Marching to the beat of her own drum: Louise Erdrich on living, writing and bookselling.(Biography)

She's not ungracious about it, but it's obvious Louise Erdrich would rather not be sitting here, in her bookstore, answering questions. She's never--despite 20 years as a successful and prolific author--developed a taste for the self-promotion required to sell books. "Writing is a profession where you are alone most of the time," she says. "That's what I like."

Erdrich, the bestselling author of adult novels, three collections of poetry, her memoirs and four children's books--does speaking engagements and interviews sparingly. This reluctance is progress, of a sort, compared to how she felt about public appearances in the early days of her career. "I used to cry, it was very painful for me," she says. "After all, I started to write because I'm an introvert."

Her reticence is more than simple shyness: Erdrich, 51, is a fiercely private woman. The tragedies she's suffered (her adopted son Abel was killed in a car accident in 1991, and her estranged husband, the writer Michael Dorris, committed suicide six years later as charges were pending against him of molesting two of their …