A Cherokee writer raised in the Red River area along the Texas and Oklahoma border, Kelly Jo Ford currently serves as Indigenous Writer in Residence at the School for Advanced Studies. Since earning her M.F.A. from George Masson University in 2007, Ford has won numerous awards, including the 2016 Elizabeth George Foundation Artistic Grant. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Paris Review.
Her debut novel, Crooked Hallelujah, was on the longlist for The Story Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.