Stories of Resilience

Waubgeshig Rice & Kai Thomas
Adrian Harewood, host

Waubgeshig Rice and Kai Thomas, in conversation with Adrian Harewood, explore themes of identity, resilience, hope and renewal. Their vivid storytelling and rich cultural insights capture the beauty of cultures often overlooked, and offer universal messages of courage through strength in one’s roots, and kinship with community and the land.

Moon of the Turning Leaves, the hotly anticipated sequel to Waub Rice’s bestseller Moon of the Crusted Snow, is a beautifully crafted novel that immerses readers in the rich cultural tapestry of an Indigenous community as it faces challenges of survival.

A decade has passed since a mysterious cataclysm thrust the world into anarchy, forcing the community to live off the land isolated from the outside world. Rekindling their Anishinaabe traditions they become stronger, but resources are dwindling and elders warn they must move on.

With its lyrical prose and deeply evocative imagery, Waub Rice captures the essence of a people, their communal bonds, and their connection to the land.

Set in the Black communities of Ontario that were the last stops along the Underground Railroad, Kai Thomas’ remarkable debut In the Upper Country follows the fate of two unforgettable women—one beginning her journey of reckoning and self-discovery, the other completing her life’s last vital act.

After a slave hunter is shot dead and the shooter is discovered, a barter is struck: a story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of tales that reveal the interwoven history of Canada and U.S., the Black men and women brought to Canada into slavery, and their free descendants on both sides of the border.

Kai Thomas immerses us in a compelling landscape where, despite an honest depiction of the effects and consequences of enslavement of Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada, hope remains palpable.

Photo by James Hodgins

Waubgeshig Rice

Waubgeshig Rice grew up in Wasauksing First Nation on the shores of Georgian Bay, in the southeast of Robinson-Huron Treaty territory. He’s a writer, listener, speaker, language learner, and a martial artist, holding a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is the author of the short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge and the novels Legacy, Moon of the Crusted Snow, and Moon of the Turning Leaves. He appreciates loud music and the four seasons. He lives in N’Swakamok – also known as Sudbury, Ontario – with his wife and three sons.

Photo by Tom Chandler

Kai Thomas

Kai Thomas is an author and educator. His background and body of work span from land stewardship, carpentry, and small-scale farming to historical research and scholarship.

His debut novel, In the Upper Country, was awarded the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust prize for fiction and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. The work has been featured in news outlets such as NPR, CBC, The New York Times, and the Globe and Mail.

ADRIAN HAREWOOD

ADRIAN HAREWOOD is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Carleton University. The former host of CBC Ottawa’s drive home radio show All in A Day, he was the anchor of CBC Ottawa News at Six from 2009 to 2022.

In 2020, Adrian won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Local Anchor, and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Interviewer in 2017. He has been the guest host of national CBC programs The Current, As It Happens, Sounds Like Canada, The House, Counterspin, Hot Type, and Power and Politics. He was also the host of programs on BRAVO and PBS including Literati, The Actors, The Directors, Playwrights and Screenwriters.

Adrian has interviewed Angela Davis, Salman Rushdie, Eduardo Galeano, Bill Clinton, Wayne Shorter, Bob Woodward, Deepa Mehta, Naomi Klein, Ken Dryden, Alanis Obomsawin, Joy Kogawa, David Sedaris, Steven Pinker, Lawrence Hill, Barbara Gowdy, Austin Clarke, Andrea Levy, Branford Marsalis, Margaret Macmillan, Ken Burns, David Suzuki, Esi Edugyan, Malcolm Gladwell, Chris Hedges, Femi Kuti, Tariq Ali, Niall Ferguson, John Irving, Dionne Brand, Conrad Black and Donald Trump. Adrian is a board member of Journalists for Human Rights and of the Writers’ Union of Canada.​

Stories of Resilience

Waubgeshig Rice & Kai Thomas
Adrian Harewood, host

Waubgeshig Rice and Kai Thomas, in conversation with Adrian Harewood, explore themes of identity, resilience, hope and renewal. Their vivid storytelling and rich cultural insights capture the beauty of cultures often overlooked, and offer universal messages of courage through strength in one’s roots, and kinship with community and the land.

Moon of the Turning Leaves, the hotly anticipated sequel to Waub Rice’s bestseller Moon of the Crusted Snow, is a beautifully crafted novel that immerses readers in the rich cultural tapestry of an Indigenous community as it faces challenges of survival.

A decade has passed since a mysterious cataclysm thrust the world into anarchy, forcing the community to live off the land isolated from the outside world. Rekindling their Anishinaabe traditions they become stronger, but resources are dwindling and elders warn they must move on.

With its lyrical prose and deeply evocative imagery, Waub Rice captures the essence of a people, their communal bonds, and their connection to the land.

Set in the Black communities of Ontario that were the last stops along the Underground Railroad, Kai Thomas’ remarkable debut In the Upper Country follows the fate of two unforgettable women—one beginning her journey of reckoning and self-discovery, the other completing her life’s last vital act.

After a slave hunter is shot dead and the shooter is discovered, a barter is struck: a story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of tales that reveal the interwoven history of Canada and U.S., the Black men and women brought to Canada into slavery, and their free descendants on both sides of the border.

Kai Thomas immerses us in a compelling landscape where, despite an honest depiction of the effects and consequences of enslavement of Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada, hope remains palpable.

Photo by James Hodgins

Waubgeshig Rice

Waubgeshig Rice grew up in Wasauksing First Nation on the shores of Georgian Bay, in the southeast of Robinson-Huron Treaty territory. He’s a writer, listener, speaker, language learner, and a martial artist, holding a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is the author of the short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge and the novels Legacy, Moon of the Crusted Snow, and Moon of the Turning Leaves. He appreciates loud music and the four seasons. He lives in N’Swakamok – also known as Sudbury, Ontario – with his wife and three sons.

Photo by Tom Chandler

Kai Thomas

Kai Thomas is an author and educator. His background and body of work span from land stewardship, carpentry, and small-scale farming to historical research and scholarship.

His debut novel, In the Upper Country, was awarded the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust prize for fiction and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. The work has been featured in news outlets such as NPR, CBC, The New York Times, and the Globe and Mail.

ADRIAN HAREWOOD

ADRIAN HAREWOOD is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Carleton University. The former host of CBC Ottawa’s drive home radio show All in A Day, he was the anchor of CBC Ottawa News at Six from 2009 to 2022.

In 2020, Adrian won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Local Anchor, and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Interviewer in 2017. He has been the guest host of national CBC programs The Current, As It Happens, Sounds Like Canada, The House, Counterspin, Hot Type, and Power and Politics. He was also the host of programs on BRAVO and PBS including Literati, The Actors, The Directors, Playwrights and Screenwriters.

Adrian has interviewed Angela Davis, Salman Rushdie, Eduardo Galeano, Bill Clinton, Wayne Shorter, Bob Woodward, Deepa Mehta, Naomi Klein, Ken Dryden, Alanis Obomsawin, Joy Kogawa, David Sedaris, Steven Pinker, Lawrence Hill, Barbara Gowdy, Austin Clarke, Andrea Levy, Branford Marsalis, Margaret Macmillan, Ken Burns, David Suzuki, Esi Edugyan, Malcolm Gladwell, Chris Hedges, Femi Kuti, Tariq Ali, Niall Ferguson, John Irving, Dionne Brand, Conrad Black and Donald Trump. Adrian is a board member of Journalists for Human Rights and of the Writers’ Union of Canada.​