A Boozhoo Books Original

A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. . A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

You never know what's hunting you, while you're hunting it.Eleven of the deadliest writers from across Turtle Island have crafted stories for you calculated to chill, thrill, and kindle your worst imaginings. Zegaajimo brings together tales of monsters and the macabre, terrifying transformations, strange places and unexpected wonders. These stories warn of billionaires with hidden intentions, spark vigilance for ominous figures that might appear on doorsteps, and caution you to let the river keep what belongs to it.But these stories of supernatural settings and dreadful deeds are more than speculative fiction, they are also reminders that monsters are already in our midst, that the known can be just as frightening as the unknown, and that the slightest mistakes can have dire consequences. Read these tales alone to yourself, or better yet share them with friends-especially around a fire on a dark winter's night, when all you can hear is the cracking of branches, and the wind in the trees is as cold as your sweat.

Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Brit + Co | Debutiful. "A novel of pure heart and mastery.” ―Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit. "An inspired novel by an author whose voice absolutely sizzles on the page . . . A moving story of self-discovery that journeys through the crucibles of sickness, history, identity, family, and loss―all told by one of the most inventive, funny, brash narrators you’ll ever find.” ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness and The NixA coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man’s reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.. Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne―or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back.. Now forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease―one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he’s convinced to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge―a wry recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk t-shirts―isn’t all that convincing. And Abe's time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.. To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he’s hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour. . Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.

Old School Indian: A Novel

A gripping, witty memoir about indigeneity, travel, and colonialism."Ursula Pike's memoir is unlike any other I've read, with her perceptive, always-seeking, and lovely narrative voice." —Susan Straight, author of Mecca"This book is alive with a spirit that welcomed mine to meet it." —Elissa Washuta, author of White MagicWhen she was twenty-five, Ursula Pike boarded a plane to Bolivia and began her term of service in the Peace Corps. A member of the Karuk Tribe, Pike sought to make meaningful connections with Indigenous people halfway around the world. But she arrived in La Paz with trepidation as well as excitement, 'knowing I followed in the footsteps of Western colonizers and missionaries who had also claimed they were there to help.' In the following two years, as a series of dramatic episodes brought that tension to boiling point, she began to ask: what does it mean to have experienced the effects of colonialism firsthand, and yet to risk becoming a colonizing force in turn?An Indian Among los Indígenas, Pike’s memoir of this experience, upends a canon of travel memoirs that has historically been dominated by white writers. It is a sharp, honest, and unnerving examination of the shadows that colonial history casts over even the most well-intentioned attempts at cross-cultural aid. It is also the debut of an exceptionally astute writer with a mastery of deadpan wit. It signals a shift in travel writing that is long overdue.

An Indian Among los Indígenas: A Native Travel Memoir

A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., and the legacy of abuse wrought by systemic attempts to use education as a tool through which to destroy Native culture.. From the mid-19th century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their families to attend boarding schools that claimed to help create opportunity for these children to pursue professions outside their communities and otherwise "assimilate" into American life. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the US Government but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were an insidious attempt to destroy tribes, break up families, and stamp out the traditions of generations of Native people. Children were beaten for speaking their native languages, forced to complete menial tasks in terrible conditions, and utterly deprived of love and affection.. Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother was forced to attend one of these institutions—a seminary in Wisconsin, and the impacts of her experience have cast a pall over Mary's own childhood, and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark portrait of communities still reckoning with the legacy of acculturation that has affected generations of Native communities. Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it.

Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools

A Muscogee pop star and a cowboy who couldn’t be more different come together to strike a deal in this new romantic comedy by Danica Nava, author of The Truth According to Ember.. Pop singer Avery Fox has become a national joke after posing scantily clad on the cover of Rolling Stone in a feather warbonnet. What was meant to be a statement of her success as a Native American singer has turned her into a social pariah and dubbed her a fake. With threats coming from every direction and her career at a standstill, she escapes to her estranged grandmother Lottie’s ranch in Oklahoma. Living on the rez is new to Avery—not only does she have to work in the blazing summer heat to earn her keep, but the man who runs Lottie’s horse ranch despises her and wants her gone.. Red Fox Ranch has been home to Lucas Iron Eyes since he was sixteen years old. He has lived by three rules to keep himself out of trouble: 1) preserve the culture, 2) respect the horses, and 3) stick to himself. When he is tasked with picking up Lottie’s granddaughter at the bus station, the last person he expected to see is the Avery Fox. Lucas can’t stand what she represents, but when he’s forced to work with her on the ranch, he can’t get her out of his sight—or his head. He reminds himself to keep to his rules, especially after he finds out the ranch is under threat of being shut down.. It’s clear Avery doesn’t belong here, but they form a tentative truce and make a deal: Avery will help raise funds to save the ranch, and in exchange, Lucas will show her what it really means to be an Indian. It’s purely transactional, absolutely no horsing around…but where’s the fun in that?

Love Is a War Song

With humour, warmth and heartbreaking honesty, award-winning author David A. Robertson explores the struggles and small victories of living with chronic anxiety and depression, and shares his hard-earned wisdom in the hope of making other people’s mental health journeys a little less lonelyFrom the outside, David A. Robertson looks as if he has it all together—a loving family, a successful career as an author, and a platform to promote Indigenous perspectives, cultures and concerns. But what we see on the outside rarely reveals what is happening inside. Robertson lives with “little monsters”: chronic, debilitating health anxiety and panic attacks accompanied, at times, by depression. During the worst periods, he finds getting out of bed to walk down the hall an insurmountable task. During the better times, he wrestles with the compulsion to scan his body for that sure sign of a dire health crisis.In All the Little Monsters, Robertson reveals what it’s like to live inside his mind and his body and describes the toll his mental health challenges have taken on him and his family, and how he has learned to put one foot in front of the other as well as to get back up when he stumbles. He also writes about the tools that have helped him carry on, including community, therapy, medication and the simple question he asks himself on repeat: what if everything will be okay?In candidly sharing his personal story and showing that he can be well even if he can’t be “cured,” Robertson hopes to help others on their own mental health journeys.

All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety

Featuring the voices of both new and acclaimed Indigenous writers and edited by bestselling Muscogee author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of interconnected stories serves up laughter, love, Native pride, and the world’s best frybread.The road to Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-In slips through every rez and alongside every urban Native hangout. The menu offers a rotating feast, including traditional eats and tasty snacks. But Sandy June's serves up more than food: it hosts live music, movie nights, unexpected family reunions, love long lost, and love found again.That big green-and-gold neon sign beckons to teens of every tribal Nation, often when they need it most.Featuring stories and poems by: Kaua Mahoe Adams, Marcella Bell, Angeline Boulley, K. A. Cobell, A. J. Eversole, Jen Ferguson, Eric Gansworth, Byron Graves, Kate Hart, Christine Hartman Derr, Karina Iceberg, Cheryl Isaacs, Darcie Little Badger, David A. Robertson, Andrea L. Rogers, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Brian Young.In partnership with We Need Diverse Books.

Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories

A darkly humorous thriller about the ghosts that haunt the temples of excess we call casinos, and the people caught in their high-stakes, low-odds web. For decades, a dark force has terrorized the Languille Lake reservation. Spoken of only in whispers as “the sandman,” he lurks in the Hidden Atlantis Lake Resort and Casino, the reservation’s main attraction and source of revenue, leeching its patrons’ dreams and preventing the ghosts that linger there from moving on. Fleeing a breakup, Marion Lafournier, a midtwenties Ojibwe, seeks solace in the slot machine’s siren song. Here he falls afoul of the sandman, an encounter he barely escapes through the timely intervention of his cousins Alana and Cherie, who both work at the casino and are intimately aware of the sandman’s power. Meanwhile, Glenn Nielan, recently out of the closet and an aspiring documentarian, hopes to capture the faces of the Ojibwe land while experiencing the casino’s thrills. But he will learn that all who choose to play the sandman’s games are in danger of falling into his grasp.. Marion and Alana are members of the Bullhead clan, a family with ties to a sacred past and a fierce determination to ensure their future. Alana, with her sevenfire sight, is the only person to fully understand the danger the sandman poses. Aware of Marion’s occasional ability to navigate the spirit world, she enlists his aid in defeating this wraith. But the power and reach of the sandman go far beyond Alana’s worst fears. Soon she and Marion find themselves in a battle for their lives and for the souls of the reservation’s residents, both the living and the dead.

Passing Through a Prairie Country: A Novel

Shí: First-person singular possessive pronoun my, mine examples: shí heart, shí squeeze, shí hunny   In a voice that is jubilant, irreverent, sometimes scouring, sometimes heartfelt, and always unmistakably her own, Amber McCrary remaps the deserts of Arizona through the blue corn story of a young Diné woman figuring out love and life with an O’odham man. Reflecting experiences of Indigenous joy, pain, and family, these shapeshifting poems celebrate the love between two Native partners, a love that flourishes alongside the traumas they face in the present and the past. From her ethereal connection with her saguaro muse, Hosh, to the intricate tapestry of her relationships with Diné relatives and her awakening to the complex world of toxic masculinity, McCrary brings together DIY zine aesthetics, life forms of juniper and mountains, and the beauty of Diné Bizaad to tell of the enduring bonds between people and place. Journeying from the Colorado Plateau to the Sonoran Desert and back again, Blue Corn Tongue invokes the places, plants, and people of Diné Bikéyah and O’odham jeweḍ in a deeply honest exploration of love, memory, and intimacy confronting the legacy of land violence in these desert homelands.

Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert (Volume 97) (Sun Tracks)

From award-winning journalist Joseph Lee, an exploration of Indigenous identity that builds on the author’s experiences and questions as an Aquinnah Wampanoag from Martha’s Vineyard.. Growing up Aquinnah Wampanoag, Joseph Lee grappled with what it means to be an Indigenous person in the world today, especially as tribal land, culture, and community face new threats. Starting with the story of his own tribe, which is from the iconic Martha’s Vineyard, Lee tackles key questions around Indigenous identity and the stubborn legacy of colonialism. Lee weaves his own story—and that of his family—with conversations with Indigenous leaders, artists, and scholars from around the world about everything from culture and language to climate change and the politics of belonging. As he unpacks the meaning of Indigenous identity, Lee grants us a new understanding of our nation and what a better community might look like.

Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity

Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and occasional sleuth, is back on the case after a man is found dead on a rural Minnesota farm in the next installment of the acclaimed Native crime series.. Minnesota, 1970s: It’s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing fieldwork for a local farmer—until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property’s rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak.. In the wake of the murder, Cash can’t deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the farmer’s grieving widow, who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash is scouring White Earth Reservation for Shawnee’s missing mother—whom Cash wants to find before the girl is put in the foster system—another body turns up. Concerned by the escalating threat, Cash races against the clock to figure out the truth of what happened in the farmhouse.. Broken Fields is a compelling, atmospheric read woven with details of American Indian life in northern Minnesota, abusive farm labor practices and women’s liberation.

Broken Fields (A Cash Blackbear Mystery)

Boozhoo Books

Naomi Darling

During this phase, we're reviewing manuscripts and deciding which book we want to publish. At the end of this phase, we offer an author a book deal.

Consideration

As the manuscript goes through several phases of editorial work, the cover and interior design takes place, while format decisions about paper stocks and printing treatments are made.

Editorial & Design

While the books are on press, the pre-order links go live and the marketing campaign ramps up with waves of review copy mailings to media and influencers.

Pre-order

The finished copies have released on the book's publication date. Go give it some love!

Published

bookshop

amazon

Naomi

Hi, I’m Naomi @fromthemixedupdesk. I am an Indigenous book content creator who is passionate about championing underrepresented voices in literature. Welcome to Boozhoo Books. Boozhoo means “Hello” in Anishinaabemowin.

Boozhoo Books is a publishing imprint dedicated to uplifting diverse voices. We are currently seeking novel length submissions (never previously published) genre fiction written by Indigenous authors highlighting Native/First Nations stories and horror books written by women (BIPOC encouraged to submit!)

Unagented authors can submit by clicking on the LINK button below. (The first clickable button)

I currently run two book clubs:  A Good Day To Read Indigenous and Women in Horror. 

I love talking about all things books, and book adjacent: annotating, book playlists, book journaling, bookshelves, BOOK CATS.

 believe that together we have the opportunity to build and create something great here. Please join us on this journey. 