Jessica Johns' debut novel Bad Cree was inspired by her desire to disprove the idea, suggested by an instructor of hers, that dreams make for boring stories. If this dismissive view is one that tends to inhabit the mainstream Western perspective, as opposed to that of Cree culture (and many others), in which dreams hold special significance, maybe this is because dreams in the dominant literary tradition are expected to serve as anecdotes, symbols or devices, rather than to exist as valid and valuable entities in themselves.

In Bad Cree, dreams are not just engaging but also essential. From the beginning of the story, it is clear that the main character, a young woman named MacKenzie, has experienced a nightmare that is not meant to simply be read as a projection of her conscious reality. Lying in bed, she clutches an object she has brought back to the waking world: a bloody crow's ...