'The spirit of reconciliation is the building of community;' David A. Robertson shares love for his hometown
Writer David A. Robertson answers The Next Chapter’s Proust Questionnaire
As an artist and member of the Norway House Cree Nation, David A. Robertson often combines his love of comics and community in his books.
Robertson has published more than 25 books, many for children and young people, most recently his middle-grade hockey novel, The Kodiaks. His other books include the picture books, On the Trapline and When We Were Alone, the graphic novel Breakdown and his memoir Black Water, which won two 2021 Manitoba Book Awards. Robertson is the winner of the 2021 Freedom to Read Award and a two-time winner of the Governor General's Literary Award.
He is also the editorial director of Tundra Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada where he is dedicated to publishing fellow Indigenous writers and illustrators.
Robertson stopped by The Next Chapter to answer a version of the Proust questionnaire, revealing his ideas of "perfect happiness" and his inability to stop buying comic books.
If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?
I think it would be that I would maybe manage my time better and take less on. I deal with burnout quite a bit because I take on so many book projects and I love doing it but it definitely keeps me in a constant state of traveling, writing and editing. So I probably need to know my limitations and listen to myself when I tell myself, "maybe you shouldn't do that, Dave, because you already have a lot on your plate."
What phrase do you most overuse?
I think it's like these speech tics. I do so much public speaking and I think I say "kind of" a lot. I also think I say "like" and "think" a lot. They're also hard because I think they're just moments where you get to gather and organize your thoughts and those speech tics give you that breathing room to do that… kind of.
What do you value most in your friends?
Loyalty, probably. I don't have a ton of very close friends, I have a family that I'm very close with. I find that sort of loyalty that you have for someone that you hold dear to you, that feeling that you would do anything for them, that you would stand up for them, I think that's something that I found that is present in the friends that I've made and very powerful.
On what occasions do you lie?
I mean, as a writer, I lie for a living, so I think I would say that I lie all the time. There's this great book by Harold Johnson called The Power of Story and in that book he talks about how every story that anybody tells is a lie because we have our own perspectives on the things that happen in our lives. So even if we think that something is true and it's nonfiction, because it's from our perspective, it's false for everybody else.
What is your greatest regret?
I've written a lot about my father over the last several years. My father is someone who has had a big influence on my life and when we went up to the trap line together that was something that inspired so many books that I've written since then. There was a moment we were driving up to Banff and Canmore in Alberta and my wife called to talk to my mom and my dad answered and my wife asked to speak to Bev, my mom, and dad said that he'd call her. And she came to the phone and I didn't say anything to him and he died that night. So I regret not taking that time just to say hi to him and have a last conversation with him, even if it's just for a minute. I think it just shows me that you can't ever take anything for granted and to take every chance that you can to talk to people because you never know how precious that conversation might be.
What is your favourite occupation?
Even though I love what I do and it's probably the only thing I'm really good at other than maybe Fortnite, I would say that my favourite occupation is a teacher. My dad was an educator, my mom was a teacher and I just feel like that is the most important job out there and it's also one of the hardest jobs out there.
Where would you like to live?
I think that I'd like to live where I am right now. I don't know if I'll ever move and I don't know if I'd ever want to move. Winnipeg is, I think, a really underappreciated city. I don't think you really know just how great this city is unless you live here and it's rich culturally, but I also think about the history of this city. For example, near where I live, [we have] a place called the forks and that's where two rivers meet.
The spirit of reconciliation is the building of community.- David A. Robertson
So in that intersection, it was a place where we built community. The spirit of reconciliation is the building of community and so I don't know if I would ever want to live anywhere else but Winnipeg. I guess the only thing I would say is that Norway House Creation is very close to a place where I would like to live.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I don't think there is a perfect happiness. I think that there is the pursuit of happiness and the joy that you find in your children, the joy that you find in family. I've never felt happier than being able to either share in a success with my children and my family or to see them achieve something. As a father, to see the kind of pride and joy that they have and something that they have done – to me those are perfect moments, maybe.
What is your greatest extravagance?
My greatest extravagance is comic books! I think anybody who knows me really well would say that comic books are something that I love. I mean, naturally I'm a big nerd anyway and I do like to spend a little money on collecting vintage comics or comics from when I was a kid in the 80s and the 90s.
David A. Robertson's comments have been edited for clarity and length.
