I'm a writer. I should be allowed to speak about my writing at times. And I'm really excited to speak about that. There's nothing I am shameful of or anything else in my novels. They are my children and I'm happy to speak about my children.

Being a mixed-blood person of Ojibway and European ancestry, I always found that I only heard one side of the story - that was the conquerers' side, the side of the French Jesuit missionaries that came to live in what is now Ontario.

Canada and America are very, very different. It's true that we share a language and many customs. But Americans have a very different view of the world.

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

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.

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

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.