The next installment of the “Rising Waters: Writing Place and Environment” Thomas Howerton lecture series will feature award-winning author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle. The event, presented by the UNCA English Department, will be held Thursday, February 12, from 6-7:30 p.m. in the Blue Ridge Room of the Highsmith Student Union. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged.
In “Going to Water: A Writer’s Search for the Cherokee Literary Form,” Clapsaddle explores the evolution of Cherokee literature and the contemporary efforts to rematriate storytelling practices rooted in Cherokee culture and values.
She will discuss how Cherokee writers and artists are using Cherokee cultural knowledge and the seven core Cherokee values to inform artistic choices, such as structure, style, and narrative. These methods diverge from Western canonical literature and classic Euro-American art forms.
Clapsaddle’s event is the second in a three- year lecture series that features humanities scholars in conversation with natural sciences scholars about issues affecting us all.
For more information and to register for the event visit UNCA’s events page.
About Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Clapsaddle is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and lives in Cherokee. 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 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).
In partnership with the Museum of the Cherokee People, she launched Confluence: An Indigenous Writers’ Workshop Series, bringing Indigenous authors to the Qualla Boundary to mentor emerging writers.
Clapsaddle currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina Writers’ Network, the Board of Directors for the Museum of the Cherokee People and is an editor for the University Press of Kentucky’s Appalachian Futures series. In 2025, she was named Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University.
