index(column, index_type="BTREE", replace=replace)
 
     def create_fts_index(
-        self, field_names: Union[str, List[str]], *, replace: bool = False
+        self,
+        field_names: Union[str, List[str]],
+        *,
+        replace: bool = False,
+        writer_heap_size: Optional[int] = 1024 * 1024 * 1024,
     ):
         """Create a full-text search index on the table.
 
@@ -724,6 +728,7 @@ class LanceTable(Table):
             If True, replace the existing index if it exists. Note that this is
             not yet an atomic operation; the index will be temporarily
             unavailable while the new index is being created.
+        writer_heap_size: int, default 1GB
         """
         from .fts import create_index, populate_index
 
@@ -740,7 +745,7 @@ class LanceTable(Table):
             fs.delete_dir(path)
 
         index = create_index(self._get_fts_index_path(), field_names)
-        populate_index(index, self, field_names)
+        populate_index(index, self, field_names, writer_heap_size=writer_heap_size)
         register_event("create_fts_index")
 
     def _get_fts_index_path(self):