After years of brainstorming ideas for a story, Danica Nava (Chickasaw) wrote her first published novel while working full time and pursuing an MBA at night. Nava’s novel, “The Truth According to Ember,” was published in August.

During this fast-paced romantic comedy, the main character is a Chickasaw woman, Ember Lee Cardinal, navigating work, life and love. She starts out working at a bowling alley, applying for other positions and getting rejection after rejection. After changing her job application strategy, to telling a couple of white lies, she finally lands an accounting job — and a crush on her coworker.

“It’s funny and messy in the best way, and I was rooting for Ember even as she dug herself deeper and deeper,” Olivia Waite wrote in The New York Times.

The Seminole Tribune spoke to Nava about her novel. Questions and quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Tribune: Can you talk about your background and how you got into writing?

Nava: “I was born and raised in Southern California. I’m a Chickasaw citizen, and I did go back to Oklahoma a couple times as a kid. My mom is Chickasaw, and I grew up as this little nerd who loved to escape in reading and stories and especially Star Wars and all that. … So, I was always a storyteller.

I love humor and comedy, so I call myself a comedy writer. First though, what I love to read is romance. Like, I really cannot watch any show, movie, or read any book that doesn’t have at least a romance subplot that I can really root for.

I would not be who I am, I would not go to school, had the Chickasaw Nation not helped me, because the cost is so high. Everyone in the higher education office was so wonderful and encouraging. … I’m just so blessed and grateful that I have this community and this connection and the people who are rooting for our success.”

Tribune: Can you talk a little bit about what that writing process was like while also being busy?

Nava: “I had to do it. I had this feeling that my life will never change, I’ll never live this dream and realize it if I don’t sit down and do it. I think you can give yourself any excuse not to do something. … I was exhausted. I had a four-month-old baby. I had a job, … and I barely made it home to start my online evening classes, and I barely got to hold my daughter. I stole every moment I could to write the story, because I believed in it so much.

I wanted to read a rom com where there were Native Americans and people who identified as I did. You know, there’s no movies where we’re these heroes, and … that was just so frustrating to me. I think I used a lot of that fuel, those feelings of resentment. I was waiting for years. … I believed this lie that everyone else is better than me because everyone was smarter and had more access to things. But I just did it, and I kept working.

Though I had a goal, if I wanted to query agents in November of 2022 because it’s very hard to query. … November’s Native American Heritage Month, and I know that is when these agents are looking for Native Voices. … And so that was my internal goal. I got the book written, revised in six months, and then I got my agent very quickly.

I’m just really happy with the story. I feel like it’s the best thing that I have written. I’m very proud with the end product. … I’m growing as a writer.”

Tribune: What feedback have you gotten and what’s next for you?

Nava: “People do tag me in reviews on Instagram, and most of it is just amazing. And I’ve gotten so many DMs of Indigenous women who send me photos of themselves crying to the dedication page, which, I cried when I wrote it.

So many Indigenous writers who said that since the book deal was announced and the cover reveal, that I’ve inspired them to finish their stories, because they never thought that they could do it. [Because] they haven’t seen themselves, you know? And there’s this lie that like, because they haven’t seen it, nobody wants it, and it’s just not true. So, while it’s the first, it’s not going to be the last. And what I’m working on next is another native rom com.

I feel like we’ve gone through hard times, but we laughed through it, and comedy is such a unifier. While … there’s some jokes that only Indian Country will get, I wrote it so inclusive that it’s universally funny.”

Tribune: So you said you wrote it in six months, but were you working on it longer than that? Or was it an idea for longer?

Nava: “I got the idea in 2020 and … I had a lot of false starts. The Muse hit me, and I know the exact date. It was May 1, 2022, after I’d done work and school. …. I was asking … ‘How’d she get the job?’ And that’s the question that started it all.

A lot of what Ember experiences, the microaggressions, things like that, has happened to me and worse. But I didn’t want to sensationalize it and put like the worst of the worst, because people barely believe the few instances that are in the book, but it happens all the time. …. People don’t even realize that these things are in our everyday vernacular, but I got to really talk about these issues.

I didn’t even set out for it to be an ‘issue book.’ … I just wrote a girl who had an apartment like mine [and] is very much based on my first apartment. And I can relate. I love the rom com genre. I’ve read vastly, but the majority is, like, the rich guy for, you know, money’s never an issue. … So having it very grounded in reality and very relatable, and it just made sense.

And so, while she’s telling these like white lies, she tells the biggest lies to herself, and it’s that she’s not good enough. And I just find that character arc of somebody really coming into their own and learning to love themselves so compelling.

Falling in love is the most, I feel like it’s the closest will ever come to magic in real life, … and everybody can experience that. You don’t have to wait for the billionaire to come and sweep you off your feet. That’s never going to happen.

So, I just really wanted to focus on those everyday moments and everyday people, especially for Indigenous people, and have Indigenous joy, where we don’t have to be qualified to be there.

Like, this world is so beautiful, and we are here for such a small amount of time, and it’s really the connections we make that matter.

I guess I didn’t intend to write work that touched on these but it’s just it was inevitable with the character and the points of view, because you can’t just write a book a rom com and have the characters be white and then decide I’m going to make them Native now and nothing will change, because that’s not true. How we walk and encounter our life is so different than how others do. We have similarities, we’re just like everybody else. But … it’s not just happy go lucky all the time.”

Tribune: Though this book is fiction, you write about very real issues Indigenous people face in daily life and issues that society has. What do you hope readers take away, or maybe aspiring Indigenous authors take away from the book?

Nava: “Being brave and trusting yourself and showing up for yourself. This book would never have happened if I didn’t sit down and just show up for myself. Because I believe the book was bigger than me. I believe the dream was bigger than me, and the busy hardships that I was facing in that moment.

Even if you write for just 20 minutes a day, you know you’re going to get to the end, and getting to the end, you’re going to feel so proud of yourself like I was.

And for readers, Indigenous readers, I hope they see themselves. … It’s just one story and one person. So, this book can’t speak for the entire demographic, but it’s a start. I’m so excited for what the future holds for me and for all these aspiring writers to come after me — who I hope are better than me.

You know, it’s not the end all be all and just seeing us without the qualifiers, without the justification of why we’re there, because we just, we exist. We just do.

And then for readers at large, I hope they see the humor that we exist not to question, like, I really hope normal, everyday, non-Native readers will stop asking, … ‘Oh, you’re Native. How much blood are you? Or I’ve never heard of that tribe, so that’s not real.’

Or I just hope that they eliminate that from their conscious, those questions that we get asked are so invasive, and nobody gets asked that in any other culture. But I hope they see the sense of community.”