You’ve said that you thought about Carnival Lights for 20 years. Was there a moment when something unlocked?

Twenty years ago, I began writing Carnival Lights as a graduate student in Florida. I did not enjoy living there, and I was pining for Minnesota while waiting for a nine-month lease to end. My professor had the class do a 10-page writing prompt based on Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses. The first 10 pages of Carnival Lights emerged from this exercise. My professor pulled me aside and said I had a responsibility to the characters, Sher and Kris, to finish their story. I thought about his comment years later, while working on the novel, and his words helped pull me through the times I wondered if I would ever finish the book.

Over the course of those two decades, there were many years where I did not work on Carnival Lights at all. During that time, I wrote and published my first novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, completed two master’s degrees, and so on. Carnival Lights had its own timing, and about eight years ago I decided to finish it. I sat day after day with the manuscript pulled up in front of me, and nothing would come. Finally, I stopped sitting there and let it be. I realized it had its own timing and I trusted there was a reason for that. And then, the rest of the story tumbled out the year before it was published, and I was greatly relieved as I had a sense of responsibility to the story, and to the characters.

In the book you place fictional characters in real-life events. Have you written that way before, blending fiction with history over a long span of time? Was Gabriel Garcia Marquez an influence?

This is the first time I have written in this way. However, I write fiction, creative non-fiction, and academic non-fiction, so I think this is a natural progression to combine fiction, research, and non-fiction. It’s my favorite way to write. The process of finding the story was somewhat magical. I ran across bits and pieces in PBS programs, through academic research, and via discoveries in my day-to-day life. For instance, the part about the Nazi V-2 rocket being displayed at the Minnesota State Fair in the early 1950s is true. Years ago, I searched the old historical building at the fair and on my last pass, the year before they tore it down, I saw a tiny photograph of a Nazi V-2 rocket with the year hand-written in the corner. I was astonished! I intend to do more research about that rocket, and the specifics regarding how it ended up at the Minnesota State Fair. But for the book, I did a bit more research about how and where V-2 rockets were brought into the U.S., and then I fabricated a story specific to the Minnesota fair.

Your characters endure sexual violence and exploitation, which happens to Indigenous women at a higher rate than any population. Do you find writing to be healing?

I’d say I experience justice through the process of writing, of which content is one aspect, if that makes sense. What I mean is that it is not healing to simply tell about the abuses committed and being committed against Native people, but rather turning the content into art is both an act of justice for me as an individual who has survived various kinds of abuses and an act of solidarity and caring for my relatives who are alive now and who have passed. I write first and foremost for the joy of writing and to be accountable to the story and the characters. When I feel as if I have put the story down right, or captured a character or event or description well, I experience a great deal of joy and satisfaction. And that is healing.

You had a seven-year stretch where you ran 10 miles a day. How does running impact your writing?

Much of Carnival Lights was generated while running, especially through wooded areas and in residential areas at night. Ideas came to me while running, and a problem or difficulty I was experiencing with the story would often become clear while running. The theme of running is explored in a cultural context in Carnival Lights as well.

You also teach writing at the university level. Who is an author you love to teach?

Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Eudora Welty, and James Baldwin are among my favorite authors. The one criticism I hear from students is “why do they have to have so many details?” As a writer and reader, I love detailed description, and I believe I’m doing my students a favor by introducing them to rich, detailed literature, especially in this world of superficial media sound bites.

What is next for you?

I always knew the ending of Carnival Lights, and I’d sometimes think people will think this lends itself well to a sequel but they are wrong. I am never going to write another book like this. It’s too difficult! Then, in February, the sequel began to emerge. It’s titled The Bones. My publisher said it needs a new title for marketing reasons. But that’s the title and it won’t be changing. You have to be true to the story. If you’re not, what do you have?