LeAnne Howe is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, scholar, and writer of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and plays. She is the Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature in the English Department at the University of Georgia, Athens and former Fulbright Scholar. Her first novel Shell Shaker (Aunt Lute Books, 2001) received an American Book Award in 2002 from the Before Columbus Foundation.