Tim Tingle is an Oklahoma Choctaw and an award-winning author, speaker, and storyteller. His great-great grandfather, John Carnes, walked the Trail of Tears in 1835, and his paternal grandmother attended a series of rigorous Indian boarding schools in the early 1900s. In 1993, Tim retraced the Trail of Tears to Choctaw homelands in Mississippi and began recording stories of tribal elders. His first children’s book, “Crossing Bok Chitto”, garnered over twenty state and national awards, and was an Editor’s Choice in the New York Times Book Review. In June of 2011, Tingle spoke at the Library of Congress and presented his first performance at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC. He received his Masters Degree in English Literature at the University of Oklahoma in 2003, with a focus on American Indian studies. As a visiting author and performer, Tingle reaches audiences numbering over 200,000 annually and has completed eight speaking tours for the U.S. Department of Defense.