Bestselling Author Angeline Boulley to Speak at BVU April 13

When Angeline Boulley was researching the drug investigation at the center of her debut novel, she enrolled in a methamphetamine identification course at a State Police Academy. That commitment to accuracy helped turn "Firekeeper's Daughter" into an instant No. 1 New York Times bestseller, a 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Award winner for best young-adult novel, and one of Time magazine's top 100 young-adult novels of all time. On April 13, Buena Vista University will bring Boulley to Storm Lake so the community can hear how she built it.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. in Anderson Auditorium at 610 West 4th Street. Open to BVU students, faculty, and the broader Buena Vista County community, the evening will feature Boulley discussing her life, her writing process, and the novel's central themes, with a Q&A expected to follow.

Published in 2021, "Firekeeper's Daughter" follows Daunis Fontaine, an 18-year-old biracial Ojibwe teen who witnesses a murder and becomes an FBI informant investigating a drug trade threatening her Upper Peninsula Michigan community. The novel navigates identity, generational trauma, and the loyalties that define life at the intersection of tribal and mainstream American cultures, themes that rarely reach this level of literary visibility. Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions acquired rights to adapt the book into a Netflix miniseries, bringing a story rooted in Ojibwe community life to a global audience before Boulley has even published her third novel.

Her background adds considerable weight to the visit. An enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Boulley served as Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education before turning to fiction full-time. That federal education career shapes how her work frames Native representation in schools and institutions, a conversation with direct relevance to BVU's education and English programs and to Buena Vista County teachers navigating classroom reading lists.

Local high school groups and book-club members are expected to join BVU students in Anderson Auditorium, giving the April 13 event a reach that extends well beyond campus. Full event details are available on BVU's events page.