What Kind Of Life Can You Have

There Isn't A Lot Of Poverty Literature In The Young-adult World. And I Don't Know Why That Is, But I Think Certainly I Felt A Gap.

I Had The Feeling I Was Going To Be Successful, And I Didn't Want To Be Another Disappointing Indian.

Sixty Percent Of All Indians Live In Urban Areas, But Nobody's Writing About Them. They're Really An Underrepresented Population, And The Ironic Thing Is Very, Very Few Of Those We Call Native American Writers Actually Grew Up On Reservations, And Yet Most Of Their Work Is About Reservations.

My Career Means, If You're A Non-indian Writing About Indians, At Least There's One Indian In Your Rearview Mirror.

A Lot Of Native Culture Has Been Destroyed. So You Already Feel Lost Inside Your Culture. And Then You Add Up Feeling Lost And Insignificant Inside The Larger Culture. So You End Up Feeling Lost Squared. And To Never Be Recognized, To Never Have Any Power, You Know, Other Minority Communities Actually Have A Lot Of Economic, Cultural Power.