During a weeklong visit to IAIA in February as a visiting writer, renowned Turtle Mountain Chippewa author Louise Erdrich advised IAIA students to focus on developing originality and truth in their writing. The author of twelve novels, including the bestselling “Love Medicine,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, Erdrich has also authored collections of poetry, children’s books and personal memoirs.

During her whirlwind visit, she met individually with creative writing students and with classes, and did a reading on campus. “She was genuine in her enthusiasm to help us and to both encourage and gently nudge us in the right direction with our writing,” said Loretta Francis, first-year creative writing student.

Despite her fame, Erdrich remains easy to talk to, very approachable, even for the awe-inspired creative writing student. As a student working on the IAIA Chronicle staff, I had the unique opportunity to interview Erdrich during her visit. I found myself completely unprepared for my very first interview, petrified, in fact, that it was with an author I had read since I was nineteen, which was over a decade ago.

Off To A Bad Start

I scribbled a few questions down and figured out how to work our department’s digital audio recorder just seconds before we began our walk towards the IAIA cafeteria. I had offered to take her to the Blue Corn for lunch. She refused. I was off to a bad start. I felt I had just been shot down, like one of those poor guys that scrape together enough courage to ask out a beautiful girl, just to get rejected in the first millisecond of face-to-face contact.

I made small talk on the way down, fumbling over my tongue, which seemed to loll around my mouth, swollen and limp. I forgot I had no cash and had to finagle our meals from the kitchen staff. Nice.

In spite of my efforts to sabotage the interview, Erdrich remained patient, perhaps even sympathetic. She had freely given a slice of her time during her jam-packed schedule to indulge us in a student interview. We got in line for our chicken and fried zucchini. Were we supposed to interview while we ate or wait until afterwards? I wasn’t sure. I had to ask. We ate first; she said she’d eat fast.

The lunch room was crowded and noisy beyond the usual gnashing of knives and forks. People were visiting and laughing as loud as humanly possible. I turned on the recorder and began casually trying to decipher my way through the chicken scratches of questions I had written down. We had to lean in towards each other, and more importantly, the recorder, in order to exchange words.

Originality and True Voice Are Important

I waited until she finished eating and began with a statement she had made during a classroom visit in which she had suggested that, above all other things, developing originality and true voice is most important in becoming a good writer. Then following that, she warned students that even after this was accomplished, not everyone will be pleased.

I asked her to elaborate on the statement about criticism. Facing criticism is part of what it means to be an artist, said Erdrich, who has received criticism of her work from Native and non-Natives.

“You have to be very confident in your version of the truth,” Erdrich told me. “Your art has to be your truth. A very mediocre vision seems to please a broad range of people, so, in a way; strong criticism is a positive thing. If you’re pleasing a huge segment of the country, what are you? You’re reality tv or you’re the ‘Bridges of Madison County,’ or you’re at a level that I don’t think reflects the truth of your distinctive experience.”

The emphasis should be on writing the truth, not trying to please people, Erdrich said.

“Love Medicine,” Erdrich’s award-winning first novel, crossed the lines of ethnicity and gender, and was a commercial and literary success, establishing her as an icon among the writers of contemporary Native American literature.

Her Success Came As A Surprise

However, Erdrich admitted that she was surprised the book was so well received. She said she never expected anyone to read her work, that she was merely writing the truth as she saw it, not for what she thought people might like. She never thought about whether or not it was politically correct, whether it was Native or whether it would be approved by non-Indians.

And if it had touched readers, it was because she didn’t think about anything but the writing itself and the characters.

“Maybe it’s my love of my characters that comes through. I love my characters, even the bad ones, you know,” she said with a smile.

I love her characters too. Although it was very elementary of me, I couldn’t resist asking which one of all her characters was her favorite. Nector Kashpaw, she told me.

Erdrich certainly seems to fall into place as a writer in a long line of storytellers who nurtured her ability from both sides in her family. She mentions her grandfather who had a very special quality that made him a storyteller. Erdrich said she thought he just liked narrative.

This love of narrative is also true on the other side of her family. “In my family, people enjoy sitting and telling stories. And the narrative sank into me—the bones of the narrative, the way to tell a story, what worked in a story.”

Undoubtedly, her success lies in basic elements. It is the honesty of her voice, and the universal struggles of well-developed, well-loved characters that make her such an extraordinary writer.

Erdrich Sees Herself As “Being Human”

Although she has made the distinction that she thinks of herself first and foremost as a writer, she doesn’t object to being referred to generally as a writer of Native fiction. “It’s a very useful distinction right now because I think that the country has been catching up academically with the multiplicity of voices in the Americas,” she said.

This need to categorize ethnic writers, she said, has grown out of the need in academics to teach different cultures and the different voices within that setting. In the end, however, she sees herself as being human. Everything she writes, she says, comes out of that humanity.

“Humanity is influenced by culture and one’s traditions, and for me, it’s a mixture of traditions and cultures. I write out of what I am, but primarily, I see myself as just a writer.”

Regarding what might seem like a stereotype in “Love Medicine,” which portrays Native Americans abusing alcohol, Erdrich explained that it would be difficult to write it now. The reality of the world of “Love Medicine” was simply the truth of her experience then. Since then, her life has been utterly changed by her children. She has tried to live in a way that would be good for them, she said.

Her more recent work reflects this change in her life.

Humanizing Catholicism

“The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse’ was a spiritual search, very much what I am involved in now, a search for origin, a search for spiritual truth, a search for a way to humanize Catholicism so that I can stand it,” she said with a laugh.

“A-men,” I thought to myself.

Religion or the struggle with religion is present in much of her writing. When asked if she still practices Catholicism, Erdrich didn’t squirm or shrink in her chair. She admitted that, although she said she doesn’t, there are times when she still feels Catholic. Erdrich was indoctrinated in the Catholic Church at a young age, which she feels makes it almost impossible to erase, to get the paradigm out of her mind. “It has such a powerful hold over people because it has refined its symbolism.”

Erdrich is currently working on a more contemporary novel. She also has a bookstore in Minneapolis, MN called Birchbark Books, which focuses primarily on Native American books, and also sells Native-made art and jewelry. She enjoys providing Native artisans the chance to have an outlet for their work.

“I also wanted an intellectual center in Minneapolis where people could discover Native writers and where the focus could be on Native books. Minneapolis is a great reading town, and it also has a very active and vibrant urban Native population.”

Genuine Care for Future Writers

The most striking thing about Erdrich’s visit and advice didn’t come until much later, until she had gone home, and I was stuck at my favorite perch in the kitchen, pecking away at the keyboard during my spring break. I realize that the opportunity we students had to meet with and learn from her was golden, not because she is a famous writer, or even because she is a famous Native writer.

The nugget lies in her genuine care for future writers, and her graciousness to pass on what she felt was the most important aspects of writing. She was telling us how “Love Medicine” was done, how it became successful. Its success lay in truth. She hadn’t began trying to please people and write what she thought might be a famous novel. She was writing from the heart, and suggested that we do the same.

What does Erdrich see in the future for Native literature?

“The next great writers are going to come out of the Institute here. I’m impressed with the level of work. You have the future here. I’ve been so privileged to work with you, talk to you. It has been a great trust. I’m counting on all of you young writers to wrench the language into a new and more expressive instrument. So go to it! Write your hearts out, and fear nothing.”