Louise Erdrich shares thoughts on her One Book novel

How to Write a Book

Gage Rich

22 September 2008

He used to be a master butcher, fought in World War I, won the Iron Cross and then moved to the US Had you been needing to scribble this novel for a bit in respect for your granddad's story? ANSWER : he used to be a much more courageous person than anybody in the book, my real granddad.

Q : Had this concept been mulling around for a bit for you? A : It had.

Part of it actually is that I am extraordinarily close to my pop. My dad's side of the family is German. Did you plan that ending, or did it just happen? The ending came to me all in a hurry one day, and I almost just wrote it in a day. I wrote the entire book in sequence, it was surprising that way. As I started the book, I presumed, I have got to complete this book. I was perhaps thirty or forty pages in, I realized I had to end it before my baby was born.

I set myself a goal I had to truly work conscientiously on this one. I was getting farther and farther away from the desk. Q : How long did it take to write? A : In a way, it took twenty years. But I wrote the majority of it in about a year and a half. Q : You have selected to use North Dakota as a setting. I like to draft places where I have been and I can describe. It's right down the line from where I grew up. I am excited to see folks I know and love in Sioux Falls. I desire everybody to be looked after so I can get to my work. Erdrich is the mum of 7 youngsters, one of whom died in 1991. Books : a variety of kids's books, including "The Birchbark House" ( 1999 ) and "The Porcupine Year" ( 2008 ) ; books, including "The Antelope Wife" ( 1998 ), "The Master Butchers Singing Club" ( 2003 ) and "The Plague of Doves" ( 2008 ) ; and works of nonfiction, including "The Blue Jay's Dance : A Birth Year" ( 1995 ) and "Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country" ( 2003 ). Awards : State Endowment for the humanities fellowship ( 1982 ), Pushcart Prize ( 1983 ), Countrywide Mag Fiction awards ( 1983, 1987 ), State Book Critics Circle Award for best fictional work and Yankee Book Award for "Love Medicine" ( 1984 ), Countrywide Book Award finalist for fiction for "The Antelope Wife," "The Last Report on the Miracles at Tiny No Horse" and "The Master Butchers Singing Club.".

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