Appalachian Writer-in-Residence Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, left, talks about her debut novel, during the Nourishing Literacy Giving Circle luncheon in the Bavarian Inn on Sept. 24. Photo by Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies Director Benjamin Bankhurst handed a plaque to author Annette Clapsaddle, proclaiming her this year’s recipient of the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award, on the stage of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education on Sept. 25.

For Clapsaddle, the award and her platform as the 2025 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence presented an opportunity for her to share a realistic insight into the lives and culture of indigenous people. Her debut novel, “Even As We Breathe,” for which she was selected for the residency and award, details the life of a Cherokee teenager, as he seeks out better career opportunities than could be found on his reservation, by going to work around the time of World War II at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C.

“The way my brain works, is I just kind of stick things into something that I’m writing, until they start coming together. It struck me as fascinating — this upper class resort all of a sudden becoming a prison and being very close to a sovereign nation during World War II, but still in America,” Clapsaddle said, referring to her tribe’s territory an hour’s drive from Asheville, Qualla Boundary. “I like throwing all of those facts together, to really talk about some contemporary issues, but through this historical lens.

“In America, we’re very nostalgic about World War II and our role in World War II, which we should be,” Clapsaddle said. “But it also provides a lens into our past and what we taught our enemies, and just the complexity of citizenship and our role on the world stage.”

She noted that her character, though a Native American, had been born without American citizenship. It was not until 1924, in fact, that her character would have been given that right, following the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act. Even then, it was many years before indigenous people were given the right to vote.

The racism against America’s indigenous people, Clapsaddle said, cannot only be seen in history, but also throughout American literature. Too few books with indigenous people in them have been written by indigenous people, leading to many misconceptions to be spread about them.

“I’m not Disney Pocahontas. I do talk to my pets, but they don’t talk back,” Clapsaddle said, with a chuckle. “But in Native American depictions in literature that have not been written by native people, there is often a preconception that native people have a magical connection with nature.”

Another misconception, she said, is how they are often portrayed in literature, television and movies as “other,” lacking the same inherent humanity as the rest of the populous.

“My goal is to highlight their reality to the world,” Clapsaddle said. “You have to help people understand that we are human beings. For many years, you could go to a museum and see some of our ancestors’s bones on display — treated as no different than a dinosaur’s.”

For this reason, Clapsaddle has been grateful to see her novel find success on the national stage. And, by having it selected as the West Virginia Center for the Book’s One Book, One West Virginia and the featured novel for her residency this year, she said she hoped to see many people in the state come to develop an accurate understanding of indigenous people.

“It has felt like there was only room for one native author at a time, though I do believe that is starting to change. Currently, I am the only published novelist from my tribe,” Clapsaddle said, noting she is a registered citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. “However, there are others who have been poets and short story writers. I have hope that soon, there will be many other novelists from my tribe.”

She herself began working to achieve this in 2023, when she founded Confluence: An Indigenous Writers’ Workshop Series, connecting indigenous people interested in writing with indigenous, professional writers.