Darcie Little Badger

Darcie Little Badger (formerly Darcie Erin Ryan; born 1987) is an American novelist, short story writer, and Earth scientist. She writes speculative fiction, especially horror, science fiction, and fantasy. She is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. Her stories often feature Apache and/or LGBTQ characters. She has described herself and been described by others as writing within the Indigenous Futurisms movement.

Early life and education

Darcie Little Badger was born Darcie Erin Ryan in 1987. Her father was an English professor of Irish descent and her mother, Hermelinda Walking Woman, is the tribal administrator of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. At age seven she wrote her first book, which was submitted for publication with her father's help and rejected. Throughout her childhood Little Badger moved due to her father's job, but considered Texas to be her home.

After graduating from high school in Texarkana, Texas, Little Badger adopted her current surname, as per Lipan tradition. She attended Princeton University in New Jersey, where she earned a bachelor's degree in earth science after being rejected twice from the school's creative writing program. Little Badger graduated cum laude in 2010.

She subsequently enrolled in the doctoral program in oceanography at Texas A&M University (TAMU), where she earned a PhD. She wrote her dissertation on the genomics of Karenia brevis, a species of plankton that causes toxic red tide in the Gulf of Mexico. For her research, she received a Ford Dissertation Fellowship and TAMU's Chapman Award for Graduate Student Research, both under the name Darcie Ryan.

Scientific career

After graduating from Texas A&M, Little Badger took a job as an editor of scientific papers. She quit this job after selling her first novel, Elatsoe (2020), becoming a writer full-time.

Writing career

Short fiction

Little Badger's short fiction has appeared in a range of publications, including Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Mythic Delirium, and The Dark Magazine, among others.

Little Badger's short stories often feature Apache history and lore. For example, two Apache sisters reunite in "Whalebone Parrot" (The Dark Magazine, 2017), a Victorian horror story set in the late 19th century on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. During the conflict between their tribe and the U.S. Army, the women were orphaned and grew up together in a residential school. Similarly, in "Owl vs. the Neighborhood Watch" (Strange Horizons, 2017), she places Owl, a shapeshifting supernatural harbinger of evil from Apache lore, in the setting of contemporary Appalachia.

Novels

Little Badger began writing her debut novel, Elatsoe, in 2017. She sold the manuscript in late 2018. It was published in August 2020 by Levine Querido, and made the Indibound Young Adult bestseller list in its first week. It was a national indie bestseller for 12 weeks. The story is set in modern-day Texas; the main character, Ellie, is a seventeen-year-old asexual Lipan Apache teen. Ellie is accompanied by the ghost of her pet dog Kirby; she used her grandmothers' traditional techniques to bring him back to life. Kirby and Ellie are joined by Ellie's friend and classmate Jay as they work to solve the murder of her cousin. At the same time, they confront an enclave of vampires plaguing people near Willowbee, a mysterious town in South Texas. It was named a best book of 2020 by NPR, BookPage, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness, Tor.com, and Kirkus Reviews. Time named it one of the best fantasy books of all time.

Little Badger began writing her second novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, in early 2020. It was released in November 2021, also through Levine Querido. The story focuses on Nina, a Lipan Apache girl trying to learn about her recently deceased grandmother, who meets a cottonmouth snake named Oli. The setting shifts between near-future Texas and a fantasy dimension from which Oli originates. Climate change plays a pivotal role in the story's plot. It was named a best book of the year by the Young Adult Library Services Association, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Tor.com, the New York Public Library, and the Chicago Public Library. It was a national indie bestseller for 8 weeks.

She released a prequel to Elatsoe called Sheine Lende in 2024, with illustrations by Rovina Cai. The book won the 2025 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.

Comics

Little Badger and Magdalene Visaggio co-wrote Strangelands Vol. 1, illustrated by Guillermo Sana. It was published by H1 in 2019. She contributed a story about Danielle Moonstar with art by Kyle Charles to Marvel's Voices: Indigenous Voices #1 in 2020. She also wrote for the second issue of Jim Henson's The Storyteller: Shapeshifters.

Community organizing

Little Badger served as a delegate to the National Congress of American Indians for the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. She also serves as a science advisor and is the tribe's Storyteller Laureate.

Little Badger was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the United States Department of the Interior, where the plaintiffs sought to use eagle feathers in their ceremonies without fear of prosecution, since protection after 2012 was only extended to members of federally recognized tribes by the U.S. Department of Interior. In 2014, the litigants won the case with a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The court acknowledged the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas as an American Indian Tribe with a long history in Texas. In a settlement between the plaintiffs and the Interior Department, the Interior Department accepted the American Indian status of the plaintiffs who were not members of a federally recognized tribe and granted them lifetime permits to "possess, carry, use, wear, give, loan, or exchange among other Indians, without compensation, all federally protected birds, as well as their parts or feathers" for their "Indian religious use".