We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, illustrated by Frané Lessac (2019).Awards and honors įour of Sorell's books are Junior Library Guild selections: Powwow Day, We Are Still Here!, We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, and Classified. Sorell is currently a Tulsa Artist Fellow. Since beginning her writing career, Sorell has continued to focus on incorporating culturally accurate books about Cherokee and other Indigenous people for children and young adults. Sorell began her career by helping Native Nations and their citizens by writing 'legal codes, testimony for Congressional hearings, federal budget requests, grants and reports.' Later, Sorell returned to school and received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Wisconsin in 2001. In 1996, she received a Master of Arts from the University of Arizona, where she studied American Indian Studies with a concentration in Federal Indian Law & Policy. During her time at Berkeley, Sorell lived in Madrid and taught English and Spanish to children and adults. Sorell majored in Native American Studies and minored in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley graduating with a Bachelor Arts in 1994. Sorell's second language is Spanish, though she is trying to learn the Cherokee language.

Her mother, sister, and brother later received degrees, as well. When Sorell was a teenager, she and her family moved to Southern California, and she became the first person in her family to graduate from college. She also enjoyed reading, singing, and performing in theater productions. Īs a child, Sorell learned about her ancestors from her grandmother, fishing, and caring for animals and the land. Her mother's family has lived in the area since 1838 when Cherokee people were removed from their homelands.

Sorell has spent her life with her family living on the Cherokee Nation tribe's reservation in northeastern Oklahoma by Fort Gibson Lake. Traci Sorell is an American author of fiction and nonfiction works for teens and an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation.

Traci sorell we are still here