By PJ Wilson

NORTH BAY – When Waubgeshig Rice told his young son he was to be awarded an honourary doctorate in letters from Nipissing University, his son asked him what that meant.

“I told him, ‘If your letters are feeling sick, I help them feel better’,” Rice told graduates, faculty, friends and family at Nipissing’s convocation ceremony on June 15. “I never anticipated this… It’s a massive honour.”

So unexpected was the honour, he said, that “I’m going to have to sit for a while” to let it all sink in.

It also means, Rice said, that he will “have to try to abide by this title as best I can… I am very grateful.”

Rice, a best-selling author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation, has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies. His novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller.

It was nominated for the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel, and Rice was one of five writers named by The New York Times as “some of the Indigenous novelists reshaping North American science fiction, horror, and fantasy.”

His next novel, Moon of the Turning Leaves, will be published in October.

His writings, Rice said, grew out of nearly two decades as a journalist, primarily with CBC Radio and including a stint as host of the program Up North.

“People entrusted me with their stories,” he said, and his novels are an act of love and respect for those people he encountered to “capture their experiences.”

Rice graduated from the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University – formerly Ryerson University – in 2002, and was employed by the CBC as a video journalist and program host before leaving the “Mother Corporation” in 2020 to focus on writing.

He gives all credit for the honourary degree to the people he has met and who have supported him through the years.

“It was all the support I received along the way,” he said.

The support stretches back to his paternal grandmother, Aileen Rice, a single mother who made sure all seven of her children received a post-secondary education.

“That was pretty remarkable for the time,” he said, and helped guide him on his own journey.

According to Rice, he made many meaningful connections through his broadcast career, which he calls “a great opportunity.”

But there’s only so much time, and so much a person can do, and he made the decision to pursue his love of writing.

He admits writing full time means “you have to hustle here and there,” and there is a lot of planning and preparation put into the work.

And while Moon of the Crusted Snow is set in a post-apocalyptic world, he has some advice for the young people graduating from school or post-secondary institutions.

“I was always raised to be empathetic, to see the humanity in everybody in the community,” Rice says. “My advice is to take note of the humanity in others. There is a lot of hostility in the world right now, but we must take the time to get to know each other. We must meet each other, talk to each other, and learn each other’s truths… I have been fortunate to be able to follow that, to be able to follow that ethic in my line of work. Seek the humanity in each other.”