Rebecca Roanhorse

Rebecca Roanhorse (born March 14, 1971) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer from New Mexico.

She has written short stories and science fiction novels featuring Navajo characters.

Her work has received Hugo and Nebula awards, among others.

Rebecca Parish was born in Conway, Arkansas, in 1971.

She was adopted as a child by white parents, and raised in northern Texas.

She has said that "being a black and Native kid in Fort Worth in the '70s and '80s was pretty limiting"; thus, she turned to reading and writing, especially science fiction, as a form of escape.

Her father was an economics professor, and her mother was a high school English teacher who encouraged Rebecca's early attempts at writing stories.

Roanhorse graduated from Yale University and later earned her JD degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law, specializing in Federal Indian Law and lived for several years on the Navajo Nation, where she clerked at the Navajo Supreme Court before working as an attorney.

Her short story "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" (Apex Magazine 2017) won two major awards: the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Short Story and the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Short Story.

Dr. Matthew Martinez, former Lieutenant Governor of Ohkay Owingeh, welcomed Roanhorse on her first and only visit to the community, in 2018, and spent time with her.

He said, "I recognize that adoption is an emotional experience for families and communities and especially those who have been adopted out with no real connection to home....At Ohkay Owingeh, our current enrollment process privileges family lineage and not blood quantum."

Agoyo explained that "anyone who descends from an Ohkay family - as Roanhorse has publicly claimed - can become a citizen. But Martinez said the author has chosen a different path."

Martinez continued, "by not engaging in any form of cultural and community acknowledgement, Roanhorse has failed to establish any legitimate claim to call herself Ohkay Owingeh."

He eventually concluded, "It is unethical for Roanhorse to be claiming Ohkay Owingeh and using this identity to publish Native stories."

She currently lives in New Mexico with her husband, who is Navajo, and their daughter.

Roanhorse told The New York Times that she initially worked on "Tolkien knockoffs about white farm boys going on journeys", because she figured that is what readers wanted.

In 2018 Roanhorse received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

The story also earned her nominations for the 2018 Locus Award for Best Short Story, the 2018 Theodore Sturgeon Award, and the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction.

Her first novel, Trail of Lightning, is an "apocalyptic adventure" set in Dinétah, formerly the Navajo reservation in the Southwestern United States, with mostly Navajo characters.

The novel received significant critical acclaim.

Kirkus Reviews described the book as a "sharp, wonderfully dreamy, action-driven novel," while The Verge praised the book's representation of Native cultures, saying it "takes readers along for a fun ride."

"I think a lot of Native characters that we see are stuck in the past. So it was important for me to...show Native American readers and non-Native American readers that we're alive and we're thriving in our cultures", she said in 2018.

In addition, Roanhorse sought Navajo views and input during the writing of Trail of Lightning, including PhD student Charlie Scott.

"Scott and a number of Native writers I spoke with pointed out that the critique of Roanhorse comes primarily from Native academics, many of whom came through Ivy League institutions or M.F.A. programs and share a particular view of what Native literature should be. For Native readers who like Roanhorse’s work, her willingness to deviate from tradition is exactly what makes her books so exciting and important."

Prominent Native scholar Debbie Reese (Nambé Pueblo) initially praised Trail of Lightning, but upon hearing from Diné writers, poets and academics, she changed her mind about the book, writing that she'd "come to understand that Roanhorse had crossed the Diné's 'lines of disclosure,' an offense that many white interlopers had committed in the past."

She retracted the review and criticized Roanhorse for sharing sacred cultural practices and narratives that were not meant to be taken outside the culture, as well as misusing and misrepresenting sacred stories.

Critics of Roanhorse argue that because the Indigenous community that Roanhorse has claimed does not claim her, or her mother that she claims was from the community, this makes her non-Indigenous.

It went on to win the 2019 Locus Award for Best First Novel, as well as receive nominations for the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the 2019 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

However, it has been criticized by Navajo/Diné and other Native authors, scholars, and activists, who have argued that, due to a lack of cultural connection, it misrepresents Navajo teachings and spirituality, disrespects Navajo sensibilities, and harms Navajo culture.

A group of Navajo writers and cultural workers condemned Trail of Lightning as an inaccurate cultural appropriation that uses an at-times mocking and derisive tone.

For example, the Saad Bee Hózhǫ́ writers' collective criticized the hero's use of bullets filled with corn pollen to slay the monster, which they viewed as a violent, disrespectful misuse of sacred ceremonial traditions.

When asked in a Reddit AMA about including Navajo cultural aspects into her works, Roanhorse said her goal was "accuracy and respect" and gave examples of what she fictionalized and what she considered off-limits.

In a 2020 profile by Vulture magazine, Roanhorse said that at 7 years old she learned from looking at her birth certificate that she is "half-Black and half–Spanish Indian".

While living and working in New York City, she hired a private investigator to track down her birth mother.

The resulting reunion was uncomfortable, as her birth and adoption had been a secret.

According to the Vulture profile, "Her birth father, a minister, had never learned of her existence. Neither had most of her mother’s extended family — conservative Pueblo Catholics from New Mexico. One of her aunts, a former nun, later told her, “It would be better if you went away.”" Roanhorse has said that she is of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo descent through her mother's family, and African American on her father's side.

When she began publishing and doing speaking engagements, others pointed out that she is not an enrolled member of any tribal community.

Leaders of the Ohkay Owingeh community have stated that Roanhorse is not enrolled there and has no connection to their community.

On August 19, 2020, Roanhorse was announced as a contributing writer to Marvel Comics' Marvel's Voices: Indigenous Voices #1 anthology, which was released in November 2020.

She wrote a story about Echo, joined by Weshoyot Alvitre on art.