I'm fascinated by the magic realism used by many writers. I think it goes hand-in-hand with the Indian experience. It's a very different way of viewing the world.

From a craft standpoint, telling a story in the first-person present tense over the course of 500 pages is a daunting challenge.

We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy.

I never want to play down to the reader. I think readers are willing to go along if they're intrigued.

As a fiction writer, of course, you need to take some leeway with certain aspects of history to make the story work.

America seems to celebrate its more violent past, but Canada doesn't like to recognize those things. The willingness to accept the existence of violence separates our two countries.

There's a few scholars that object to how the italicized sections suggest that Native people are to take some part in the blame for how colonization occurred. But I say, "Yes they are." Not nearly as much blame as the colonizers, of course. But we are not just victims. I hate this idea that we are all just victimized and oppressed and etcetera etcetera. It's dehumanizing in its own way.