Indigenous books that inspire me

Books that empowered me and gave me permission to see the world as I see it-- and write about it too

(sections published in the Carol Shields Awards Newsletter November ‘24)

One of the greatest things about my Master of Fine Arts program (among many things) was that we had to read twelve books a semester. At first, this seemed overwhelming, but as I began to form a writing routine, reading has become a part of the way I create, make art, and write.

Here are four books by Indigenous writers that empowered me, and made me and my writing feel seen. The books that gave me permission to see the world as I see it. And to write about it too.

Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport

A woman who can become a shark? Sign me up!

When I told a mentor about my manuscript, she immediately suggested this novel. From the very first daring, spicy paragraph I was sucked into the foreshadowing. Shark Dialogues is a novel that most closely mirrors my manuscript: multi-generational, the trickle down of intergenerational trauma, an Indigenous worldview (Native Hawaiian), the super-natural, transforming into animals, love, Land, history, and hardship. As I got pulled into the world of the grandmother and her granddaughters I knew that my characters would also have readers who hope for the best for them. When you are writing from deeply embedded cultural belief systems, some do not understand. It is not “normal”, “real” nor do they care about the histories of these Lands and its relationship to the first peoples. (SPOILER) Like how the attachment to the grandmother’s homelands are just as strong as her attachment to her husband. Shark Dialogues has become my favorite novel, and it showed me my manuscript could and would resonate with readers.

The Grass Dancer by Mona Susan Power

I first read The Grass Dancer almost 20 years ago, and at that time I was an avid reader but not yet a writer. In my younger years, there were few books, movies or tv shows that portrayed Indigenous people in the ways in which I saw, felt, and knew. Mostly because it was not Indigenous people telling our own stories—the only way our stories can be told authentically. When I first read it, I felt all the power of our culture. In my first year of grad school, my manuscript was always classified as magical realism, and immediately the word magic turned me off. It wasn’t magic, it was life. This is why Susan’s work has been so important to my own voice as a writer. She writes the spiritual, metaphysical, and the super-natural of some, but not all, Indigenous Nation’s and people’s belief systems (we are not a monolith). While others criticize Indigenous works that dabble in the “magical” Susan stands, unwavering. She leads the way for writers like me, who write the real, when others don’t believe it.

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

When I began to dabble in animism in my own writing, this novel as many during my MFA program came to me serendipitously. I loved Tanya’s use of animism in Split Tooth, and the mystery of it. As I struggled with my own view of spirituality during that first semester, I noticed that all along, the Yukon just wanted to speak. When reading this book, my mind rubbed against my belief systems, Inuit dreaming culture, and dissociation with trauma, trying to find the polished core of what this story was trying to tell me. I wanted to figure it out, put the puzzle pieces together so that it made sense. I had a reader question why I follow my culture, traditions, historical timelines so seriously– why can’t the time-travelers affect the future like we see in movies? And the fact is, and maybe Tanya will agree with me, our many, many different cultural beliefs may not be for you to fully understand. But it makes for a great read.

Two Old Women by Velma Wallace

In the circumpolar North, storytelling is such an integral part of our cultures. In the midst of snow covering our homes, northern lights mingling with cold fog, we sat by fire and told stories. It is the backbone of my Northern Tutchone traditional laws, as the stories teach us how to survive the harsh northern climate, and how to live life in a good way. When writing my manuscript “White Ash Falling” the northern Tutchone origin story inserted itself into the beginning, it felt natural to open the novel this way. For a time, I felt insecure to rewrite such an important part of my people’s history. Was I even allowed to do this? Velma and other Northern writers (Tanya Tagaq, Richard Van Camp, Katłįà, Ernestine Hager) showed me that I could, and I should.

What books have done the same for your writing?

“You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but “didn’t have time to read,” I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.”

Stephen King. On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft