Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and lives in Cherokee, North Carolina with her husband, Evan, and their sons, Ross and Charlie. A graduate of Yale University and the College of William & Mary, Clapsaddle is the author of Even As We Breathe (UPK, 2020), the first novel published by an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. The novel was a finalist for the Weatherford Award, winner of the 2021 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, and named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020.
Her first novel manuscript, Going to Water, won the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium (2012) and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2014). Clapsaddle’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Yes! Magazine, Lit Hub, The Atlantic, Salvation South, Bon Appétit, and Travel + Leisure.
Clapsaddle’s recent and upcoming contributions appear in What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (UPK, 2023), Troublesome Rising: A Thousand Year Flood in Eastern Kentucky (UPK, 2024), and The Devil’s Done Come Back: New Ghost Tales from North Carolina (Blair, 2025).
A dedicated educator, Clapsaddle returned to Swain County High School to teach for over a decade after serving as Executive Director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. She now leads Bird Words, LLC, a consulting and writing business she founded in 2022. In partnership with the Museum of the Cherokee People, she launched Confluence: An Indigenous Writers’ Workshop Series, which brings Indigenous authors to the Qualla Boundary to mentor emerging writers.
Clapsaddle currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina Writers’ Network and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Museum of the Cherokee People. In 2025, she was named Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University.
