A conversation with the Publisher of McClelland & Stewart, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada.
In this episode of Ampersand, our CEO and host Caitlin Kealey sits down with Stephanie Sinclair, the publisher of McClelland & Stewart, to discuss the role of publishing and storytelling in advancing truth and reconciliation.
Stephanie shares her personal journey of understanding her own mixed heritage — Cree and Ojibwe on her father's side, and German Jewish on her mother's — and how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) helped her reckon with her own inheritance. The conversation explores how the publishing industry has responded to the Calls to Action, the growing roster of Indigenous writers being published in Canada, and the significant work still needed to bring Indigenous voices into publishing offices, classrooms, and communities. Stephanie also reflects on the challenge of denialism, the power of storytelling as a path to healing, and her vision for what the next 10 years of reconciliation could look like.
This season of Ampersand is dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the TRC and explores its lasting impacts. Through conversations with Survivors, scholars, and advocates, this season reflects on the progress made since the TRC’s final report and Calls to Action, while also addressing the challenges that remain.
Watch the interview on Youtube.
This podcast is a project of Emdash, an agency that builds campaigns and brands for social change.
Ampersand S03 - Stephanie Sinclair - Reconciliation Through Publishing and Storytelling
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email media@emdashagency.ca with any questions.
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Caitlin: Welcome to Ampersand, the podcast helping good people be heard and comms people be better.
Thanks for joining us today. I think that folks will notice you are in a moving car, but we do what we can when we have busy schedules. The icebreaker question that we like to use is about sharing a memory, from your first computer or your early days on the internet.
Do you have something you might wanna share?
Stephanie: Oh, boy. I think... What's a really embarrassing one? Probably, downloading Dave Matthews live shows and then burning them onto CDs, and, copying those CDs into, pretty hand-labeled, things for boys I had crushes on, you know, that had, sad love songs.
Yeah, I feel like that's embarrassing enough.
Caitlin: That's very appropriate.
Stephanie: That was a thing, late '90s. Yeah.
Caitlin: That's very appropriate... and definitely shows that we are similarly aged. Yeah. I also did cassette tapes for a little while, when you would record them off the radio.
Stephanie: Oh, yeah.
Caitlin: That's when I did that, yeah.
Stephanie: That was the best.
Caitlin: Yep. I know. It’s super fun, and my kids look at me like I have 17 heads when I talk about the good old days.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Caitlin: Changing speeds a bit, can you share your experiences a bit with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and what that's meant for you in your work?
Stephanie: Yeah. I think for me, I am German Jewish on my mom's side and Cree and Ojibwe on my dad's. I grew up in Toronto and have not had a lot of community, and certainly have not had any access to ceremony. And it was really through the TRC that I began to understand my own inheritance through a more complex lens.
Up until then it had been, like, internalized, discomfort with my grandfather and not knowing how to navigate that relationship, and finding discomfort, too, in my dad's silence, like his inability to talk about his own childhood and his own relationship with his own Indigeneity.
And then it was really during the TRC, and I think Connie Walker's reporting definitely shaped some of how I was hearing that news, because I think she was really the first mainstream reporter that I was exposed to who was no longer reporting through a colonized or a racist lens.
And so it really opened my eyes to understand my own inheritance too. And motivated me to, personally take more responsibility for the choices I was making and the choices I wanted to make in my own future.
Caitlin: That's really interesting. You and I have never talked about this, so I'm really fascinated to hear about your side of these things, right? Obviously in your view, publishing has a big role to play in this, but I'm wondering if you can speak a bit to the legacy of the TRC and how that might have influenced the publishing industry.
Stephanie: Yeah, I think that publishing is one of the sectors that I think has really taken some of the calls to action quite seriously, and has really put significant resources behind attempting to decolonize and Indigenize its spaces.
Some with greater success than others. You can measure the difference between Indigenous representation on the West Coast versus in the East. We now have a significant roster of incredibly talented Indigenous writers getting published in Canada, and some in the US, but it's not as significant as it is in Canada, which wouldn't have happened 15 years ago.
When I was first entering the industry, even, looking for Indigenous writers who wanted to be published was proving to be hard, and now it feels like there's, this incredible long list of people who are getting published really successfully. And I think the challenge now is finding more Indigenous representation in the industry itself, Indigenous editors, Indigenous publishers, Indigenous designers, people who can help to broaden the perspective in those spaces as well.
Caitlin: Yeah, and I know you're too humble to say you're playing a role in that, but obviously you and your publisher are doing a lot around this work. It's encouraging to hear that things are changing. But, when we look at how many calls to actions are not yet complete, it's always nice to hear something positive 'cause a lot of the podcasts we've done so far are around the lack of progress.
What role do you think media and journalism and publishing play in this? Because, you have a public face.
Stephanie: I think the media and journalism need to do a lot more. Publishing books is one part of it, but the reality is there's very little space in the media for books.
So even though we are trying to publish different stories and different lived experiences and even different languages, if we're not getting media attention on those books, it's really hard to get the visibility that we need. So I think that there's a few different missed media opportunities.
One is for the swell of Indigenous narratives happening, the swell of Indigenous talent, and then also for, what isn't happening. and the responsibility that we all have to take in terms of trying to make sure that we do something about that. And that, I'm waiting for that coverage, And I'm hoping that there's some attention drawn to that this year in terms of accountability for what hasn't yet happened with those calls to action. My dad actually runs this organization called Indigenous Watchdog that is just that. It is a task list of holding the government accountable to the call to action and a constant report in time, in real time about what's happening or isn't happening, to make sure that there is progress being made.
Caitlin: Neat. Just within government or all of the calls?
Stephanie: All of the calls.
Caitlin: Okay. Cool. We'll have to look that up. You mentioned storytelling, and obviously Indigenous storytelling has a role to play. Do you wanna touch a bit on how and why?
Stephanie: Yeah. I think that there's my personal answer, and then there's my professional answer.
Personally, I think it's I never saw myself reflected in books, in any way. My inheritance is complicated. I'm obviously Indigenous on my dad's side and German Jewish on my mom's, and I saw a lot of our, Jewish inheritance, Holocaust stories.
Like it was taught, it was discussed, it was acknowledged. and on my dad's side, I think and really believe, that a part of why my grandfather wasn't able to heal, a part of why it took my father well into his 60s to heal, is because that reality, the truth of the history that people have had to live here in Canada, has not been a part of the public discourse until quite recently.
Now that the truth of people's experiences, which have been told through testimony and through storytelling, that is in itself a form of healing. And in that healing, then there is space for reconciliation, but that can't happen without truth. And storytelling I think is essential to providing that truth, and there's many different entry points to it. And that's where I think that books and traditional publishing actually have a significant responsibility to play because it can be, it can be through a novel. It's not just straight non-fiction that interrogates the different realities of our time and rewrites Canadian history.
I think that's important too, but then for people who need a softer entry point, falling in love with a character and understanding their lived experience is still an education, and it's still one to understand and come to terms with true Canadian history
Caitlin: Interesting.
Stephanie: So I guess I merged my personal and professional answers.
Caitlin: I was gonna say- Which one was personal and which was professional?
Stephanie: Yeah. So on the professional side, I can take it a step further, 'cause it does feel like I take the responsibility of publishing Indigenous storytellers very seriously, and it's not just a question of buying a book and then publishing it, or editing a book and then publishing it.
It's, you've gotta edit these stories differently. You've gotta publish them differently. You've gotta ask hard questions and advocate in spaces that are not built to accommodate Indigenous voices. so I do feel like a lot of my energy goes into that, and will continue to for the duration of my career.
And I think that there'll be small inches of progress, but I think it'll take a while before we actually see these things embedded in our systems
Caitlin: Yeah, and I think you can see a shift in the last 10 years, but obviously that's only a minute amount of time.
One of the things that we've talked about a lot, and I think is concerning, is around the rise of denialism and disinformation around residential schools. Do you think publishing and storytelling can push back against that? Is there a role that the publishing industry could play in that?
Stephanie: I think it is to a certain extent.
There have been a couple of books published in the last year that really directly try to address denialism. The challenge is I don't think that the people who are actively denialists are ever gonna read those books. I think that they are staying within their own echo chambers and they're not willing to step outside of it to attempt to learn.
But, and if they had, then they would see quite clearly that there's no wiggle room around this truth. So I think that we can advocate for those stories, and we can try to put them in spaces where they might be exposed to the people who are more likely to, not advocate or to be explicit denialists.
I just don't know that we're able to permeate it. And that's, I think, generally my deepest worry is that now we are so divided in terms of our culture that we're all operating within our own echo chambers, unable to hear what the discourse is on the other side.
Caitlin: Yeah. I share that deep concern as well.
Rage farming is a term I saw recently and I'm just like, that's totally what's happening and I hate it, but I don't also know how to push back against it in a constructive way because the internet, while it also gives us all sorts of good things, has also allowed, this division to happen.
Is there a call to action from the TRC that needs more attention in the publishing world? Is there something you wish other folks would be focusing on as well as you?
Stephanie: I'm always focused on education. I think that's also where, from my professional post and from within my own professional capacity, I have the most influence.
And I try to stay focused, to manage my own, personal anxiety about where I can move the needle a little bit, because otherwise it's, you know- overwhelming. But in terms of education, publishing historically has played a really significant role in shaping the conversations that are happening in the classroom.
And now I'm really working very hard to try to rebuild that network, so that we can make sure that Indigenous texts are being taught not just in the Indigenous mandated classes, but across the board. and that comes down to many different choices, like including the new classic series that I'm starting from Othello and then Stuart, which is, half Indigenous, half non-Indigenous. Titles that were traditionally neglected,or published at a time or into a space that didn't, give them the honour of the timeless, excellent work that they are. And certainly haven't been published with the framing that would help teachers understand how to teach them. And so I'm really, working very hard in that space in particular because I think that if we can shape children's understanding of what it means to be Indigenous in this country and what Indigenous history means in this country, then they're more likely to grow up and be more active and compassionate to what the Indigenous reality currently is, and to push back against some of the more pervasive problems that we're seeing.
Caitlin: Yeah. As we know, Murray always said education got us into this mess and it will get us out. Yeah. and I can see the shift even with my own kids who are in elementary and, grade, middle school. They're learning it now. They didn't when I first started in their world.
I'm the stepmom and that wasn't in the curriculum 10 years ago, and now it is. It's gonna be a slow burn to get it into everywhere for everyone, but, they go to a French Catholic school and they are learning about First Nations and Inuit and Métis in a fairly respectful way. It probably could be better, but-
Stephanie: Yep. That's where we come in, Yeah. Hopefully we can help provide the resources and the books that will make them even more respectful. Yeah.
Caitlin: Yeah. Can the publishing, publishing industry support and uplift Indigenous voices more effectively?
Do you think there are specific ways that it could be improved?
Stephanie: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that there's a lot of publishing of Indigenous stories right now, but I don't know that a lot of those stories are reaching the communities they're in fact written for. So we haven't yet built the infrastructure to do that, so that's a major thing.
And then the academic network is another major thing. and, finding spaces to lead conversations and discourse just by a lack of traditional media that is now no longer focused on books are the three things that weigh on me.
Caitlin: Yeah. My kids have Kindles and are continuing to read, but they're reading less and they definitely go on their phones a lot more, so finding different formats and ways to get it in front of them is obviously key.
We're 10 years out from the TRC. Where do you hope we will be in another 10? If we were to talk in 10 years, what's changed?
Stephanie: Indigenous representation in the classroom and more Indigenous representation in publishing offices. Right now it feels like the way that, some of the stats around, the number of Indigenous people who are incarcerated, the number of Indigenous kids in foster care is astronomical relative to our percentage of the population.
And it's also flat-lined relative to our contributions to the population in terms of jobs, and opportunities within the industry. trying to think about how we can reduce barriers to entry. There's no reason why publishing should be operating behind an opaque curtain.
It's interesting, but it's not mysterious or magical. So to try to be more actively involved in recruiting new talent, I think that's possible in the next 10 years. I think infiltrating the classroom is possible in the next 10 years.
And, the geographic challenges, now that audio is such a successful form, I think that we can also do more in that space to make sure that communities that are hard to reach have access.
Caitlin: Oh, I like that idea. I haven't thought that through, and you're right. the podcast format, audiobooks, things like that.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I think that there's too many people entering these conversations thinking that it's an us versus them, or feeling some sort of shame and embarrassment or feeling too afraid to ask questions.
And, in my mind, all I can really say is I'm still asking a ton of questions. I'm still learning a ton. I think to be engaged is to be contributing and to be helpful in terms of helping all of us find a path forward together. And so I just, I hope that more of us can be brave, be brave to make mistakes, be brave to not sound like you know what you're doing.
I don't know what I'm doing, and we can chart along that path together.
Caitlin: I love that. Yeah. Reconciliation requires all of us, and one of the things that I have learned through this work is that you will make mistakes, but that's okay.
And you just try your best, learn and be humble. and sometimes that's hard to do, but you've got to, so it's gonna be a long walk that we have to take together.
Stephanie: Yeah. Exactly. And we can be kind to one another while we're doing that, And that it's not, there's no us versus them, that we all live here.
And especially right now, like while things are precarious, that we need to work together. like we just need to find a way to learn to try to begin to build trust.
Caitlin: That's it for this week's episode of Ampersand. Thanks for joining us. For more comms and design tips, sign up for our newsletter at emdashagency.ca and follow us on your favorite podcasting app so that you don't miss our next episode. Ampersand is hosted by me, Caitlin Kealey, and it's produced by Elio Peterson.
This podcast is a project of Emdash, the small agency focused on big impact, helping progressives be heard.