SOURCE: Erdrich, Louise, and Miriam Berkley. “PW Interviews: Louise Erdrich.” Publishers Weekly 230 (August 15, 1986): 58-9.

In the following interview, Erdrich discusses the development of her career and her collaboration with husband Michael Dorris.

When Louise Erdrich was a child in North Dakota, her father encouraged her to write by paying her a nickel a story. Once in a while, a story found its way into a book hand-sewn by her mother. Still, she had no urge to be a writer, she says, “until I got to college and found I wasn't much good at anything else.” If Erdrich is, one suspects, being unduly modest about her nonliterary achievements, there can be no doubt about her talent as a writer. Within a single year, 1984, when she was 30, her first collection of poetry, Jacklight, and her first novel, Love Medicine—both published by Holt—received overwhelming acclaim. Laurels for the latter...