Native American Authors Panel

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,…