Broken Bonds, Sovereign Stakes

Brandon Hobson and Jon Hickey discuss writing contemporary stories that center Indigenous communities while exploring themes of belonging, grief, and acceptance. In The Devil Is a Southpaw, Hobson crafts a novel within a novel, tracing the jealousy-fueled spiral of a friendship that begins in a juvenile detention center. In Big Chief, Hickey portrays a political fixer who struggles to claim his place within his homeland while pulling the Chief’s political strings.