This Utah Indigenous author received an honor for her debut book. Here’s what it is.

When Stacie Shannon Denetsosie first got the news that she was one of The National Book Foundation’ s 2025 “5 Under 35” honorees — she thought it was a spam call. Then, came the tunnel vision, followed by the tears. “I immediately started crying,” Denetsosie, who is a member of Navajo Nation, said.

“I scared the poor woman who called me, because it is incredibly special. It shows that my craft as a Diné woman, as a writer, it’s been recognized.” The foundation acknowledged Denetsosie for her 2023 debut novel, “The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories” — a collection of short stories about the long-lasting effects of settler colonialism on Diné people.



The “ 5 Under 35 ” list honors five fiction writers under the age of 35 “whose debut work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.” Winners are chosen by five independent selectors who have previously been honored by The National Book Foundation and they receive a $1,250 prize. Works can be published within the last five years.

Denetsosie was chosen by Mona Susan Power , an Indigenous author whose debut novel, “The Grass Dancer” won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel in 1995. In a Vulture story, Power said she chose Denetsosie because, “ ..

. Denetsosie’s vivid, complex Diné characters claim space in a world that often ignores their truth. This collection is a confident storm of stories that need telling.

” “[Having] an Indigenous woman who is a matriarch select my book is an incredible honor, because it’s very special to be recognized by a matriarch in your community,” Denetsosie said. She first started writing the book while pursuing a master’s degree at Utah State University, where three of the stories came to life: “The Missing Morningstar,” “Dormant” and “Reservation State of Mind.” At that time, Denetsosie said she was learning her voice as “a Native American, Diné woman author, especially in my school that is a predominantly white institution.

” “It was really wonderful but also challenging to offer these stories where I’m sharing a lifestyle that’s very different than the perceived understanding of what a Native American life looks like,” Denetsosie said. “A lot of people come with preconceptions of what Native American literature is and what it should do.” For this reason, Denetsosie said she felt a lot of “pressure” to make sure her readers knew exactly what was happening in her stories.

“I took a lot of authorial custody in [them] and [wrote] with a cinematic quality, where I was very in control of where the camera was, and informing the reader and educating them at what exactly was happening within the story.” The stories in her collection capture snapshots of her character’s lives, such as a gas station clerk witnessing the kidnapping of a young Navajo pageant winner, navigating interracial relationships and family planning, and intergenerational trauma. Some of the stories in the collection are more “experimental,” Denetsosie said, such as “Snow Bath Season” — which follows a young girl who loses her mother.

The mother returns to speak to the daughter through a device that uses Amazon’s Alexa feature, and requests her to do a Navajo snow bath, a traditional practice where an individual strips down and rolls in the first or second snow of the season. “It’s supposed to show the holy people that you’re strong and you can kind of take on the hardships, and then they strengthen you in that way,” Denetsosie said. Even with the more creative storytelling elements, moments of real life filter through the short stories, too, like in “The Casket in the Backseat” where a Navajo man named Leo hitches a ride home and realizes the car contains the casket of his dead grandfather who is speaking to Leo.

“Where I lived on the reservation, the roads are not very good, and so a regular low hearse wouldn’t make it on the road,” Denetsosie said, explaining why the car is a Chevrolet Suburban. With her characters, Denetsosie wanted to share the “grit and resilience” of Indigenous people. “These stories aren’t happening in a vacuum.

They have the entire history of the so-called United States informing these characters’ lives,” Denetsosie said. “There’s a magic in returning home to community, in connecting with culture, with your grandparents, relatives and finding strength there.” “My book has shown me that regardless of where you come from, you should always aspire bigger or have big hopes, because they might just actually happen,” Denetsosie said.

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