Six Questions interview #108 : Waubgeshig Rice

Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies. His most recent novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. He graduated from the journalism program at the university formerly known as Ryerson in 2002, and spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist and radio host. He left CBC in 2020 to focus on his literary career. He lives in Sudbury, Ontario with his wife and two sons.

Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? What took you away?

I was in Ottawa for seven years altogether. I moved there in 2010 to work as a video journalist at CBC Ottawa, after CBC stints in Toronto and Winnipeg. I had a lot of family living in Ottawa at the time, so it seemed like a great place to relocate. I eventually met my wife there, and our first son was born at the Civic in 2016. We moved to Sudbury in 2017 to raise our kids closer to our home communities. My wife has roots in Garden River First Nation and Bruce Mines, both near Sault Ste. Marie, and I’m from Wasauksing First Nation near Parry Sound. Sudbury seemed like a good spot to settle between the two, and fortunately an opportunity came up for me at CBC Sudbury at the right time. But I’ve since left CBC to write fiction full-time.

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here? 

In elementary school on the rez one of my first teachers (who also happened to be my aunt Elaine) really encouraged me to express myself through writing. She had me enter writing contests and empowered me to use my words and stories as creative outlets. That foundation held me up all the way through high school and university, and I always wrote fiction in my spare time, even when I started working full time as a journalist. I connected with the writing community in Ottawa in a couple of different meaningful ways. My first book, Midnight Sweatlodge, was published shortly after I moved there, so I was invited to read at events like the A B Series and others through Octopus Books. I’ve also been fairly active in The Writers’ Union of Canada, so I attended some local meetings while I lived there.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to where you have lived since? 

Sharing my writing in a group setting really shifted how I approached fiction writing and how exactly I wanted to present it to the world. I think it’s essential to read your writing aloud, not just for feedback from others, but to vocalize the story that began in your head and ended up on the page. My first real experience with that process was while I lived in Winnipeg in the late 2000s. I joined what eventually came to be known as the Indigenous Writers Collective, and at regular meetings I read my work along with some tremendous storytellers, many of whom have gone on to win major national literary awards. It really empowered me to harness the oral fundamentals of Anishinaabe storytelling in literature, a practice I continue to hone today. In the communities I’ve lived since, like Ottawa and Sudbury, I’ve sought out other like-minded writers to share my writing in that way.

Q: What did you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What did Ottawa provide, or allow? 

What I loved about Ottawa was how some key people in the writing community worked hard to highlight the works of Black and Indigenous writers. I recall fondly some of the events at Octopus Books that were really revolutionary and transformative. There’s a much-needed focus today on BIPOC writers in mainstream literature, but when I was getting started as a published author in Ottawa a decade ago, there was already a strong movement underway. And I think overall, the independent literary infrastructure in Ottawa makes great space for that. Places like Octopus, Perfect Books, Chaudiere Books and more have long prioritized essential voices and provided some great opportunities.  

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How had the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work? 

I pretty much conceptualized my last novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, while walking to and from work on Bank Street for a few years. My wife and I lived on Gilmour Street in Centretown, and our apartment was about a 15 minute walk from the CBC newsroom on Queen Street. Every day on my walking commute I imagined the details of the plot, characters, and setting, and when I stopped at the lights, I’d take out my phone and write down notes. So when I reflect on that story and how it came together, I’ll always remember walking on Bank Street. It was pretty cool to read from it at the Ottawa Writers Festival when it came out in 2018, because it felt like a homecoming of sorts for the story, even though it’s set in far northern Ontario.

Q: What are you working on now?

Right now I’m working on the sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow, entitled Moon of the Turning Leaves. It’ll be published in spring 2023 through Penguin Random House Canada. My editor, Rick Meier, and I are deep into revisions, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s coming together. I hope readers of the first book enjoy it!