Brandon Hobson, a member of the Cherokee Nation Tribe, lives in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and teaches writing. His novel Where the Dead Sit Talking was a finalist for the National Book Awards. It’s a coming of age story set in rural Oklahoma in the late 1980s. Sequoyah is the 15-year-old only son of a poor alcoholic mother who was sentenced to time in prison. In children’s services, the only real constant in the boy’s life is Liz, the social worker assigned to his care. When Liz places Sequoyah in