I would be ecstatic if the very first writer to step foot in a Storyknife cabin was an Alaska Native woman writer.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think I always knew I would be a writer some day, but it wasn't until I was grown and had children of my own that I turned to telling Native American stories.
I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.
I think there is a chance that Indian writers in America will start producing very interesting books in the years to come.
I wanted to be a literary writer, so I wrote story after story and sent them to 'The New Yorker.'
In all honesty, at that time, I never saw myself as an author... I was just a Mom in a state of panic, trying to enter a short story contest to win the prize money in order to keep the lights on in my home.
I kind of want to be seen as an American writer, not just a New York writer.
I wanted to hold onto and exploit the power of narrative. This is not only a book about a great storyteller, but there have to be stories about the storyteller.
When I was young, I assumed that authors must have traveled the world or done exotic things in order to tell great stories.
The first job of a writer is to be honest.
Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it.