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Heather Brittain Bergstrom

Goodreads Author

Born

Moses Lake, Washington, The United States

Website

http://www.heatherbrittainbergstrom.com

Influences

Alice Munro, Richard Ford, Sam Shepard, Eudora Welty, Louise Erdrich, ...more

Member Since

January 2014

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https://www.facebook.com/hbbergstrom

I grew up in a small farming town in eastern Washington, located between the two largest Indian reservations in the state. My family has deep roots in the Pacific Northwest, and I remember my grandmother telling stories of how the Snake River used to flood their house every spring. For much of my childhood, my parents were members of a fundamentalist Baptist church where I attended school in an unaccredited basement academy. I have worked as a truck stop waitress and as a teacher. I've won multiple awards from Narrative Magazine, including first place in the Fall 2010 Story Contest. Four of my short stories can be found online at Narrative. Leslie Marmon Silko chose a story by me to win the Kore Press Sho ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

Is STEAL THE NORTH a Christian novel?

Heather Brittain Bergstrom No. But for reasons unbeknownst to me or my publisher, my novel has been categorized as "Christian" in some library systems. Christianity is a theme i…moreNo. But for reasons unbeknownst to me or my publisher, my novel has been categorized as "Christian" in some library systems. Christianity is a theme in my novel, for sure--or rather spirituality is a theme--but STEAL THE NORTH is in no way a Christian novel. Let me explain. I personally feel for a novel to be a truly Christian novel, Christ needs to be part of the denouement. At the end of Christian novels, characters find help, strength, guidance, renewal, fellowship, accord and so forth through Christ. My two main characters do not turn to Christ at the end of my book. They turn to each other. The Lord is not part of the denouement. It's as simple as that. Or is it?

Emmy, my female protagonist, longs for spirituality. This is not a flaw in her. In fact, her longing for spirituality brings her closer to other cultures: Sikhs in California and Native Americans in Washington. In the end of the novel, she is still unsure what she believes about Christ, Buddha, and so forth. She has not accepted Christ into her heart, as she surely would have had this been a genuine Christian novel. My male protagonist Reuben is Native American and his culture's faith and rituals are very important to him and the novel. Aunt Beth is a devout Christian and I narrate two full chapters in her voice. Perhaps this is where the confusion stems from. I find Beth's trust in God beautiful, such an organic part of her nature. Her faith in the fundamentalist Baptist church, however, is not beautiful. In fact, it is dangerous. I wanted to show a beautiful side to Christianity through Beth and her husband Matt: their patience and capacity to love. But fundamentalism of any kind is not good, be it Christian or Muslim.

There are probably too many swear words and too much sex (not that there is a lot of sex) in my novel for it to be considered religious.

I would never write a novel in which I bash Christianity. That is ridiculous. It is a major religion in this world, and frankly I have no right to judge it or any other system of believe. However, as I stated above, fundamentalism in any religion is dangerous and ugly, and I wanted to expose that.

When I pray, I pray to the Christian God. I was raised in a Christian home and even attended Christian school through tenth grade. I have a strong background in Christianity, which gives me every "right" to write about it. But Christianity is only a theme in STEAL THE NORTH. I explore it through my characters--just as I do Native American spirituality. My intention was never to win readers over to Christ, which I believe is a goal of most Christian novels.(less)

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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Heather Brittain Bergstrom Well, just like for a reader, there is escape from this world and entrance into another. Escape is awesome, but it can also become problematic for a w…moreWell, just like for a reader, there is escape from this world and entrance into another. Escape is awesome, but it can also become problematic for a writer when the doorway back into the real world starts to shrink or the handle evades your grasp. Being a writer is kind of like being an actor--and who hasn't wanted to be an actor at some point in his or her life? I guess the best thing about being a writer for me is character: first finding it (in strangers, in myself, in shades of people I know or remember), then exploring it, developing it, and then following it. When a character takes over and I begin to follow the character instead of pushing, moving, shuffling, hesitating--that transition is absolutely magical. I can hardly stand being away from the keyboard at this point. I become audience of my own work. Actually, I am actor, director, and audience. It's pretty surreal. For me, this letting go of character (and of self) can also be painful, involving loss, sorrow, and even frustration and angry when a character of my creation makes a decision I wouldn't have made for him or her. But ultimately it is a sort of rush of creativity, time, and truth.(less)

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Heather Brittain Bergstrom’s books

Average rating: 3.92 · 465 ratings · 111 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

Steal the North

3.92 avg rating — 465 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions

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Quotes by Heather Brittain Bergstrom (?)

“It was all too much. I went to bed for three days, sick like an Austen or a Bronte character who'd foolishly wandered the moors in a storm, with a strong will but weak ankles. Only the moors were my mom's past, and I couldn't find my way.”
― Heather Brittain Bergstrom, Steal the North

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“But the truth was--though I wouldn't realize this until later--I had felt summoned: by my aunt and her prayers; by the lake in which my grandmother had bobbed in pain; by my dad's conscience, or lack thereof, and his hills; by the wind; by a neighbor boy who would tell me only the second time I ever talked to him that the color of my eyes (a drab gray, I'd always thought) reminded him of the sky up north on the reservation, right before nightfall, when Sasquatch warned hunters to get out of the woods and coyotes roamed along the roads and fences white men built over ancient paths.”
― Heather Brittain Bergstrom, Steal the North

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“I watch Emmy. I watch the cowboys at the bar who turn to watch Emmy. My dad suddenly joins them. I should tell Mom, but I don't. He's watching Emmy, but not in a lusty way. There's almost a protective look on his face. I'm not sure I've ever loved him more. He gets up and two-steps for a minute to the honky-tonk music. I try not to grin. Then he does a few native dance moves to a far older rhythm--a rhythm he's always heard better than I can. "Listen," the elders say. To the the earth, they mean, to the fish, to the wind, to the silence of rocks, to your fathers. But what if your father is a drunk? Your uncles? My dad stops dancing. He gives me the same warning gesture he did on Teresa's couch. "Listen," he's insisting. He was never pushy with me while he was alive. Then he disappears.”
― Heather Brittain Bergstrom, Steal the North

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Heather’s Quotes

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

776 likes

“For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.”
― James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

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“ ‘Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are’ is true enough, but I’d know you better if you told me what you reread.”
― François Mauriac

tags: re-read, read, reread, true, who

112 likes

“Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it."

[Thoughts from Places: The Tour, Nerdfighteria Wiki, January 17, 2012]”
― John Green

tags: alone, creative-process, eye-contact, introverts, profession, story, storytelling, writing

1256 likes

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

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