Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Even As We Breathe is a 2020 novel by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle. The book is the first published novel by a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. It tells the story of a young Cherokee man named Cowney who is grappling with his identity as he leaves the Qualla Boundary during the summer of 1942 to work at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. While the novel contains elements of mystery, Clapsaddle considers it a work of historical fiction. Clapsaddle received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award for her work on the novel.