Wendigo as babysitter: keeping your kids safe

There’s always more that comes out during an interview than you can ever get into an article. You try, but sometimes those tangents don’t belong in the story you’re writing, or you have to take a third of a direct quote when you’d just like to let the person speak in his or her own voice for a paragraph or two.

When I had the opportunity to interview storyteller Jeanne Pelletier about her part in this anthology of traditional Métis stories published as a graphic novel anthology to help bring the stories to a new generation, one of the tangents was why stories of monsters are good for children.

In case you were wondering

A pack of wolves, a parliament of owls, a herd of bison… Should you need to refer to groups of paranormal things, though, what do you say? Traditionally, “coven” is used to refer to a group of witches or vampires, but someone has taken up the challenge to assign words for all groups of beasties.

This is a creative if specious list… I do love the “lunacy of werewolves.”