Ep. 20: Finding Audience: Cynthia Leitich Smith on Story as a Circle and Making Magic Out of Nothing

Here are select highlights from our conversation with NYtimes bestselling, award-winning author Cynthia Leitich Smith:

 

• Story as a circle, gathering, and communal effort
• Figuring out where your voice can best serve and where your heart beats with hope
• Building on “and” instead of “vs”
• Inviting people into the conversation AND being a part of the conversation
• Social media dynamics as both tricky and powerful
• Approaches to book promotion that start locally
• How we can never surrender progress made by generations before
• Only asking kids to take on battles we’re willing to engage in ourselves 

 

Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee) is a NYTimes bestseller, 2024 Southern Mississippi Medallion Winner, and 2021 NSK Neustadt Laureate. Her titles include HEARTS UNBROKEN, which won an American Indian Youth Literature Award, the anthology ANCESTOR APPROVED, an Indigenous PETER PAN retelling titled SISTERS OF THE NEVERSEA, HARVEST HOUSE, which is one of five Bram Stoker Award® Nominees for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel, and—the BLUE STARS series, also by Kekla Magoon and Molly Murakami. Cynthia looks forward to ON A WING AND A TEAR for middle graders. She is the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint of HarperChildren’s.

 

Website: https://cynthialeitichsmith.com/

IG: @cynthialeitichsmith