Amanda Peters has a gift for tracing the boundaries of time, place, and generations. Her marvel of a first novel, The Berry Pickers, was inspired by her father’s stories of summers spent traveling with his family from Nova Scotia to harvest blueberries in Maine. The Berry Pickers alternates between two narrators—Joe, a Mi’kmaq boy of six in 1962 when his four-year-old sister disappears into the forest in Maine, and Nora, an only child of a well-to-do Maine family whose dreams feel eerily like memories. As Nora tracks the mystery of her origins, Joe tells his side of the story. It’s a powerful decades-long tale of loss, grief, and love.
Waiting for the Long Night Moon is equally evocative and spacious, with stories ranging from pre-settler times to a twenty-first century dance ceremony promising a young girl’s future. Peters writes movingly of spirituality, violence, loss, protest, hunting, fishing, tribal rituals and the powerful connections among friends and family. Our email conversation spanned the continent.
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Jane Ciabattari: How have your life and work been during these past years of pandemic and turmoil? How has your writing of and launch of this new story collection been affected?
Amanda Peters: Unlike so many who had devastating experiences during the pandemic, I was at least afforded more time to write. The short stories were written prior to the pandemic so there was no direct impact but The Berry Pickers did benefit from the additional time gifted to me.
JC: When did you begin writing this collection? How long did it take to feel it was complete? And to have a publication scheduled? (I understand it was finished before your award-winning first novel, The Berry Pickers, was published; in your acknowledgment you mention you like to call these stories your “writing training wheels”.)
We are all storytellers to some degree and I have been lucky enough to have many in my family.
AP: I actually wrote the first one in 2014 as an assignment for a summer course at the University of Toronto Continuing Studies. After I finished and determined that I was proud of it, it gave me the confidence to continue. I was frightened at the thought of writing a novel and assumed that I would simply write short stories (I originally thought The Berry Pickers was a short story but turned out I was wrong). After the first, when I found something that inspired me, I would start to write. Some of them came to me quickly and others were more challenging. The collection was released in August in Canada and will be released in the US on February 11, 2025.
JC: The Berry Pickers received a garland of accolades, including the 2024 Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction, the 2024 Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime First Novel, the 2024 Dartmouth Book Award, and a 2023 Barnes and Noble Discovery Prize. How did these honors influence your work going forward?
AP: Honestly, it’s intimidating. I never anticipated that The Berry Pickers would be as popular as it is and now I feel there is a standard and I don’t know if I can live up to it. I’m going to give it my best. I am lucky to have so many supportive people around me who encourage me when I’m feeling the pressure.
JC: What inspired your title story, the Indigenous Voices Award-winning “Waiting for the Long Night Moon,” and the book’s title?
AP: This is one where I don’t remember the inspiration. I do recall writing one particular scene where the main character is sitting by himself by a fire watching the moon on the snow and I wrote around that scene. I wanted the story to be in winter and acknowledge the fact that he is waiting for something. It seemed to come together nicely.
JC: How did you establish the order of the stories—and how did you decide to shape the arc of the collection from a story about pre-settler time (“Winter Arrives”) to “A Strong Seed,” about a mother watching her daughter preparing for her first dance with the help of her own mother, providing them both an inkling of the powerful woman she will be in the future new generation to come?
AP: When I was working with my editor, I asked that the collection start with “Winter Arrives” because it was my first short story that I was proud of and the first that was ever published. And because there were some heavy topics in the other stories, I wanted it to end on a note of joy and resilience. In between, the stories vary in topic, length, topic and time period. They were ordered to ensure the best experience for the reader, a mix of short and long with stories thematically separated to allow variation for the reader. It just happened that the first story is about the arrival of settlers and the last about a hopeful future.
JC: A number of the stories—like “The Story of a Crow (A Retelling)”, about how the crow became black, and “The Birthing Tree,” about a tree where women used to give birth, seem to evolve from traditional tales or tribal history. What are the details of their origins?
AP: “The Story of the Crow” is my retelling of a story that my Auntie tells. I love crows and stories so it seemed natural that I would try to write it in my own voice. “The Birthing Tree” was inspired by my Nan Peters. She was living with dementia. I was staying with her one weekend. I was reading on the sofa when she turned from her window (she loved to watch her birdfeeder) and told me about a tree nearby where Mi’kmaw women would give birth. That’s all she ever said. She quietly retreated into her own mind and the birds outside. That was about twenty-five years ago and it stayed with me until it finally presented itself as a short story. I love it because of that connection with my Nan.
JC: How did you go about weaving intergenerational storytelling into the narratives of stories like “The Virgin and the Bear” and “Wolves?”
AP: We are all storytellers to some degree and I have been lucky enough to have many in my family. Some of my fondest memories are sitting at the kitchen table after the dishes had been cleared and we would drink tea and she would tell me about growing up. I loved those stories and I think they inspired me to write across generations.
JC: “Three Billion Heartbeats” travels in time, narrated by a woman who leaves home for college, connects with a demonic meth dealer, and who now exists “only in the dark,” remembering her mother’s lessons: “Put your feet on the ground, stand still and let yourself feel it,” plus walking in the rain, lying in the moss. What were the challenges involved in evoking time’s borders?
I tend to get the story written and then go back to ensure that the changes are clear.
AP: The challenge is always writing so that I don’t lose the reader. Moving between time and place, if not carefully constructed, can confuse. I tend to get the story written and then go back to ensure that the changes are clear. Sometimes they aren’t and thank goodness for friends who read and for my editor!
JC: In “Tiny Birds and Terrorists” a young woman grieves the loss of her newborn daughter, a “tiny bird” with no wings, with the help of her grandfather. Two years later, she joins a small band of indigenous water keepers who gather to protect the river against a pipeline, preserving “water for our grandchildren.” A local newspaper dubs the protesters “a ragged band of ecoterrorists determined to halt progress,” the soldiers arrive, and the TV cameras. Violence ensues. You capture the complex division in attitudes between white folks and “people who know we need the earth more than it needs us.” What was your writing process like in crafting this story?
AP: I wrote this when I was watching the news during the Standing Rock Protests and was thinking about how the protesters were fighting for the rights of future generations. Even those who have lost can still contribute to making the world a better place. I wanted to weave the two storylines together effectively. It was a bit of a challenge and there were a lot of revisions. But in the end, I was pleased with the story as it unfolded.
JC: What other writers and storytellers—including family members, colleagues at Acadia, faculty and fellow students in the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the University of Toronto—inspire you and your work?
AP: My dad is, of course, a storyteller. It was his stories of his times in the berry fields of Maine with his family that inspired The Berry Pickers. But with the short stories, there were many that were inspired by the stories told to me by friends and family. My IAIA classmates are so supportive. We still meet via Zoom 2.5 years after graduation. And each time I read a new book, I am inspired.
JC: What are you working on now/next?
AP: I’m one of those odd ones that doesn’t like to share. I have in the past but when I talk about it, I seem to lose the story I am trying to tell. So, I am working on a few things but I am going to keep that close.
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Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters is available from Catapult.
