Fiction. MIKO KINGS is set in an Indian Territory's queen city, Ada, Oklahoma, during the baseball fever of 1903 and simutaneously in 1969, the Vietname era. Though a lively and humorous contemporary work of fiction, the narration draws heavily on LeAnne Howe's careful historical research: boarding schools for Native American children, Native American participation in the Vietnam War, and--most centrally--the story of the little-known Indian Baseball League of the late 1800s and 1900s. LeAnne Howe, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is an author, playwright, and scholar. "This is where twentieth-century Indian really began... not in the abstractions of congressional acts, but on the prairie diamond"--Henri Day.

Author City: Ada, OK USA

LeAnne Howe, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, was the screenwriter for Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire, a 90-minute PBS documentary released in November 2006. Howe's first novel, Shell Shaker (Aunt Lute Books, 2001), received an American Book Award in 2002. Howe is Associate Professor and Interim Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.