Kelli Jo Ford‘s debut novel-in-stories, Crooked Hallelujah, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She received The Paris Review‘s Plimpton Prize, the Everett Southwest Literary Award, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and a Dobie Paisano Fellowship. She teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.