Native American Authors Panel

Join Native American authors for a discussion on their writing, books, how being Native American shapes their point of view and more.

This event will be livestreamed and available for future viewing. Watch it here →

About the Panelists 

+ A.J. Eversole grew up in rural Oklahoma, where wide open spaces fueled her imagination and a lifelong love of stories. An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, she writes across adult and children’s literature, from stories centering Cherokee identity and cultural reclamation to fantasy, speculative fiction, and narratives of everyday courage.

Her work appears in Legendary Frybread Drive-In (Heartdrum/HarperCollins), a Michael L. Printz Award–winning anthology, Beyond the Glittering World (Torrey House Press), and Never Whistle at Night Part II (Vintage, 2026). Through her fiction, Eversole centers Native voices and futures while honoring the living presence of tradition, community, and story. In addition to her creative work, she reports on Native voices in literature for Cynsations. She lives and writes in Oklahoma. Find her on social media @ajeversole.

+ Kate Hart (Moderator) is the author of After the Fall, a young adult novel chosen by the Arkansas Center for the Book as a 2017 Arkansas Gem. She has also contributed to many anthologies, including Legendary Frybread Drive-In, winner of the 2026 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, the Odyssey Honor Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production, & the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book; Never Whistle At Night, a national bestseller nominated for the Shirley Jackson award, the Bram Stoker award, and the Locus award; and young adult collections Out Now, Body Talk, Toil and Trouble, and Hope Nation.

Before becoming a writer, Kate earned degrees in Spanish and history at Hendrix College, taught preschool and middle school, and wrote grants for a local nonprofit. She helped run YA Highway, a three-time pick for Writer's Digest's "101 Best Websites for Writers,” and has appeared at conferences and festivals across the country, including YALLWEST, Imanoli Writing Conference, North Texas Teen Book Fair, Arkansas Association of Instructional Media, Chicago Young Adult Book Festival, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Born in Oklahoma and raised in Arkansas, Kate is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation with Choctaw heritage and an alumnus member of the Tulsa chapter of Matriarch. She lives on a mountainside outside of Fayetteville, where she also creates beadwork as Kate Hart Studio and co-owns Natural State Treehouses with her spouse. Her literary work is represented by Alexandra Levick at Writers House. You can find her at katehart.net and instagram.com/katehartbooks.

+ Stacy Wells likes to read. A lot. So much so, her husband and children must constantly remind her of their names and positions in the family (she has a habit of confusing them with literary characters). Anne of Green Gables sparked a love of reading that hasn’t let up since third grade. You see, she saw pieces of herself reflected in Anne’s often-misunderstood character—not to mention her stubborn, passionate, and loyal-to-a-fault nature. Due to her love of reading, Stacy also grew to love writing. A lot. Since she was always lost in a book, she thought to get lost in her own stories too. Her debut picture book, STRONGER THAN co-authored with Nikki Grimes and illustrated by E.B. Lewis (Heartdrum, 2026) is available wherever books are sold.

Stacy is a member of the Choctaw Nation, and a children’s librarian. When not reading or writing (or recommending books), she lives life to the fullest in North Texas with her family, which includes a red dog named Blu and two very adorable but very mischievous ferrets.

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