‘Stories Are Good Medicine’—Angeline Boulley on the long path to the writing life

Angeline Boulley’s path to literary stardom was a slow burn—a full 36 years in the making. For most of her adult life, she kept alive the flame of a story that came to her in high school, a tale of mystery and courage with a young Native American girl at its center.

Growing up in small-town Michigan, Boulley always loved school and loved reading, but never thought of herself as a writer. And yet, even as the decades passed and she went on to a successful career in Indian education, the story wouldn’t let her go. “I always dreamed in stories,” she told the audience at College Board’s 2025 Native American Student Advocacy Institute in Seattle. “I realized most people don’t dream in character arcs and plot twists. Maybe I am a writer!”

Whatever doubts she once had were put firmly to rest when her carefully nurtured novel sparked a bidding war among publishers, eventually selling for a $1 million advance and debuting on the New York Times bestseller list. Firekeeper’s Daughter is a young-adult thriller about a Native girl caught up in a dangerous FBI investigation, forced to put her Ojibwe language skills and love of chemistry to urgent use unraveling a deadly mystery. Boulley describes it as “Indigenous Nancy Drew meets 21 Jump Street,” and said her teenage daughter gave an early draft her seal of approval. “Mom, that sounds even better than Twilight!” she told Boulley. “Which is very high praise from a preteen.”

She was thrilled that the book seemed to meet the right moment in the publishing world, with agents eager to promote a novel centering Native identity and drawing on Ojibwe teachings around language and traditional medicine as central plot points. A review for NPR called Firekeeper’s Daughter “so much more than a thriller,” raving that “the author's love for and connection to her culture is so deeply engraved into the very heart of this book and it beats in rhythm with each new plot development.”

Boulley felt a sense of responsibility along with the joy of success, thinking hard about the ethics of representation. “People are learning and reading about Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sugar Island, and I’m very, very proud of it,” Boulley said. “But it’s also a story about Native identity—about grief and loss and justice, or injustice.”

At NASAI, she talked about balancing a desire to celebrate the details of her community with a sense that certain things—sacred ceremonies, specific allusions around tribe or place—should be off-limits for sharing outside the family. “Stories are good medicine,” Boulley said. “And they’re best told by people who know when to pull that curtain, who are accountable to their communities for the content of their books.” She often imagined how a certain revelation would land with her cousins and friends in Michigan, a self-imposed test for both authenticity and fairness. “Anything I’m sharing about my community, I need to justify it.”

That message resonated strongly at NASAI, which brings together educators, tribal leaders, and advocates from across the country to share ideas for strengthening educational opportunities for Native students. Sessions cover topics like building an advanced coursework program in a tribal school system or using Indigenous traditions to make counseling and student support more approachable for Native students.

In discussing the reception for Firekeeper’s Daughter, Boulley called for more Native literature for young readers, and also more resources for teachers of all backgrounds so they feel comfortable approaching the material. The worst outcome of cultural sensitivity, she said, would be for teachers to shy away from certain cultures or subjects out of a fear of giving offense or misrepresenting someone else’s identity.

“If teachers fear getting things wrong, they might omit it entirely,” Boulley said. “And erasure is just as damaging as misinformation.”

Following the success of Firekeeper’s Daughter, Boulley set to work on the follow up Warrior Girl Unearthed— “an Indigenous Lara Croft!” she joked—and promised her publisher that it wouldn’t take the same 36 years as her debut work. The novel was released in 2023, just two years after Boulley’s first.