LeAnne Howe is a novelist, poet, playwright, and screenwriter as well as a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Her work deals primarily with American Indian experiences. Howe’s debut novel, Shell Shaker (2001), received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation as well as the Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year award. Her second novel, Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story (2007), recounts the story of a Choctaw baseball pitcher and his team and moves between 1907 and the present. Howe served as Director of Creative Writing and Professor of English and Native Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.