“When we understand each other's stories, we understand everything a little better—even ourselves.”
—Someplace to be Flying, Charles de Lint
This will be a long post, but for me, it's an important one. I'm basing this post on the afterword that I include in my new novel, The Wolf at the End of the World. However, since a potential reader, especially a First Nations reader, may have concerns over the issue I address here (and therefore not read the book), I'm posting that afterword here.
On the Origin of The Wolf at the End of the World
My intent for writing this post is primarily to address a fear I had about writing The Wolf at the End of the World. But before I can get into that, I need to first talk about the book's genesis.
The first story I wrote (and sold) professionally was the novelette “Spirit Dance.” In it, we first meet my shapeshifting species, the Heroka, as well as my hero, Gwyn Blaidd and many of the other characters of The Wolf. That story takes place five years before the events in The Wolf. “Spirit Dance” was my first professional sale. It appeared in the anthology, Tesseracts6 in 1997, was a finalist for the Aurora Award in 1998, and won the Aurora Award in 2001 when it was translated into French. It’s been republished seven times in English and translated another sixteen times. Yes, the story totally rocks, and you should check it out.
I always planned to revisit the world and characters of “Spirit Dance,” so when I finally decided to write my first novel, continuing Gwyn’s story was an obvious choice.
On Writing About Another Culture
Now to my fear about writing The Wolf at the End of the World. I’m a white male of European descent (English, Welsh, Irish) who is writing about Cree and Ojibwe culture, traditions, and beliefs. Any author who writes about a current culture other than their own risks being accused of cultural appropriation.
That risk is even greater if the writer belongs to the majority that has traditionally held power in their society and is writing about a minority group in that society. It becomes greater still when that majority has oppressed that minority for nearly a quarter of a millennium, as the First Nations people have been since the Europeans first arrived in this land. My ancestors stole their land, broke treaty after treaty, and introduced programs and policies consciously designed to destroy their rich and unique culture and way of life.
