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

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

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.

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.

There were incredibly complex societies already existing in North America long before Europeans arrived. So many people think that before European contact it was just Natives huddling around a fire, waiting for civilization to come save them. But that was not the case.

There’s something sexy in cooking for a man who likes my food. Am I growing up?

Fascinating, often hilarious, always devastatingly truthful, The Inconvenient Indian is destined to become a classic of historical narrative. For those who wish to better understand Native peoples, it is a must read. For those who don't wish to understand, it is even more so.