Vanessa Lillie is a Cherokee suspense and mystery writer.
Lillie is originally from Miami, Oklahoma and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She attended Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. She then studied public administration at American University in Washington, DC.
Lillie's debut novel, Little Voices, was published in 2019. Lillie wrote âÂÂHome But Not Alone: A Coronavirus Diaryâ for The Providence Journal during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Her second book, For the Best, was published in 2020.
Lillie started writing her third novel, Blood Sisters, in 2020 and was out of contract after the publication of her first two books. She has said that Blood Sisters contains many elements of her own identity. Like Lillie herself, her protagonist, Syd Walker, is a queer, white-presenting Cherokee from Northeast Oklahoma. Blood Sisters, which was published in 2023, was a national pick for the Good Morning America, Amazon, and Target book clubs.
Lillie lives in Rhode Island, on Narragansett land, with her husband and son. She is two-spirit and identifies as queer.