10 Must-Read Books by Native American Authors
November is Native American Heritage Month, and we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the voices, stories, and perspectives of Indigenous authors. This is a time to listen, to read, and to acknowledge that Indigenous storytelling is thriving, evolving, and profoundly shaping contemporary literature.
This reading list highlights works by Native American and Indigenous authors across two categories: spiritual and metaphysical nonfiction, and contemporary fiction in horror, paranormal, and speculative genres.
The nonfiction titles explore traditional teachings, ceremonial practices, medicine work, and ancestral wisdom, offering readers a look into spiritual traditions shared by practitioners and knowledge keepers. The fiction choices showcase the strength of Native storytelling in modern literature, where authors are reimagining horror and speculative fiction through their own cultural lenses.
Readers are encouraged to approach these works with respect, especially the spiritual texts, which often include sacred teachings that have been generously shared. Together, these books represent vital contributions to the literary landscape, worthy of recognition not only during Heritage Month but throughout the year.
Nonfiction:
1. You Are the Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Ancestral Connection, and Animal Spirit Guidance by Asha Frost (Chippewas of Nawash First Nation/Ojibwe)
Indigenous Medicine Woman Asha Frost invites readers to follow the path of the 13 Ojibway moons with animal spirits as your guides to unlock powerful teachings that will help you directly experience your own medicine connection to your inherent healing powers. If you feel you don’t have access to your roots, ancestors, or spiritual connection, and you look outside of yourself for answers, you are forgetting the medicine that lives within you.
2. Spirits of the Earth: A Guide to Native American Nature Symbols, Stories, and Ceremonies by Bobby Lake-Thom (Karuk and Seneca)
An extraordinary compilation of legends and rituals about nature’s ever-present signs. From the birds that soar above us to the insects beneath our feet, Native American healer Bobby Lake-Thom shows how the creatures of the earth can aid us in healing and self-knowledge.
3. Voices of Our Ancestors: Cherokee Teachings from the Wisdom Fire by Dhyani Ywahoo (Cherokee)
Dhyani Ywahoo discusses practical meditations, healing rituals, and instructions for working with crystals and transforming obstacles.
4. The Sacred Medicine Oracle by Asha Frost (Ojibwe)
This is a 56-card oracle deck and guidebook exploring Indigenous healing traditions through ceremony, moon phases, animal guides, and plant allies, connecting readers with ancestral wisdom and earth medicine teachings.
5. Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder by Steven Charleston (Choctaw)
This stunning collection of over two hundred meditations introduces the Spirit Wheel and the four directions that ground Native spirituality: tradition, kinship, vision, and balance, exploring the medicine wheel concept that encompasses all creation
Fiction
6. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet)
This horror novel about a pregnant elk cow that returns as a spirit to exact revenge on her killers has been called a masterpiece. It has won the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction in 2020 and won two 2020 Bram Stoker Awards.
7. VenCo by Cherie Dimaline (Métis)
A novel featuring witches, magic, and a road trip across America. The story follows Métis millennial Lucky St. James, who discovers a silver spoon with the word SALEM, connecting her to a network of witches who gather at Tupperware parties and suburban book clubs. Lucky must help find seven enchanted spoons to complete a coven and restore women to their rightful power while being hunted by an ancient witch-hunter. It debuted at #1 on Canadian bestseller lists.
8. Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (Cree/Nehiyaw)
Mackenzie is plagued by vivid nightmares after her sister’s death, but when she wakes with a severed crow’s head from her dream clutched in her hands, the line between dreaming and waking dissolves. To save herself and understand what’s happening, she must return home and confront both her grief and the supernatural forces bleeding into her reality.
9. Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk (Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa and Potawatomi)
This groundbreaking collection features 26 Indigenous authors writing horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and thriller stories that challenge stereotypes and reclaim narrative space.
10. Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina (Tunica-Biloxi)
Set in 1996 on a Louisiana reservation, teenage Anna Horn investigates the mysterious disappearances of women and girls from her tribe, including her own sister Grace. As Anna searches for answers, she’s tormented by bullies and haunted by a nameless entity from tribal mythology. This debut thriller illuminates the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls epidemic through unsettling Native lore.
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