Wiley Barnes, a Chickasaw citizen, holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University, and has spent twenty-one years forging a career in the publishing industry, and the last fourteen years with the Chickasaw Nation. Barnes is the author of the non-fiction children’s book, C is for Chickasaw, which received a Gold Benjamin Franklin for Best New Voice: Children’s/Young Adult, a Bronze Moonbeam for Multicultural Nonfiction Picture Book, was an Oklahoma Book Award Finalist, and was adapted into an app in 2017, followed by a coloring book in 2018. Funny Fani' is Barnes’s second children’s title. He lives in Ada, Oklahoma, with his wife and two children.