Lexington, Kentucky
Margaret Verble’s first novel, Maud’s Line, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016. Verble is an enrolled and voting citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a member of a large Cherokee family that has, through generations, made many contributions to the tribe’s history and survival. Although many of her family have remained in Oklahoma to this day, and some still own and farm the land on which the book is set, Margaret was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky. Many of the characters of Maud’s Line are based on people Margaret knew as a child and the setting is land she roamed for many years of her life. In part, Margaret wrote this book to keep those people and that land alive in her heart.
Margaret's new novel, Cherokee America, was released by Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt on Feb. 19, 2019. A prequel to Maud's Line, it is set in 1875 in the Arkansas River bottoms of the old Cherokee Nation West.
Margaret is a member of the Authors Guild and Western Writers of America. Her interview with Julie Wrinn in the WUKY studios in August 2019 is available here.