Jon

Hickey

Indigenous Writer

Novelist & Short Fiction Author

Travels from: San Francisco, CA

“A compelling and strong Native American novel about politics and power and how far some people will go to hold on to what they have.” — Brandon Hobson, author of National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Talking

Jon Hickey was born in Mankato, Minnesota and grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He is an enrolled citizen of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Anishinaabe). He currently lives in San Francisco with his family.

He is the author of the novel Big Chief (Simon & Schuster, 2025). His short fiction has appeared in The Madison Review, Meridian, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, among other places. His work explores themes of belonging in Indigenous experience off and on the reservation, how the mid-20th century Relocation and Termination Acts have fractured the sense of Indigenous identity, and how people seek to reclaim connection to their communities in environments far from home.

Jon's Featured Titles

Big Chief

Simon & Schuster |

April 8, 2025

Literary Fiction

There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.

Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go—and what they will sacrifice—to win it all.

But when an accident claims the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the reservation’s political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation’s descent into violence.

Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging—to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance.

BIPOC Representation, Fiction, Friendship & Community, Native American & Indigenous Heritage

Becoming a Debut Novelist

As part of a panel of debut novelists, talked about the journey of writing a novel, from the first conceptions of the idea, to the drafting, and finally to sale and editing. Covered the difference between writing alone and with the guidance of an editor.

Tribal Politics: The political meets the personal

BIG CHIEF is ostensibly about the political processes on a mid-sized Indigenous reservation. I felt there was an absence of books about Indigenous life and culture that acknowledged the political agency of Indigenous nations, and I wrote the novel to explore how politics can, for better or worse, affect questions of identity and belonging. My talk would highlight interesting aspects of Indigenous politics that I came across in my research for the book and in my observations of friends and family who are involved in tribal governance, and how they are intertwined with the wider American experience.

Literary Homage: Paying Tribute

I started writing BIG CHIEF as a literary homage to books such as ALL THE KING’S MEN, INVISIBLE MAN, THE MOVIEGOER, and other works that were important to my development as a writer. In this talk, I would describe the process of writing the novel with homage in mind, and ask, how did I want to honor the writers I’ve admired, and how might a writer find ways to find their own voice by exploring their personal literary heritage?