About the Author

Tommy Orange was born in Oakland, California on January 19, 1982. In an interview with PBS NewsHour, he states, "When people think that the only way to be Native or the only way to look Native is based on a historical headdressed, feathered image, you're already disappeared. You're already gone before you can even start." Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He graduated from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Growing up Orange explains he was more interested in sports than reading, until he got a job at "Gray Wolf Bookstore," where he developed a love for reading and writing. In an interview, Orange admits he was late to join the train of writing and was not the best in school, but around 2010, he was inspired to write a story like There There and worked at it for the next six years. His first novel, There There, was published in June of 2018. Along with his major work, Orange has written newspaper articles and multiple short stories (see other work), and he has hinted at writing a sequel to There There. Not to be forgotten are Orange's awards and accolades for his writing, listed below.

In 2017, Orange wrote an article for the LA Times entitled "Thanksgiving is a tradition. It's also a lie." Here, Orange recalls his past and own celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday and calls our attention to how, as a nation, we must overcome the blindness to our past and learn the true meaning of the day and where it has brought us. After There There was released, Orange also wrote a piece in The Nation entitled "A Letter to Marlon Brando About Putting an Indian on the Oscar Stage" in October of 2019. The piece is written from the perspective of a character in There There, explaining to Brando (although deceased) how meaningful it was to see Native people on stage in such an exquisite place, like the Oscars.