Mi’kmaw-settler author Amanda Peter’s first book, The Berry Pickers (Harper 2024) was a critically acclaimed bestseller in Canada, and was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and was a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Her second book, Waiting for the Long Night Moon (Harper 2024), is a short story collection comprised of 17 short stories spanning the Indigenous experience from first contact with European settlers to residential schools and the current realties of fighting for clean water.
For Peters, the moon has always been her guide.
“I have a deep respect and affinity for the moon. I didn’t intend to write a ‘fictional history’ but it came out that way,” she says. “These stories were written over a few years so they were inspired by so many different events and discussions and random things. The story ‘3 Billion Heartbeats’ came to me when I was flipping through an old physics text book.”
The moon plays a central role in the short story collection. From the title of the book Waiting for the Long Night Moon to the various moon phases like “The winter moons start soon,” in the title short story, “the sliver of the moon,” in “The Birthing Tree,” “He could wander these woods on the darkest night, without even the moon,” in “The Virgin and the Bear.” Peters continues to be fixated by the moon.
“I could look at it forever and it’s one of those things that every human can relate to. We all look at the same moon,” says Peters. “Short story writing is very different. There has to be an entire story in such a condensed space. You can’t leave your reader wondering what’s going on by leaving something out.”
Many of the short stories like “Tiny Birds and Terrorists,” deal with grief, but also how it informs joy and can be a pathway forward. Everyone has different ways of dealing with grief and some are explored in Waiting for the Long Night’s Moon. “Yet sometimes, people simply don’t want to deal with it, it can be something too hard to face alone,” she says.
“I think a lot of the characters in this collection have someone to help them, whether it be a grandfather, a Bear, a deer, nature itself. Nature has such an ability to heal.”
Much like spending time in nature, writing is another pathway to healing. Peters holds a certificate in creative writing from the University, and is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Theatre at Acadia University and lives and writes in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia.
Currently, she is working on a new novel. She has a few drafts done, but there is still much more work to be done. For now, she’s trusting in the creative process.
“I am not someone who can write in short bursts. I need hours to sit and think and write. I like to take my coffee first thing in the morning and sit down at my desk and write for as long as the inspiration is there,” she says. “Sometimes that’s 3 hours and sometimes it’s 12. Just depends. I can edit in short bursts so I can sit down for 30 minutes at a time and edit.”
Peters believes all stories told by Indigenous storytellers are an act of resistance. For so long the stories have been told by other but now we are taking back story.
“I think there are many other Indigenous writers who do it much better than me but each time we tell or write or sing our stories we are reminding the world that we are still here,” says Peters. “And we are not going anywhere. I think that is what I was thinking when I wrote “A Strong Seed” to finish the collection.
“We are strong and we will continue to be.”
Peters’ Waiting for the Long Night Moon (Harper 2024) publication date was August 13, 2024 when the moon was in its waning crescent phase.
