Storykeepers Podcast

After three seasons, we have come to our final episode! It's a bittersweet moment, but a celebratory one nonetheless. Thank you all very much for joining us since we launched in early 2021! For our last Storykeepers show, Jennifer suggested talking to Waubgeshig a bit about his most recent and forthcoming novels, Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves. After that, we wanted to recap our three seasons and talk about some highlights. We had fun reminiscing and revisiting some of the bigger themes in Indigenous literature we were fortunate to explore. Big thanks to all our guests, the authors who wrote the amazing works we read and discussed, and of course, to you, our loyal listeners. You keep the spirit of Storykeepers alive!

This month's episode is a big one! As usual, we have a in-depth discussion about a great book, but we also have a big announcement. This will be our second-last episode! You'll hear why in the first few minutes, and we'll be back next month to continue that conversation and wrap everything up. In the meantime, please enjoy our chat about The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. It's a wonderful novel about an Indigenous-owned bookstore in Minneapolis and the vibrant and complex Indigenous community around it. Because it's our last full chat with a guest host, we wanted to come full-circle and invite Daniel Heath Justice to join us. We featured his book Why Indigenous Literatures Matter in our very first episode. Please enjoy this compelling and insightful discussion with Daniel about The Sentence!

More on The Sentence:

https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062671134/the-sentence/

More on Daniel Heath Justice:

https://danielheathjustice.com

We've got another novel for you this month! We read Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson and asked acclaimed author and storyteller Michelle Good to join us to talk about it. Published in 2021, Probably Ruby tells the story of an Indigenous woman who was adopted out as an infant on her journey to find family and identity. The novel won the 2022 Saskatchewan Book Awards Book of the Year, and was shortlist for the Governor General's Literary Award and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

More about Probably Ruby:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/669226/probably-ruby-by-lisa-bird-wilson/9780385696708

More about Michelle Good:

Michelle Good is a Cree writer and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After working for Indigenous organizations for twenty-five years, she obtained a law degree and advocated for residential school survivors for over fourteen years. Good earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia while still practising law and managing her own law firm. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada, and her poetry was included on two lists of the best Canadian poetry in 2016 and 2017. Five Little Indians, her first novel, won the HarperCollins/UBC Best New Fiction Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award, the Evergreen Award, the City of Vancouver Book of the Year Award, and Canada Reads 2022. It was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.  On October 7, 2022 Simon Fraser University granted her an Honorary Doctor of Letters. Her new work, Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous life in Canada is set for release on May 30, 2023.

This month we're putting the spotlight on books for kids by Indigenous authors, so we invited award-winning author David A. Robertson to join us. He's received several accolades for his books for kids and young adults and his literacy advocacy, and was recently appointed Editorial Director at the Tundra Book Group. In this episode David shares his journey as a writer, his creative process, his thoughts on the growing list of kids' books by Indigenous authors, and why he wants to hear from more Indigenous storytellers.

Here's a link to the Indigenous picture book resource Waubgeshig references in the episode: https://www.ibby-canada.org/indigenous-picture-book-collection/

More on David A. Robertson:

David A. Robertson (he, him, his) was the 2021 recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award as well as the Globe and Mail Children's Storyteller of the Year. He is the author of numerous books for young readers including When We Were Alone, which won the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award and the McNally Robinson Best Book for Young People Award. The Barren Grounds, Book 1 of the middle-grade The Misewa Saga series, received a starred review from Kirkus, was a Kirkus and Quill & Quire best middle-grade book of 2020, was a USBBY and Texas Lone Star selection, was shortlisted for the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award, and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award. His memoir, Black Water: Family, Legacy, and Blood Memory, was a Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire book of the year in 2020, and won the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction as well as the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award at the 2020 Manitoba Book Awards. On The Trapline, illustrated by Julie Flett, won David's second Governor General's Literary Award, won the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, and was named one of the best picture books of 2021 by the CCBC, The Horn Book, New York Public Library, Quill & Quire, and American Indians in Children's Literature. Dave is the writer and host of the podcast Kíwew (Key-Way-Oh), winner of the 2021 RTDNA Praire Region Award for Best Podcast. His first adult fiction novel, The Theory of Crows, was published in 2022 and is a national bestseller. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and currently lives in Winnipeg.

This month scholar and writer Geraldine King joins Jennifer and Waubgeshig to talk about Islands of Decolonial Love by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Originally published in 2013, the collection of short stories, poems, and songs is widely heralded in Indigenous storytelling circles. Simpson brilliantly explores the modern lives and realities of Indigenous peoples in cities and communities as they assert their rights and identities in the face of ongoing colonialism.

More on Islands of Decolonial Love:

https://arpbooks.org/product/islands-of-decolonial-love/

More on Geraldine King:

https://www.mcgill.ca/indigenous/geraldine-king

Welcome to Season 3! To kick off 2023, we decided to talk about three books by Indigenous authors that made the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize long list: All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac, A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt, and Avenue of Champions by Conor Kerr. We also discussed our plans for the new season, which will be a bit different than the first two. Big thanks for joining us on Storykeepers!

That's a wrap on Season 2! To cap off 2022, Jennifer and Waubgeshig are joined by author, poet, and professor Joshua Whitehead to talk about NISHGA by Jordan Abel. NISHGA is a powerful autobiographical exploration of Indigenous identity and self-awareness in the ongoing devastation of intergenerational trauma. This collection of reflections, poems, artwork, and more is eclectic, candid, and heartfelt, and we felt honoured and privileged to be able to read and discuss it at the end of this season.

More on NISHGA:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/610846/nishga-by-jordan-abel/9780771007903

More on Joshua Whitehead:

Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017), Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018), the editor of Love after the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (Arsenal 2020) and most recently, Making Love with the Land (Knopf Canada 2022). He currently resides in Treaty 7 territory, Calgary, where he lives and teaches. 

We are honoured this month to feature one of the integral publishing houses supporting Indigenous stories and voices for decades: Kegedonce Press. Founder Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm joins Jennifer and Waubgeshig to talk about the origins of Kegedonce Press, its books and authors, the importance of Indigenous publishers, and her own body of work as an author and poet. She also recommends some great recent Kegedonce titles to read.

For more on Kegedonce Press, visit www.kegedonce.com

We're taking a different approach to this month's episode and releasing it a day early to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. We've informally curated a list of books that focus on the residential school experience and the resilience of survivors. We encourage listeners to seek out novels, memoirs, poetry, plays, and more beyond what we've discussed in this episode, and to support survivors however possible. Miigwech/thanks for listening.

Some of the books and works discussed in Season 2 Episode 10:

Burning in this Midnight Dream by Louise Bernice Halfe
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
I Lost My Talk by Rita Joe
They Called Me Number One by Bev Sellars
Calling Down the Sky by Rosanna Deerchild
Call Me Indian by Fred Sasakamoose

Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419

More reading:

https://www.cbc.ca/books/48-books-by-indigenous-writers-to-read-to-understand-residential-schools-1.6056204

https://www.torontomu.ca/content/dam/aec/pdfs/TRC_reading_and_film_list.pdf

https://bookriot.com/indian-residential-schools-books/

Waubgeshig is back in the regular co-host chair this month after his Giller Prize jury duties to join Jennifer and poet/playwright Shalan Joudry as they feature Gregory Scofield's poetry collection Witness, I Am. The award-winning poet's 2016 book is divided into three compelling sections that deftly explore contemporary Indigenous themes, from identity to ceremony to the ongoing tragedy of missing and murdered women and girls.

More on Witness, I Am:

https://harbourpublishing.com/products/9780889713239

More on Shalan Joudry:

https://www.shalanjoudry.com/bio