Mailhot began writing her memoir while she was institutionalized in a mental institution. Heart Berries is a New York Times bestseller. In March 2018, actress Emma Watson chose Mailhot's book as one of the monthly selections for her book club on Goodreads. The book received overwhelmingly positive reviews in both popular and specialist sources. The title Heart Berries comes from a story about the healer O'dimin, the Heart Berry Boy, that an Ojibwe friend who is a language teacher told her. She uses the term "Indian sick" to describe the idea of cleansing the heart and mind in a spiritual process, which is how her community often processes these experiences. Mailhot has said she sees her journey as being one that reflects intergenerational trauma and genocide. Heart Berries deals with sexual abuse, trauma, violence, substance abuse, going hungry, being poor, and neglect. In 2018, Mailhot released her debut book, Heart Berries: A Memoir. Mailhot is also a professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts. In 2017, Mailhot became a post-doctoral fellow at the English Department at Purdue University, where she works with the Native American Educational and Cultural Center. She taught English and composition at Dona Ana Community College in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Mailhot was a columnist at Indian Country Today and was Saturday Editor at The Rumpus. In 2016, Mailhot received an MFA in fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Mailhot graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from New Mexico State University.
Mailhot got her GED and attended community college. Her maternal grandmother, who she was close to, was raised in the brutal Canadian Indian residential school system. Mailhot's background is Nlaka'pamux, part of the indigenous First Nations people of the Interior Salish language group in southern British Columbia.
She was in foster care periodically and eventually aged out of the system. The role of Wahzinak was portrayed by Sara Ramirez in the musical. Mailhot's mother had a letter-writing relationship with Salvador Agron, and shared the correspondence with musician Paul Simon, who used them for his Broadway musical, The Capeman. Her father had been incarcerated and was an alcoholic who molested Mailhot when she was young, and was often violent. Her mother, Wahzinak, was a healer, social worker, poet, and radical activist, and her father, Ken Mailhot, was an artist. Mailhot grew up in Seabird Island, British Columbia, on the Seabird Island First Nation reservation. Terese Marie Mailhot (born 15 June 1983) is a First Nation Canadian writer, journalist, memoirist, and teacher. First Nation Canadian writer, journalist, memoirist, and teacher
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