Amanda Peters, THE BERRY PICKERS
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[1:03]Amanda Peters is the author of The Berry Pickers A Novel, which since this episode was recorded
[1:09]became a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick for the Best Book.
[1:13]Amanda Peters is a writer of Megawatt and settler ancestry, who obtained her certificate
[1:18]in creative writing from the University of Toronto in 2016, and a master's of fine arts
[1:23]and creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts.
[1:26]She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Pros and was chosen
[1:31]by Katarina Vermette to participate in the 2021 Writers' Trust of Canada Rising Stars
[1:36]Program.
[1:37]Her fiction has appeared in the Antiganish Review, Grain Magazine, the Alaska Quarterly
[1:41]Review, the Dalhousie Review, and the Filling Station Magazine.
[1:45]She lives and writes in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia with her fur babies, Holly and
[1:48]Puke.
[1:49]Welcome, Amanda.
[1:50]Thank you so much for coming on Momstone.
[1:51]I have time to read books to discuss The Berry Pickers A Novel.
[1:55]Thank you.
[1:56]I just got my books yesterday.
[1:58]Oh, let's see.
[1:59]Oh, that is so beautiful.
[2:01]Oh, my gosh.
[2:02]They're gorgeous.
[2:03]Wow.
[2:04]Gorgeous cover.
[2:05]For those who are listening, it's like a close-up of a blueberry bush plant, whatever
[2:09]you want to call it, and looks just so immersive and amazing.
[2:13]I've actually been to Maine twice since I got this arc and since I've talked to you.
[2:19]So I literally held the book up to my husband last night.
[2:21]I was like, guess where this book takes place?
[2:24]And he was like, name.
[2:28]We never would have known.
[2:29]We're not going to tell listeners what The Berry Pickers is about.
[2:33]The Berry Pickers is a book about a Meekma family.
[2:36]So that's Indigenous peoples of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the Atlantic Canadian area who
[2:40]go to Maine every summer to pick blueberries.
[2:43]And while they're there in the summer of 1962, their youngest daughter, Ruthie goes missing.
[2:48]So then the novel is a dual narrative told from Joe, who is the brother who's six and
[2:53]is the last person to see Ruthie and follows his life.
[2:56]And then it's told from the perspective also of Norma, who is a young girl being raised
[3:01]in an affluent family in Maine.
[3:03]The mom's pain when Ruthie goes missing was tough to even read.
[3:08]I mean, not really.
[3:09]It was just like, I felt that so deeply, and especially when the other women were like,
[3:15]yeah, you know, it's so hard to lose a child or a mat, you know, they were kind of talking
[3:19]about her.
[3:20]And she was just like, when she had to leave and go back to Nova Scotia, and it was
[3:25]like the howls and the like, oh my gosh, or whatever it was, I don't know, I felt that
[3:29]so deeply.
[3:30]It really resonated.
[3:31]Oh, good.
[3:32]I'm so happy when people have a visceral reaction to something that, right?
[3:35]Yeah.
[3:36]No, that's like the whole goal, right, getting other people to feel deeply.
[3:38]Yeah.
[3:39]Well, I felt very deeply.
[3:40]So I also felt really badly for Joe.
[3:44]I mean, oh my gosh, and then you just see the lasting impact of one action and how it can
[3:50]just reverberate through an entire life.
[3:52]It's just amazing.
[3:54]Yeah, and it does.
[3:54]It really deeply impacts him being the last person to see her and the guilt he feels for
[3:59]that just haunts him through the rest of his life.
[4:02]Oh my gosh.
[4:03]I mean, it's hard not to put yourself in that situation and think, what if, you know,
[4:06]what would I do would happen?
[4:08]Yeah.
[4:09]Hearing the calls of her name over and over and like can't get them out of his head.
[4:12]Oh my gosh.
[4:13]Where did this novel come from?
[4:15]Good question.
[4:16]This novel actually, I always say this is the book that I didn't want to write, which is kind
[4:19]of funny.
[4:20]When I started writing seriously, my dad, who is Mika.
[4:23]He said to me, you should write about us very pickers.
[4:25]You should write about us very pickers.
[4:27]I said, no, dad, I don't write nonfiction.
[4:30]I write fiction.
[4:31]I make things up.
[4:32]They kept at me and he kept at me and it kept saying no.
[4:35]And finally, he took me on a road trip to Maine, the two of us.
[4:39]And he showed me everywhere where they used to pick berries in Maine.
[4:43]He told me how it was done.
[4:44]He told me all these amazing stories on our three days down there.
[4:47]And the first line of chapter one just came to me down there.
[4:50]And I think for the next couple of years, the story just kind of revealed itself.
[4:54]I'll read the first line we probably know what it is.
[4:57]The day Ruthie went missing, the black flies seemed to be especially hungry.
[5:01]Yep.
[5:02]That came to be there.
[5:03]I think my must have like had black flies around me or something.
[5:05]And I don't know where it came from, but yeah, I just said, okay, maybe this is a story
[5:10]I meant to write.
[5:11]Yeah, so thank you, dad.
[5:12]This makes me think I should do a whole podcast where I just read the first sentences
[5:16]of different books.
[5:17]Oh, that'd be very cool.
[5:18]That'd be really interesting or an article or something because it really, it's so important.
[5:23]It sets the tone, it sets your sense, for example, like specific setting, you know,
[5:30]like so many things can be conveyed in such short words.
[5:33]Why?
[5:34]Why did Ruthie go missing?
[5:35]Like this is such a good example of interest and intrigue.
[5:38]A lot of a lot of people have said you give them a story away in the first line of the
[5:42]first chapter, basically.
[5:44]And then they say, but it's still a good story.
[5:46]I say, thank you.
[5:48]Wow, that's such an amazing experience you had with your dad.
[5:54]And I feel like you can tell, I mean, so many details are in the book, obviously, of what
[6:00]it feels like to be doing all of it, even the drive in the, you know, now it makes sense.
[6:05]Yeah, the entire time we were driving down we were on the Trans Canada until we got to
[6:09]Rebound, obviously.
[6:10]And my dad was saying, well, we used to take the old road and we'd stop at the river
[6:14]and have a swim and he just told me everything the entire way down so it was just so,
[6:19]so lovely.
[6:20]Yeah.
[6:21]And I'm so grateful to those stories.
[6:22]What does he think of the book?
[6:24]He loves it.
[6:25]He read it and he loved it.
[6:27]Yeah.
[6:28]And he keeps saying, I'm proud of you.
[6:29]So great.
[6:30]What do you want more than your mom and dad to be proud of you?
[6:34]So that's amazing.
[6:35]Why did you not want to write this book?
[6:38]I just thought he wanted me to write stories about like the actual berry pickers.
[6:41]And I was like, oh, I have to write fiction.
[6:43]I write fiction.
[6:44]I don't write nonfiction.
[6:45]And I just couldn't see what kind of story I would write because I wasn't familiar.
[6:49]I think it just took that that going down to Maine and seeing that be able to dad tell
[6:54]me stories.
[6:55]And I could kind of picture like my grandfather there and my grandmother.
[6:57]I could picture everybody doing their thing.
[6:59]And yeah.
[7:00]So I think that just gave me the kick.
[7:03]Was your dad's whole family berry pickers?
[7:05]They were.
[7:06]Yeah.
[7:07]Did they come down the whole family the way this family did the whole thing?
[7:09]Yeah.
[7:11]I don't know if all of them came all the time because I would have been a trick for my
[7:16]grandparents.
[7:17]But yeah, they did.
[7:18]Oh my gosh.
[7:19]Yeah.
[7:20]My dad's 10 of 14.
[7:23]How many is your mom part of like how many siblings did she have?
[7:26]My mom is five of six.
[7:27]Oh my goodness.
[7:28]You must have this crazy family reunions.
[7:31]That's why we have a lot of I have a lot of cousins.
[7:34]I say, I don't even know how many.
[7:37]But your mom is not indigenous.
[7:39]No.
[7:40]That's I always say I'm a Miigma and settler because my mom is not indigenous.
[7:43]And my dad is from close cat first nation.
[7:46]I'm also a member of close cat first nation.
[7:48]How did they meet?
[7:49]They met in high school.
[7:50]They were high school sweetheart.
[7:51]Oh.
[7:52]Oh.
[7:53]Yeah.
[7:54]They didn't last very long, but I have a lovely stepmother who's been my stepmother for the
[7:58]vast majority of my life who is also very proud of me.
[8:00]So maybe very happy.
[8:01]Oh, well.
[8:02]Having three loving parents, hey.
[8:04]I have step parents, step grandparents, step in laws, you know, step, I'm married again.
[8:10]I don't know.
[8:11]We're all about the stuff.
[8:12]Actually, all about the steps that could be a funny title too.
[8:15]There you go.
[8:16]I think it was like exercise and step parenting and whatever stuff I have to stop.
[8:22]OK.
[8:23]So you got the idea for the book.
[8:24]You felt immersed in it.
[8:25]You saw the whole thing.
[8:27]And then tell me about what happened next in the process and how you just went about writing
[8:31]it and how long it took and where you wrote it and just let us see that whole thing.
[8:35]No.
[8:36]I actually wrote the first chapter kind of as a short story.
[8:38]I thought it would be a short story.
[8:40]So I worked on it for like two years thinking it was going to be a short story.
[8:43]So the first chapter took me two years.
[8:46]And people kept saying, I feel like this is more, there's more to this, it's a novel
[8:49]people who had read it.
[8:50]And I was like, OK, maybe it is, maybe it is.
[8:52]So when I decided it was going to be a novel, I then wrote the next six chapters as part
[8:58]of my work at the Institute for American Indian Arts in New Mexico.
[9:02]I did my master of fine arts there and creative writing.
[9:04]So I did those as my creative work there and submitted them and they were workshop.
[9:09]And then it sold to Harper Collins here in Canada.
[9:11]And then I was given three months to write the last eight chapters.
[9:16]So it took like three years and then three months to write the last half of it.
[9:20]But yeah, I was very, very pleased.
[9:22]I knew where it was going.
[9:23]So it wasn't as much a challenge as if I didn't know where it was going.
[9:26]It was just a matter of having a deadline set so I could just get it out of my head and onto
[9:31]the page.
[9:32]So yeah, wow, yeah, four years total to write the book.
[9:36]And so many people helped like the faculty at the I.A. are just remarkable and my classmates
[9:43]and just my editor here, editors in the States, just so many people, my agent Marilyn,
[9:49]everybody is just so, so loving and helpful with this book.
[9:53]And I just, there's so many things I can't even imagine trying to list them before you
[9:59]go.
[10:00]You're MFA and all of that.
[10:01]Is this what you wanted to be when you were a little kid?
[10:04]Like where was your life headed?
[10:05]And like where were you living and just paint me a picture?
[10:07]Yeah, I've always wanted to be a writer
[10:09]since I was a little, I used to write these little books
[10:11]when my grandfather and my grandmother
[10:12]would knit them together with yarn.
[10:14]And I didn't know that.
[10:15]And remember that until she pulled them out of the jar
[10:17]when I was like 22 and showed them to me.
[10:19]But yeah, I've always wanted to write.
[10:20]But people tell you writers don't make any money, right?
[10:22]So I wanted to live a good life.
[10:24]I wanted to have my own home, that kind of thing,
[10:26]what you're supposed to do.
[10:27]Yeah, so I went to school and I worked for years
[10:30]and indigenous governance and financial management
[10:33]and health policy here in Canada.
[10:35]And when I was got my footing, so to say,
[10:38]I decided to take some creative writing classes
[10:40]because now I'm ready and that was in 2012.
[10:43]And I ended up taking one class.
[10:45]I loved it so much.
[10:45]It did the entire certificate in creative writing
[10:47]at University of Toronto Continuing Studies.
[10:50]And then I wanted to do more.
[10:51]I was just like, oh, I just had this appetite
[10:53]to learn and to write to be amongst writers.
[10:56]So then I applied to the IAIA and I got in.
[10:59]So yeah, I've been very lucky, very lucky.
[11:02]That's amazing.
[11:03]What a great story.
[11:05]Do you have ideas for your next project?
[11:07]So my next project is actually my short story collection
[11:09]which comes out next spring.
[11:11]So fast.
[11:12]Yeah, well, that actually was written
[11:14]before the very pickers was written.
[11:16]So it's just been sitting there for a while
[11:18]and mellowing and so I'm working on editing that now.
[11:22]So hopefully that'll be out next spring.
[11:24]And I do have another manuscript
[11:26]that's sitting right here where you can't see it.
[11:27]It's just looking at me.
[11:28]But I don't like to talk about it
[11:30]because I'm pretty, the story will go away.
[11:32]So I'm just kind of keeping.
[11:34]I tried to start another book
[11:35]and I told people about it and I was excited
[11:37]and the story kind of just disappeared
[11:39]that breed in my head.
[11:41]So I said, no, I'm not telling anybody
[11:43]to tell this one is down on paper.
[11:45]So I'm just going to keep it under wraps.
[11:47]Awesome.
[11:49]It's really intimidating because this book
[11:51]is getting a lot of attention.
[11:52]So like, oh, can I write another book like that?
[11:55]I don't know.
[11:56]Sure, you can.
[11:58]You can just go through all the different fruits.
[12:00]We could line them up by season all the different people
[12:04]who work to bring us all of the fruit
[12:06]and then you could give fruit baskets out
[12:08]like a collection of your books
[12:10]and it could be like a whole thing.
[12:11]That is very cool.
[12:14]You run out of ideas.
[12:15]There we go.
[12:16]I'm just kidding.
[12:17]What is your short story collection called?
[12:19]It's called Waiting for the Long Night Moon.
[12:22]Ooh, that's nice.
[12:23]Yeah, that's a short story I wrote
[12:24]and it actually won the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award
[12:28]for unpublished prose up here in Canada.
[12:30]So we decided to name the story collection that
[12:32]and it's kind of a nice title.
[12:33]I don't know what seems to evoke something.
[12:35]I can like picture a sort of a cover.
[12:38]I don't know.
[12:38]Do you have a cover yet?
[12:39]Not yet.
[12:40]They're working on it here at HarperCollins.
[12:42]So we'll see.
[12:43]Do you need a consultant?
[12:45]I'm like, I should write the answer.
[12:47]I'm like obsessed with cover design.
[12:50]I'm obsessed.
[12:51]It's like my favorite part of publishing books.
[12:52]It's like, ooh, covers.
[12:54]They are nice.
[12:55]I just bought recently bought one based on its cover.
[12:57]The book Wayward?
[12:59]They wear it yet.
[13:00]And I just bought it because I was like,
[13:01]what a spectacular cover.
[13:03]And I bought it.
[13:04]It was a good book.
[13:05]Well, there you go.
[13:06]Yeah.
[13:07]I mean, at least if it's a good cover,
[13:08]you know people care enough to make a good cover.
[13:10]True.
[13:11]Not that it has, you know,
[13:13]they say don't judge a book on its cover,
[13:14]but maybe you, I mean, you don't totally.
[13:17]I know that's this book I read recently.
[13:19]Not to be rude about it,
[13:21]but like has the worst cover,
[13:23]but it's like the best book.
[13:24]And I kind of want to tell the author like,
[13:26]can I just like redesign the cover or find,
[13:29]you know, like you would find a whole different audience
[13:32]if it just had a slightly different look and feel
[13:35]but anyway, it's not in my business.
[13:37]What else?
[13:38]Maybe I'm wrong.
[13:39]I don't know about that, right?
[13:41]But I do love thinking about it.
[13:42]So what do you do when you're not writing novels
[13:45]and worrying they might jump out of your brains again?
[13:48]And yeah.
[13:49]I'm going to put a jump in on my brain.
[13:52]I'm actually associate professor
[13:53]in the department of English and theater
[13:54]at a KV University here in the Napa styling of the Scotia.
[13:58]So I just started that job.
[13:59]So it's really fun.
[14:00]I get to talk about reading and writing
[14:02]and I get to read and write.
[14:03]So amazing.
[14:05]It's the dream to be honest.
[14:07]It's the dream.
[14:09]Wow.
[14:10]So which reader are you most excited to read your book?
[14:13]Like, if this type of person
[14:15]could read the book or you could get a letter
[14:17]or like, who do you want to feel deeply this?
[14:21]That's interesting.
[14:21]Because I get about one or two emails a week on readers
[14:24]who just tell me that they love the story
[14:26]and I just love getting those.
[14:28]They're so like they're so touching.
[14:30]And I got one from a make my woman from Escalene
[14:33]which is a first age community here who I don't know.
[14:35]And she just said she could picture her childhood
[14:38]and she just loved the story
[14:40]and she could just feel it.
[14:42]And that kind of meant a lot to me.
[14:43]That's some members of the make my community
[14:46]are really embracing the story
[14:48]because it is part of our history and part of our story
[14:51]because now I have lots of people who are coming to me
[14:53]and saying let me tell you about my stories
[14:55]for the very fields.
[14:55]So let me tell you about my stories for the very fields.
[14:58]Which is so interesting
[14:59]because we're natural storytellers
[15:00]so getting to hear those stories from them
[15:03]is really exciting.
[15:04]But when I wrote the book,
[15:05]it was just I wanted my mom and my dad to be proud, I guess.
[15:08]But I just want people to say when they close it
[15:10]and I want them to say that was a really good story.
[15:13]Kind of right.
[15:14]It does have some pretty serious themes in it.
[15:17]But at the end, I think what every writer wants
[15:20]is people just to think that they wrote a really good story.
[15:23]That's amazing.
[15:23]I love that answer.
[15:25]So good.
[15:26]How do you write a really good story?
[15:28]Like what advice would you give
[15:29]and as a teacher and everything as well?
[15:31]Just keep going.
[15:32]Like I never thought I would write a book.
[15:34]Some of my early stuff,
[15:35]oh you do not want to see that.
[15:36]It is really bad, right?
[15:39]But I never thought I would write a book
[15:40]and I was like, you know what?
[15:41]I don't care if it's published.
[15:42]I just want to have the satisfaction
[15:45]that I wrote a story and that I can finish it.
[15:47]And I worked out and I worked out and I worked out it.
[15:50]So I say and let people read it, let people help you.
[15:54]Some people just so they keep it really tight
[15:56]to their chest and I'm like,
[15:57]there's so many people out there
[15:58]who are willing to offer really good advice and help you.
[16:02]So take advantage of that.
[16:04]Because there's a lot of generous people.
[16:06]I've been very fortunate to be mentored
[16:08]as some really remarkable writers.
[16:09]So just take advantage of that.
[16:12]I like that.
[16:13]Maybe you should put something on your website
[16:16]or something called stories from the Berryfields
[16:18]and have the people who are telling you all these stories
[16:20]and they contribute and then we can read the stories.
[16:23]That is a brilliant idea.
[16:25]I'm gonna write that one down.
[16:26]Hahaha.
[16:28]Are you because I would be interested
[16:29]in having read the book?
[16:30]Like what was it like?
[16:32]You know, I'd want to hear more.
[16:34]Even from your dad, you could have him start.
[16:36]Yeah, that's true.
[16:37]I could get down.
[16:38]He has lots of stories.
[16:39]There's lots of stories.
[16:40]There's ghost stories.
[16:42]There's funny stories.
[16:43]There's sad stories.
[16:44]There's a little bit of violence, of course.
[16:46]But overall, it's a lot of stories about family
[16:49]and laughing and sitting around the fire and hard work
[16:52]as it is hard work, backbreaking work,
[16:54]some would say.
[16:55]And people have people still go down.
[16:56]They take vacation.
[16:58]They go down to main direct berries in the summer
[17:00]just to keep the tradition alive.
[17:02]And I'm like, oh, I'm too lazy for that.
[17:04]I want a cup of tea and a book.
[17:06]And then we just like pop a blueberry in our mouth
[17:08]and don't even think about it.
[17:10]Mm-hmm.
[17:11]So without a lot of things, don't we?
[17:12]I know, but it's like everything should be so cherished.
[17:16]Like where did this come from?
[17:17]And how did we get this?
[17:19]And who contributed to it?
[17:20]And it's not just sitting here in the grocery or whatever.
[17:24]Yeah.
[17:24]Yeah.
[17:25]All the people behind every item, not to get all deep about this.
[17:31]But it's true.
[17:34]It's really important.
[17:35]There was some prize you won or something
[17:37]I wanted to ask you about.
[17:38]The Writers Trust Rising Stars program.
[17:40]What is that?
[17:41]So they take five established writers in Canada.
[17:45]And they ask them if they know of any writers
[17:48]who are just starting their careers, who could benefit
[17:51]from exposure and mentorship.
[17:54]So Katharina Vermat, who is a Matie writer,
[17:56]award winning Matie writer here from Canada,
[17:58]chose my work in 2021.
[18:01]So yeah, it was really exciting.
[18:02]It was during the pandemic.
[18:03]So it was a little bit interesting how they did it
[18:07]through Zoom and everything.
[18:08]But yeah, so we got awarded a little bit
[18:11]of money to help us take some time off to write work.
[18:13]We got mentorship from the person who chose us.
[18:16]We got national exposure.
[18:17]And funny enough, this morning,
[18:20]the Writers Trust Fiction Award finalist for announced.
[18:23]And I'm on that list this year.
[18:25]Oh my gosh.
[18:26]Congratulations.
[18:27]Yes, you did.
[18:27]Yeah, amazing.
[18:29]And this morning also burns a noble discovery prize.
[18:32]Finalist was announced this morning.
[18:33]And I want that list of those jobs.
[18:36]It's been a very good day for me.
[18:38]It's not even looking good.
[18:39]Oh my gosh.
[18:40]I'm sorry if I miss that.
[18:41]I should have like, did you post?
[18:43]I'm so sorry.
[18:44]Well, I'm glad I asked that question.
[18:47]And I feel like I'm more on.
[18:48]But anyway, congratulations.
[18:49]Total budgets are just kind of like full circle.
[18:52]I was chosen for the rising trust.
[18:53]And then now I'm shortlisted for the
[18:57]That would give us an award for the Writers Trust.
[18:59]So Katharina Vermat, my mentor.
[19:01]She sent me a Texas one and just said, whoa, whoa.
[19:05]So what a special day.
[19:07]Oh, yeah, that's a very good day.
[19:08]I'm awesome.
[19:10]Oh, that's so great.
[19:12]Well, thanks for sharing a moment of this important day
[19:16]and spreading the joy.
[19:17]And it's totally well deserved.
[19:19]I'm not surprised at all.
[19:20]And congratulations.
[19:22]Thank you so much.
[19:25]Amazing.
[19:26]Well, Amanda, thank you for chatting today.
[19:28]Thanks for talking about the berry pickers.
[19:29]Thanks for the great story that made me feel.
[19:32]And definitely thought was a great story.
[19:34]So mission accomplished.
[19:35]And don't thank you for having me.
[19:37]I really appreciate it.
[19:38]Congrats on all the accolades.
[19:40]Thank you.
[19:41]OK, take care.
[19:42]See ya.
[19:42]Bye.
[19:43]Bye.
[19:45]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[19:47]Don't have time to read books.
[19:48]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[19:51]and at Moms.
[19:52]Don't have time to read books.
[19:53]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[19:56]and sign up for my virtual book club
[19:58]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every day.
[20:00]other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing,
[20:04]and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and