Welcome to another episode of the Willoughby Hills podcast!
On today’s episode, I welcome Indigenous author, artist, and activist Ashley Fairbanks to the podcast.
Ashley is Anishinaabekwe from the White Earth Nation. She was raised in Minnesota and now lives in Texas.
Her new children’s book This Land: The History of the Land We’re On serves as a great jumping off point for early readers, older kids, and even adults to begin to question who used to live on the land that today makes up the U.S. and Canada.
Ashley and I have a great conversation about keeping Native American experiences in the present tense, reconnecting with native lands across the world, and reframing environmental activism.
This Land is part of the Race to the Truth series of books. I’ve interviewed another author from this series on the podcast (Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn) and have written about them in the newsletter, most recently discussing the recategorizing of one of the books from non-fiction to fiction.
For more, please follow Ashley on Instagram and X.
Ashley also mentions The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions for Everyone by Dr. Heidi Roop during the episode.
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Related Episodes:
125. Author Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn on the Story of Chinese-Americans
111. Playwright Larissa FastHorse on Building Inclusive Theater
113. Journalist Rebecca Clarren on the Parallel Histories of Jews and Lakota
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134. Author and Activist Ashley Fairbanks on Indigenous Lands