The history needs to serve the story, not the story the history. But at the same time you can't stray too far.

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

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 the concept that dreams are as important - if not more important - than reality. The attention that one pays to those things in the shadows is very much a part of the Indian experience.

People will say that Canada, unlike America, was not birthed from violence. But I want to say, "What are you talking about?" It's just not true.

The world is a different place in this new century, [...]. And we are a different people. My visions still come but no one listens any longer to what they tell us, what they warn us. I knew even as a young woman that destruction bred on the horizon. [...] War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.

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.