Lev Grossman (The Bright Sword, The Magicians trilogy) and David A. Robertson (The Misewa Saga, The Reckoner Rises series) are world-building pros with mammoth imaginations. Alice Kuipers (Spark: On Writing for Kids & Young Adults) hosts the conversation between this dynamic genre-expanding duo and the direction it will take is anyone’s guess! (Though if we were the betting kind, we’d have money on the question “How the heck can these writers be so prolific?!”)
Lev Grossman (The Bright Sword, The Magicians trilogy) and David A. Robertson (The Misewa Saga, The Reckoner Rises series) are world-building pros with mammoth imaginations. Alice Kuipers (Spark: On Writing for Kids & Young Adults) hosts the conversation between this dynamic genre-expanding duo and the direction it will take is anyone’s guess! (Though if we were the betting kind, we’d have money on the question “How the heck can these writers be so prolific?!”)
Bestselling, award-winning author Alice Kuipers has published 14 books for kids and young adults, including Life on the Refrigerator Door, 40 Things I Want to Tell You, and the Polly Diamond series. Kuipers has had stories produced for the CBC and essays published in Bristol Review of Books and Easy Living magazine and has blogged for Today’s Parent and The Huffington Post. Her work has been published in 36 countries, and she works as a writing coach for The Novelry. Kuipers lives in Saskatoon with her family.
Website: alicekuipers.com
Instagram/Threads: @alicekuiperswriter
David A. Robertson is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner for On the Trapline and When We Were Alone. Other accolades include the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the Writer’s Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award, The Globe and Mail Children’s Storyteller of the Year, the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. His podcast, Kiwew, won the 2021 RTDNA Prairie Region Award for Best Podcast. An author, editor, and speaker on Indigenous issues, mental health, and freedom of expression, Robertson’s books include the novel The Theory of Crows; the memoirs All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety, and Black Water; and the middle-grade series The Misewa Saga. Robertson is founder and Editorial Director of Swift Water Books, a Tundra Book Group imprint which focuses on celebrating Story and providing a platform for Indigenous writers and illustrators to share their truths. He was honoured with a Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba in 2023 and a Doctor of Laws from both the University of Lethbridge in 2025 and Queen’s University in 2026. A member of Norway House Cree Nation, Robertson lives in Winnipeg.
Together with the Canada Council for the Arts, we are delighted to spotlight David A. Robertson’s festival appearance as part of our fall celebration of the finalists and winners of the Governor General’s Literary Awards.
Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair is Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis) and an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba. He is a regular commentator on Indigenous issues on CTV, CBC’s Power & Politics, and APTN, and his written work can be found in the pages of The Exile Edition of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama, newspapers like The Guardian, and online with CBC Books: Canada Writes. Sinclair is the co-editor of the award-winning Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water (Highwater Press, 2011) and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories (Michigan State University Press, 2013) and is the Editorial Director of The Debwe Series with Portage and Main Press. Sinclair obtained his BA in Education at the University of Winnipeg, before completing an MA in Native- and African-American literatures at the University of Oklahoma and a PhD in First Nations and American Literatures from the University of British Columbia.
Facebook: Niigaan James Sinclair
Instagram/Threads: @niigaanwewidam
Introduction by David A. Robertson
Franklin Starlight is called to visit his father, Eldon. He’s 16 years old and has had the most fleeting of relationships with the man. The rare moments they’ve shared haunt and trouble Frank, but he answers the call, a son’s duty to a father. He finds Eldon decimated after years of drinking, dying of liver failure in a small-town flophouse. Eldon asks his son to take him into the mountains, so he may be buried in the traditional Ojibway manner.
What ensues is a journey through the rugged and beautiful backcountry, and a journey into the past, as the two men push forward to Eldon’s end. From a poverty-stricken childhood to the Korean War, and later the derelict houses of mill towns, Eldon relates both the desolate moments of his life and a time of redemption and love and in doing so offers Frank a history he has never known, the father he has never had, and a connection to himself he never expected.
A novel about love, friendship, courage, and the idea that the land has within it powers of healing, Medicine Walk reveals the ultimate goodness of its characters and offers a deeply moving and redemptive conclusion. Wagamese’s writing soars and his insight and compassion are matched by his gift of communicating these to the reader.
Shelley Youngblut is the CEO & Creative Ringleader of Wordfest. She was the recipient of the 2020 Calgary Award for Community Achievement in the Arts and the 2018 Rozsa Award for Arts Leadership. She also won the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Western Magazine Awards. Youngblut was the founding editor of Calgary’s award-winning Swerve magazine and has created magazines for ESPN, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Nickelodeon, Western Living, and The Globe and Mail. A former pop-culture correspondent for ABC World News Now and Canada AM, she was also a frequent contributor to CBC Calgary’s The Eyeopener, The Homestretch, and Daybreak Alberta.
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