Shelagh Rogers
Shelagh Rogers, host of CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter, has been a long-time champion of Indigenous writing in this country. Her long-time friend—a brother in spirit—is the late Richard Wagamese, an award-winning Ojibway writer from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario. Wagamese is perhaps best known for his novel Indian Horse, a Canada Reads finalist and winner of the inaugural Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature, recently released as a feature film. Wagamese, who was honoured with the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media and Communications, was only 61 when he died last year. Starlight (McClelland & Stewart) is his final work of fiction.