some reviews

The New York Times: Cherokee Women Aim for a Better Life in ‘Crooked Hallelujah’
The Washington Post: In Kelli Jo Ford’s remarkable ‘Crooked Hallelujah,’ the maternal bond is unbreakable
San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook: ‘Crooked Hallelujah’ an intricate web of love, memory and blood that binds four Cherokee women
Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Review
Time Magazine: Crooked Hallelujah Is a Love Letter Celebrating the Resilience of Indigenous Communities
Texas Observer: In ‘Crooked Hallelujah,’ Kelli Jo Ford Explores How Pain is Passed Down Through Families
High Country News: ‘One hell of a testimony’ about mothers and daughters
Publishers Weekly Starred Review
The Arts Fuse review
Forward Reviews’ review

out and about

NPR’s Weekend Edition Interview: 'Crooked Hallelujah' Sings Of Beauty And Trouble Between Mothers And Daughters
Cowboys & Indians Magazine:
The Real Deal: Indigenous Storytellers
LA Review of Books Interview:
Kelli Jo Ford, author of Crooked Hallelujah, on Love and the End Times
Electric Literature Interview: Four Generations of Cherokee Women Navigate Love and Disaster
KERA’s Interview:
A Debut Novel Follows Three Hard-Living And Resilient Cherokee Women In Texas And Oklahoma
LITHUB: Kelli Jo Ford on the Books That Helped Her Find a Way Home
LITHUB: Joining Conversation: A Roundtable With Native American Authors with host Erika Wurth
Texas Highways: 10 Texas Books That Defined 2020
Mason author gives voice to generations of Native American women
Publishers Weekly best books of 2020
Publishers Weekly Interview
Oprah Magazine’s
31 Native American Authors to Read Right Now
Oprah Magazine’s Best Summer 2020 Books from Authors Around the World
Buzzfeed’s 14 Contemporary Books By Native American Writers To Get Excited About
Book Riot’s 15 of the Most Popular Indigenous Books From 2020
BitchReads: 27 Novels Feminists Should Read in 2020
Ms. Magazine’s Reads for the Rest of Us: Feminist Books Coming Out in 2020
Electric Lit’s 56 Books By Women and Nonbinary Writers of Color to Read in 2020
Profile in SAR Now
Plimpton Prize Announcement
Interview in The Missouri Review
Interview in the Cherokee Phoenix

more good stuff

2023 Creative Capital “Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact” Award
2022 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship
2021 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award Winner
2021 Creative Capital Award Finalist
2019 “Hybrid Vigor” named a notable story in 2019’s Best American Short Stories
2019 Plimpton Prize for “Hybrid Vigor,” published in The Paris Review’s Winter 2018 issue
2019 Everett Southwest Literary Award
2018 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award Finalist
2018 Peden Prize for the best story published in the Missouri Review in 2017
2018 Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless Nason Award Winner in Fiction
2017 Gell Residency for Writers with Young Children Award Winner 
2016 Native Arts & Cultures Foundation's National Artist Fellow 
2016 Indigenous Writer-in-Residence at School for Advanced Research
2016 Elizabeth George Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Recipient
2012-2013 Dobie Paisano Fellow – sponsored by the Graduate School at the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters
2012 Voted a “Favorite Professor” by College of Western Idaho student newspaper <3 <3 <3
2006 George Mason University Narrative Thesis Fellow