Quote

I made my own fictional land, which is 'Bell Choir Coast.' It was a response to feeling really, really lost, and it was what I was looking for.

I really enjoy writing novels. It's like the ocean. You can just build a boat and take off.

Writing Part of the Scenery has been a very different experience. I have been reminded of people and events, real and imaginary which have been part of my life. This book is a celebration of the land which means so much to me.

I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.

I'm thinking my next book should be set on a tropical island, which will obviously require days, even weeks of meticulous research, but I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. That's just the sort of dedicated writer I am.

I come from a little island with the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I come from, really, nowhere, and for me, the fiction and the nonfiction, creative or otherwise, all come from the same place.

My childhood landscape was not land but the end of the land - the cold, salt, running hills of the Atlantic. I sometimes think my vision of the sea is the clearest thing I own.

I always love novels that open up a subject to me - like raising a window to a beautiful, mysterious world outside.

I'm a novelist from the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations of British Columbia, both small coastal reserves hugging the rugged shores of the west coast.