If your teens enjoy murder, mystery and intrigue, they are going to love “Looking for Smoke,” by Native American author K.A. Cobell. The award-winning book by the Olympia author has won many accolades, the most recent being the 2025 Washington State Book Award for Young Adult Literature.
Formerly called the Governor’s Writers Awards, The Washington Center for the Book (an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book administered by Washington State Library) selected winners in seven categories for the 59th 2025 Washington State Book Awards (WSBA) for outstanding books.
Get To Know Olympia Author K.A. Cobell
Thirty-four-year-old K.A. Cobell started writing for fun about a decade ago, but got more serious about in the last five years. She says reading fiction is what sparked her desire to write books. “After I finished college, I had more free time to read fiction,” Cobell says. “After so many years of reading only what teachers and professors told me to read, I had forgotten that I loved reading. Choosing what to read with my time reignited that love and reminded me how fun it is to fall into a different world for a few hours. Eventually, I started imagining my own settings and characters and decided to try my hand at putting them into words. I found an unexpected joy in creating the same kind of worlds I loved getting lost in.”
She says she chose young adult fiction because she loves that one of the overarching themes is “potential.” “It’s an age where everything still feels possible, where kids are still figuring out who they are and who they can become,” she adds. “There is so much promise and hope, and I love dropping characters into that phase of life.”
Cobell is a member of the Blackfeet Nation. Originally from Montana, she spent half her childhood there before moving to Southwest Washington. “I quickly discovered that I would much rather have a rainy winter than be buried in snow for months,” she says on why she loves the Olympia area. “I love that the Pacific Northwest doesn’t have extreme weather, and I miss all the green whenever I travel elsewhere. It’s so beautiful!”
‘Looking for Smoke’ Delivers Mystery and Representation
“Looking for Smoke” is Cobell’s debut novel. The story centers on Mara, who is included in a Giveaway ceremony on the Blackfeet reservation for Loren’s missing sister. When one of the girls from the ceremony is found murdered, the remaining members of the Giveaway group are suspects and must take matters into their own hands to clear their names and find the murderer…who may just be one of them.
Set on a Blackfeet reservation, “Looking for Smoke” draws on Cobell’s memories and experiences. “The idea for ‘Looking for Smoke’ first came to me because I wanted to write Blackfeet characters into popular media,” she explains. “That’s something I had never seen growing up. I have such deep pride in the culture and wanted to share it with readers who have never experienced it. I wanted them to see the beauty and strength of the community, and the best way I knew how to do that was to set the book on the reservation. The characters are all going through their own struggles, and they are each held and supported by the Blackfeet culture and community in different ways. It’s an honor for me to be able to share those perspectives.”
Cobell adds that she wanted to make sure it felt authentic, so readers who are unfamiliar with reservation life could understand and experience it in a “powerful way.” “And so that Blackfeet readers would see an accurate representation that I never got to see as a kid,” she adds.
Her novel delivers and has been the recipient of 14 awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Publishers Weekly Best Book and Amazon.com Best Books of the Month, and an Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominee. Cobell says it’s an honor to have her book recognized. “Especially when my main goal was to have these unique characters be seen,” she says. “To see that this book is being received so well shows me that readers are really connecting with my characters and their community. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Currently, she is working on the sequel to “Looking for Smoke.” “There are a few lingering questions when the book ends, and I’m so excited to be able to answer them as the next story unfolds,” Cobell says.
And for young readers aspiring to be writers? Cobell says this: “Write often. Write everything. The more you write, the more you hone your craft and develop your own voice. Every book I write is better than the last, and I didn’t truly find my voice until my fifth completed novel. Every book, project, and idea before that was necessary experience.”
Olympia Authors Recognized by Washington State Book Award
Two Olympia-area authors were finalists in the competition: “A Forest of Your Own: The Pacific Northwest Handbook of Ecological Forestry” by Seth Zuckerman (Vashon) and Kirk Hanson (Olympia) in the General Nonfiction/Biography category and “My Heart Is Not Asleep,” by Thomas Thomas in the Poetry category.
