We are pleased to bring you an interview with Waubgeshig Rice about his recent novel Moon of the Turning Leaves, “a story of one Indigenous community’s quest for survival through a post-apocalyptic world,” available now in the US from William Morrow and Company, a Harper-Collins imprint, and in Canada from Penguin Random House.
“In the wake of societal collapse, the community of Anishinaabe found shelter living off the land for over a decade, the way their ancestors once did. But as the land around them fails and food dwindles, the time has come to venture out of their confinement to find resources and answers. Gathered by hope for help, six members of the community establish a scouting party and set off into the unknown. Their mission: to go south towards the great lakes. Along their journey they encounter many obstacles from the wilderness, but one they weren’t anticipating—other survivors.”
In addition to this interview, you can read an excerpt from the novel at the Canadian publisher’s site.
And please go buy a copy of Moon of the Turning Leaves, and/or its predecessor Moon of the Crusted Snow, from your favorite retailer. Or support your local library by requesting/checking a copy out!
For more details on the novel and its author, please read the official book blurb and author information that follow the interview. Thank you again to Waub for doing this interview!
- Although a sequel, Moon of the Turning Leaves effectively works as a standalone novel. It also has many elements that distinguish it from Moon of the Crusted Snow – it’s not just a retread of what you already explored – it’s a next, distinct step. Does this mirror in any way the process that you experienced in writing a second novel, with a new publisher, compared to the first time around?
WR (bolded in all following): I wanted the second book to be similar in heart and spirit to the first book, but different in terms of setting, timeline, and atmosphere. Putting the events of Moon of the Turning Leaves about a decade into the future beyond Moon of the Crusted Snow was an exciting prospect to be a little more speculative and move the spotlight onto the younger generation who grew up in this new era after the collapse. The overall process didn’t necessarily mirror working with a new publisher or being at a different place in my life, but my general work and personal circumstances did have an influence for sure. I left my broadcasting job in the spring of 2020 to develop and write Moon of the Turning Leaves, so it was the first time I worked as a full-time novelist. That was pretty exciting, and I definitely feel fortunate and privileged to have been able to do so. There was a lot I wanted the story to accomplish, and I felt comfortable in the time and space I had to see it all through.
- The two novels have been described as dystopian, yet to me that seems inaccurate. They are stories of a functional indigenous community that becomes invigorated and strengthened by the collapse of surrounding colonizing systems. If anything, it’s recovery, amid changing landscapes, from a dystopia that the Anishinaabeg already live in. This reminded me more of the original apocalyptic literature forms, ones that were written by the oppressed to express resilience and hope. Did you seek to approach the apocalyptic genre with any of this in mind?
I agree, and if I had my way, I wouldn’t describe the novels as dystopian or post-apocalyptic (although I accept and do use those terms occasionally myself). I like to describe them as post-urban, post-industrial, or post-state; basically anything to illustrate life after a collapse of the world we know now to highlight the opportunity to make land-based living the focus. As is commonly discussed, modern life in North America is already dystopian for Indigenous peoples: we’ve been displaced from their homelands, our traditional ways of life have been severely damaged or outright destroyed at the hands of an oppressive state, and we’re working hard to restore culture and language in the wake of a series of apocalypses. So to call stories like Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves dystopian is kind of redundant. Instead, as you mentioned, I like to focus on recovery and regeneration, and the opportunity a collapse can provide us all, no matter our background. As for the genre in general, I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated the stories that speculated an unfavourable future based on the choices of today. I wanted to tap into that, but instead I felt like I could try to illustrate a more hopeful or healthy future based on Indigenous values and practices.
- Moon of the Turning Leaves takes place approximately a decade after the events of the first novel. The citizens of this First Nations reservation have fully returned to the land, reclaiming indigenous ways of life (and worldview), embracing ancestral connections that colonization attempts to eradicate. In the novels, it took a complete breakdown in existing systems to force the people toward this in order to survive, to sacrifice comforts that they may enjoy (like pizza). In our world, do you think any meaningful degree of this could still occur without surrounding societal collapse? Do you already see it occurring in important ways in your community?
Yes, I do think a return to traditional practices and a restoration of culture and land-based living is possible without an outright collapse. Young Indigenous people especially are working hard to learn how to harvest food and medicine from the bush, develop hands-on skills like hide tanning and birchbark canoe construction, and work with elders and other speakers to revive Indigenous languages. So all of these things are happening at the grassroots, and you can see them play out on social media, which is really exciting. People are proud to be bringing these practices back, and it’s really inspiring and invigorating to witness and participate in. Unfortunately, though, a lot of these activities take time, space, and money, and not everyone can access them or get to the land because of our commitments in a capitalist world. So if anything, a collapse could provide the liberation needed to get everyone back to the land and create strong communities.
- True to history, the two novels feature some truly monstrous white antagonists, from an evil individual who takes on characteristics of a wendigo in the first novel, to organized white supremacists in Moon of the Turning Leaves. But there is also a white woman who becomes part of the Indigenous community. Do you see there being any paths to peaceful coexistence and support between the remnants of white society and the growing Indigenous communities in the world of these novels?
Absolutely, and without giving too much away, that’s hinted at in the second novel as the group travels farther south and learns of some of the peaceful coexistence that exists after the blackout. I think some of the key messaging in both books is that the land can unify us as humans as long as we show it and each other respect. Also, I’m a byproduct of that coexistence, being of mixed Anishinaabe and Canadian heritage. I was very fortunate to grow up very close with both of my parents’ families, who always showed love and respect to each other. I know that’s not always the case for everyone who’s both of Indigenous and white settler descent, but I got to see that play out in a good way since childhood. We can always learn from each other and work together to create good things, and that should be the focus of any rebuild or reconciliation.
- As a corollary question: I believe that among whites like myself, education and conversation needs to continually occur regarding the history of our treatment of (and treaties with) Indigenous people, and the state/possibilities of our present-day relationships. It’s not the job of Indigenous community to have to take part in that, or initiate it, yet your fiction does have the power to set examples or inspire whites as well. Does any of that come into play as you are writing, or does your intent focus on celebrating the positive functionality of the Indigenous communities and what more they can become (Indigenous futurism)?
One of my primary objectives in writing fiction is to humanize Indigenous people. From an Anishinaabe perspective, I want to show what our day-to-day lives are like, what our hopes and desires are as people, and how our families and communities work in healthy, functional ways. That’s the norm I’ve always seen, despite some of the harmful stereotypes I’ve been confronted with by mainstream society my entire life. So the purpose of that is to nurture and celebrate those positive nuances amongst Indigenous readers first and foremost. And next, I want to provide a glimpse into our lives for non-Indigenous people to inform them of our realities. It may seem strange to direct people to fiction in order to do that, but I’ve felt I’ve been able to contextualize that humanity more effectively as a novelist lately. And perhaps that can help foster a better and more hopeful vision of the future for us.
- The majority of Moon of the Turning Leaves involves a group traveling southward to assess the feasibility of returning to lands from whence their ancestors were forcibly removed. I was struck with the diversity among the six members of that group: their expertise, age, gender, etc. What were your reasons for composing the walking party as you did? As much as I enjoyed following Evan again in the sequel, the highlight for me was definitely his daughter Nangohns. Do you have a favorite character that you created? The walking group ends up gaining another unique member, Zhaabdiis, one of the most enigmatic and complex characters you’ve written. What went into his creation?
Evan leading the group was always the main driver of the idea for the sequel, and I wanted to set the story that far ahead into the future to include some of the younger people in the expedition, including one of his kids. I didn’t want it to be his son Maiingan though, because that father-son buddy adventure story seemed like a trope to me. So I decided to make Maiingan become a new dad right at the beginning, opening the door for Nangohns to be the central voice for the younger generation. And that really intrigued me the more I thought about it. I see young women like her leading the way in many of our communities: going hunting, making clothing, harvesting medicine, and so on. So she became my favourite character too, the more I dreamed her up.
With all six of the walking party, I wanted a mix of young and older, for the sake of sharing responsibilities and experience. The older ones like Evan, Tyler, and J.C. may have a few more skills and knowledge of the land, but the younger ones have a fresher perspective shaped almost entirely by growing up in this new era after the blackout. So from a world-building perspective, it was really empowering to see this opportunity for reclamation and regeneration through their eyes. They don’t carry the same traumas of history that the older ones do, and they’re in some ways more fearless and energized to undertake this massive endeavour.
Zhaabdiis, to me, represents the moral ambiguities of survival in a post-apocalyptic world. He becomes the connection between the sheltered world of the north – where the chaos of the blackout was somewhat contained – with the large-scale destruction of civilization in the world to the south. He’s somewhat of a liminal figure culturally and socially, and as this go-between of sorts, he becomes the interpreter of the end times for them. But can he be believed? That’s the question they constantly ask themselves, and ultimately, it’s he who has to prove his worth to establish kinship. He was definitely my second favourite character to create. He’s a paradox of sorts, and so is existence in today’s world for many Indigenous people. We have to find ways to build a future bringing forth the gifts of the past while contending with a hostile present world. I think Zhaabdiis embodies a lot of that.
- One of the wonderfully authentic details in the two novels are the moments of beautifully integrated Anishinaabemowin: both from characters who are relatively fluent, and those who may only know a few words or phrases. Moon of the Turning Leaves seems to contain more Anishinaabemowin than the first novel. That fits with the characters and future setting, but does it also reflect your own growing familiarity or confidence with the language?
Thanks a lot for noting that! I’m proud to be able to represent the language of my people in both of these books. I’m not a fluent speaker, although I hope to be someday soon. I grew up hearing Anishinaabemowin and learning a bit of it in school on the reserve. In recent years I’ve made a lot more progress in advancing my language skills, thanks mostly to taking classes from Dr. Mary Ann Corbiere, so I was definitely more confident in including more conversational and more grammatically advanced instances of Anishinaabemowin in Moon of the Turning Leaves. I wanted to show these characters on a similar journey of language restoration, so it was imperative to further my own skills during the writing process.
- How do you manage to balance between sharing aspects of Anishinaabe culture with a wide audience with respecting sacred or personal elements that might need to stay within the immediate, insider community?
That’s a crucial part of my writing process, and I consult with family and friends from the beginning to ensure I’m representing our way of life properly and respectfully. I’m always careful to not write about anything ceremonial in detail. The main reason is I’m not an elder nor a keeper of the knowledge behind some of our ceremonies, so I don’t have the authority to share the background or history of certain practices. I also believe many of these stories and teachings should remain only in the oral realm within our communities, and not written and published for wider consumption. So I’ll always be transparent about my writing intentions with people in my family and community who have certain insights or knowledge about who we are, including my dad, aunts and uncles, cousins, and peers. That extends beyond ceremonies; there are very esoteric everyday experiences that some of us share that should maybe stay just among us. So I’ll check with people about those truths too, and what my responsibilities are to our community as a writer.
- Is there any particular theme or form that you are interested in exploring more in your future writing? Have you continued writing short fiction or in journalism? Will we get a continuation of the story from these two novels?
I’d like to explore more comedic writing. I hope my next novel – which will be a total departure from these last two – is a little more humorous in the same spirit of everyday experiences of rez people. I’ve spent almost the last decade immersed in this story of collapse and rebuilding, and that has been pretty heavy at times! So I want to write something a little more light-hearted. I have an idea that I’m starting to develop, and hopefully I can get a first draft written by the summer. Otherwise I want to try something very definitively sci-fi someday. I have an idea for that I’ve planted in the back of my mind, so we’ll see how that gestates. And I won’t rule out more stories from the world of these last two books! Readers of Moon of the Crusted Snow are the main reason there’s a second book, so if the people want more, it’s my duty to try to give them something.
- Are there any works or writers of Indigenous Literature that you could recommend to genre fans, particularly any that you think have been overlooked or forgotten?
There are two great somewhat recent anthologies that I always love to recommend for readers of speculative fiction: Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Story, published by Theytus Books in 2016, and Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2020. The scope and depth of all the stories in these two collections is just so great. Each author has contributed such a compelling gift to the genre, and I hope we see lots more from all of them.
- And finally, the obligatory question: Is there anything else you’d like to let Skiffy & Fanty followers know? If you didn’t above, can you tell us anything about what you are already working on for the future?
I’m grateful for the opportunity to share! As always, I like to encourage people to support the work of Indigenous creatives, whether it’s books, music, movies, visual arts, plays, and more. We’re seeing an abundance of beautiful and necessary art coming from Indigenous communities around the world, and I’m really excited to see what’s to come. As for me, in addition to more fiction writing, I’m also going to be working harder on Anishinaabemowin fluency. I’ve been accepted into a language program at Georgian College here in Ontario starting this fall. I’m sure that’ll influence and inform my writing to come!
Official Book Blurb:
“In this gripping sequel to the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a brave scouting party of hunters and harvesters led by Evan Whitesky must venture into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit but slowly starving Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout.
“For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the infrastructural power failure that brought about governmental and societal collapse. Hunters and harvesters, they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.
“Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a dangerous mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their ancestral home, the “land where the birch trees grow by the big water” in the Great Lakes region.
“Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, a great archer and hunter, Evan begins a journey that will take him through the reserve where the Anishinaabe were once settled, the devastated city of Gibson, and a land now being reclaimed by nature. But it isn’t just the wilderness that poses a threat as they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land. And those who use violence to fulfill their needs…”
Official Author Information:
Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation.
He’s written four books, most notably the bestselling novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, published in 2018.
He graduated from the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University 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.
His new novel, Moon of the Turning Leaves, published in Canada in 2023 and 2024 in the US.
In addition to his writing endeavours, Waubgeshig is an eclectic public speaker, delivering keynote addresses and workshops, engaging in interviews, and contributing to various panels at literary festivals and conferences.
He speaks on creative writing and oral storytelling, contemporary Anishinaabe culture and matters, Indigenous representation in arts and media, and more.
He lives in Sudbury, Ontario, with his wife and three sons.
