Writing Speculative Fiction: A Chat With Waubgeshig Rice

In Waubgeshig Rice’s series of novels, Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves, the author sets up a world in the midst of the apocalypse and more than a decade after the end. But readers are left with the lingering question: What exactly happened?

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Editor-in-chief Amy Jones and content editor Michael Woodson sit down for a chat with the author about his journey with these stories, the speculative quality of unanswered questions, and more.

From Waubgeshig Rice:

“This book was my chance to look at how Indigenous people could reset their relationship with the land around them and maybe ultimately be liberated by this cataclysm.”

“When you come from a colonizer-displaced people, you’re already out of sight, out of mind, right? So, to be cut off from the world to the south would not be unusual for these people. They would say, OK, we’re being left behind again anyway, so let’s just do what we’re used to and focus on ourselves and our own health and our happiness and our safety and so on. And I think if you look at the history of cataclysmic events and colonization, I think self-containing is a trait of a lot of Indigenous communities to ensure that things can thrive and survive whatever the onslaught of brutality is, whether it’s natural or social or economic or whatever else.”

On time jumps: “When I was mulling over the potential storylines, the first one that comes to mind is ‘Pick it up right after the end of the first book. What happens next, right away?’ But to me, that sort of took on the same kind of tone and atmosphere and was essentially the same kind of story as the first one. It was still the immediate aftermath of the cataclysm, right? And I wanted to try something different just to show farther into the future and to be more speculative on my end—to make it more bonafide speculative fiction.”

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