Tim Tingle (Oklahoma Choctaw) is an award-winning author and storyteller. He is the author of more than a dozen books. In 2008 he received the American Indian Youth Literature Award. In 2018 he received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book. His great-great-grandfather, John Carnes, walked the Trail of Tears in 1835, and memories of this family epic fuel his writing and storytelling.