NPR

'Even As We Breathe': A First Novel From A Teacher Who Writes For Her Students

The book is a mystery of sorts, set at an upscale North Carolina resort during World War II. Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle teaches at a high school with a student population that's 30% Native American.
An archival postcard of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., where much of the novel <em>Even As We Breathe</em> is set.

The Qualla Boundary is not technically a reservation, but everyone around here calls it one. The ancestral home of the Cherokee people sprawls across western North Carolina, a mountainous region thick with yellow birch and red maple forests, Dollar Generals, and ancient ceremonial mounds dating back to at least 1000 BCE. It's also home to first-time author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle.

"My Cherokee ancestors have been here, we would say, since the beginning of time," Clapsaddle says. "Other people would say over ten

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