Waubgeshig Rice Books In Order

Publication Order of Moon of the.. Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Waubgeshig Rice
Waubgeshig Rice is a journalist and an author originally from Wasauksing First Nation. He is married to Sarah G Rice and they have two children, and he is a Maple Leafs fan.

He got his first taste of journalism in the year 1996 as an exchange student in Germany, penning articles about being an Anishinaabe teenager in a foreign country for newspapers back in Canada.

In the year 2002, he graduated from Ryerson University’s journalism program. Waub then worked in a variety of news media outlets since then, working as a freelance journalist for The Weather Network and CHRZ-FM, which is Wasauksing’s community radio station. Then he joined CBC’s local news bureau in Winnipeg in the year 2006 and then transferring to Ottawa in the year 2010.

With the CBC, he was a contributor to the television and radio documentary series ReVision Quest and 8th Fire. In the year 2018, he became the new host of Up North, CBC Radio One’s local afternoon program on CBC Northern Ontario. He’s been heard on the national CBC Radio network, guest hosting Unreserved. In the year 2020, he left CBC in order to focus on his writing.

The best part of being a writer for Waub, is dreaming up stories and then finding the words to best express them. It is a rewarding creative challenge each day.

If he gets writers’ block, he will usually get up and go for a walk. Physical activity and fresh air always kicks his brain into another gear. Otherwise, he just goes to the gym, or do some chores around the house. Detaching himself from the computer for a bit helps quite a bit.

Even though he worked as a broadcaster and journalist, it wasn’t until 2010 that he turned his attention to literary ambitions.

The novel that eventually became “Moon of the Crusted Snow” really began taking shape about ten years before its release. Waub’s always enjoyed post apocalyptic or dystopian fiction, but it wasn’t until he read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” that he really wanted to explore writing a novel of his own in this genre. He enjoyed the novel quite a bit, but it left him wishing there were more stories like it from the perspective of an Indigenous person.

Waub figured that since Indigenous nations have endured an apocalypse already and largely exist in a relative dystopia, a book centered around the end of the world that’s centered around an Indigenous community would help reflect a different spirit. This was an idea that he had kicked around for quite some time, before he actually sat down to write it.

“Moon of the Crusted Snow” was nominated for a John W Campbell Memorial Award Best Novel in 2019. In 2014, he was awarded the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. “Midnight Sweatlodge” won an Independent Publishers Book Award in the year 2012, and was inspired by his experiences growing up in a Anishinaabe community.

Waubgeshig’s debut novel, called “Legacy”, was released in the year 2014. His work is from the thriller, indigenous, and fiction genres.

“Midnight Sweatlodge” is the first short story collection and was released in the year 2011. This collection tells the story of friends, family members, and strangers that gather together to partake in an ancient healing ceremony. Each person seeks insight and wisdom to overcome their hardship and pain.

It is through their stories that we get glimpses into each of their lives that are both true and tearful. Capturing the unique challenges of modern Indigenous life and the raw emotion, this book offers readers an unflinchingly genuine and realistic glimpse of the struggles that the First Nations people face.

“Legacy” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2014. During the winter of 1989, Eva Gibson is a university student that lives in downtown Toronto. She is homesick and is anxious to finish up her education and go back home to serve her Anishinaabe community. Then a tragedy strikes and it becomes the legacy of the Gibson family.

Eva’s brothers and sister, back on the rez, are struggling to cope with their losses and how they can redefine “their legacy”. Some turn to vice, while others turn to ceremony. The whole time, they contend with a creeping sentiment of revenge.

Rice places himself right at the forefront of the next wave of Native writers, with this envisioned and bold piece of storytelling. This was an absolute pleasure to read, despite being a heart wrenching story about this family that is affected by loss and tragedy.

“Moon of the Crusted Snow” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2018. A daring post-apocalyptic novel coming from a powerful rising literary voice.

With winter coming, a tiny northern Anishinaabe community just goes dark. Having been cut off, the people become confused and passive. Panic starts to build while the food supply starts to dwindle. While the band council and a group of community members struggle in their efforts to keep order, there’s an unexpected visitor that shows up, escaping from the crumbling society to the south. Shortly after, some other people follow.

The community leadership loses its grip while the visitors manipulate the hungry and tired so they can gain control of the reserves. Tensions start to rise and, while months start to go by, so does the death toll because of despair and sickness.

A group of young friends and their families that are frustrated by the increasing chaos, turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in the hopes of helping out their community thrive once more. Guided through this chaos by one unlikely leader called Evan Whitesky, they work on restoring order as they wrestle with one grave choice.

Rice delivers a haunting, powerful, ominous, and slow novel. It’s an intimate piece of fiction that provides an honest and well balanced accounting of what life’s like on an Indigenous reservation. The story offers little explanation of the bigger situation and chose to tell this story from one narrow and specific point of view.