Kelli Jo Ford Named Guest Editor of TCJ Student

Tribal College Journal is pleased to announce that award-winning author and creative writing professor Kelli Jo Ford (Cherokee) will serve as guest editor for the 2023 edition of TCJ Student. She joins an esteemed cadre of writers, poets, and artists who have served as guest editor or essayist for TCJ Student, including Joy Harjo, N. Scott Momaday, Luci Tapahonso, Daniel H. Wilson, Tommy Orange, Tiffany Midge, and Gwen Westerman.

Kelli Jo Ford is citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her celebrated book Crooked Hallelujah, published in 2020, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Dublin Literary Award, and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and a Dobie Paisano Fellowship. She teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Ford also has work published or forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly, and The Missouri Review, among other publications.

“We are proud to have this talented writer and tribal college professor as TCJ’s 2023 guest editor,” says TCJ publisher Bradley Shreve. “Her beautiful prose made certain that her debut novel, “Crooked Hallelujah,” was among the Tribal College Journal’s “Best Books of 2020.”

Tribal College Journal is currently soliciting short stories, poetry, memoirs, artwork, and short films from tribal college students for their 2023 contest. TCJ will be giving away more than $1000 in prizes and will publish the winning entries in the 2023 edition of TCJ Student and online at TCJStudent.org. The deadline for writing submissions is February 10, 2023. The deadline for art and film submissions is March 24, 2023. For contest guidelines and the official entry form, visit: http://tcjstudent.org/contest/. Kelli Jo Ford will announce the winners in March 2023.