|
|
| Cynthia Leutich Smith (photo: Christopher T. Assaf) |
|
Cynthia Leitich Smith is the anthologist of Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories (Heartdrum), which this week won the 2026 Michael L. Printz Award and the 2026 American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book, plus the audiobook received an Odyssey Honor. Smith is also an acclaimed author of books for all ages, as well as the author-curator of HarperCollins's Heartdrum imprint. Smith is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and lives in Denton, Tex.
Congratulations! How are you feeling?
Thank you! I feel gobsmacked, grateful, and like my creative spirit is full of pop rocks.
Legendary Fry Bread Drive-In has such a cool concept. Was it your idea to base several stories around a business that is not physically attached to any location or time?
The initial challenge was to devise a reason and means for teen characters from tribal nations across the continent to somehow come together. With my prior middle-grade anthology, Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids (Heartdrum), I went with the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Mich.
For teens, I longed for another inherently Indigenous but fresh setting. When I was young, I spent a lot of time with my many, many cousins running around small towns, including tribal towns, and the local drive-in was the place to be. Granted, there weren't a lot of other options, but who needed them? It struck me how wonderful it would be if--from anywhere--we could access such a place, nothing fancy but steeped in Native vibes.
Did you create aspects of Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-In (like the "legendary grandparents" and the two soda lines) or did all the authors work together to create the shared setting?
I began with what you might call a watercolor vision and then invited everyone to share their ideas. My original thought was that Sandy June's, which used to be called Davy June's...
Backing up: the fictional cast wasn't all that was intergenerational. The authors were, too, and millennial contributors Darcie Little Badger and Byron Graves, steeped in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, felt that "Davy June's" sounded too much like Davy Jones, as in Davy Jones's locker, which had an ominous connotation entirely opposite to the drive-in. So, Sandy June's became the new name, pulling harder on the summertime vibe.
Those two, along with David A. Robertson, were our geek squad. They suggested the owners of the drive-in would be a group of legendary grandparents. Boom--right off the bat, Kate Hart's character scratched out "grandparent" on the nametag and replaced it with "auntie" instead. I believe it was Jen Ferguson who integrated the competing soda lines.
One of the new voices, Kaua Mahoe Adams, was the last author added to the roster, and she was somewhat tentative about asking to add Hawaiian food to the menu, but I was thrilled. By the time we finished, most of the authors integrated their own traditional and contemporary rez food faves.
We collaboratively built the map of the drive-in and blocked a schedule of what happened when: open mic, midnight movies, a battle of the bands.
What did you say to authors when you invited them to write stories for this collection? What was the pitch?
From my pitch letter:
The concept: Davy June's exists on every rez, in every Native village or tribal town, and in each urban neighborhood with an Indigenous community center (or wellness/health center). It boasts "the world's best fry bread," calls itself "Turtle Island's best kept secret," attracts those who need it most, and has a reputation for drawing guests from across the continent.
Customers may remark that it's "in the middle of nowhere," that they've never noticed the turn-in before, that GPS can't find the place, that it's obscured by a cluster of old-growth trees that seem to blur in the sun or shadows.
No one is surprised when they encounter Indigenous people from elsewhere. For employees and regulars, there's an unsaid understanding about the place, occasionally acknowledged at a slant.
Everyone said yes immediately. In fact, this was Angeline Boulley's entire response: YES!!!!!!!!!!!!
How did you feel when you started getting their stories in?
Once I had the stories in hand, I began looking for possible pairings and overlaps (based on the themes, timeline, and setting). If I had a mind palace, it would've looked like a TV detective mystery board with strings marking connections in every direction. Then authors were put together in smaller groups to further develop and deepen their scenes from there.
Have you spoken to any teens yet about their experiences with the book? What are you hoping kids take from it?
Certainly. Kaua's novel-in-verse story, "Braving the Storm," and Darcie Little Badger's "Game Night," written in a text-message format, stand out among reader favorites. Beyond that, grief-healing stories make them tear up, like Kaua's and Brian Young's "I Love You, Grandson" and there is popular appeal for anything with a hint of romance, like AJ Eversole's "Hearts Aflutter" and Karina Iceberg's "Look Away."
What do you love most about Legendary Fry Bread Drive-In?
The way it honors the important role of Elders in the lives of teens.
Is there anything else you're working on right now that you'd like to talk about?
My current manuscript in progress is a contemporary YA with elements of suspense and mystery. I can't say too much about it yet except that I'm recommitting to protecting my own writing time.
Is there anything else you'd like to tell Shelf Awareness readers?
My next release comes out this February from Heartdrum. It's a picture book called Here Come the Aunties! with the most adorable illustrations by Aphelandra. (I wonder how many Printz winners have followed up with a picture book.)
Be on the lookout for debut titles from Legendary Frybread Drive-In's new voices, including the picture book A Good Hide by Karina Iceberg, the middle-grade novel Raven, Rising by Christine Hartman Derr, and the YA novel An Expanse of Blue by Kaua Mahoe Adams, all from Heartdrum in 2026. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness