With humour, warmth and heartbreaking honesty, award-winning author David A. Robertson explores the struggles and small victories of living with chronic anxiety and depression, and shares his hard-earned wisdom in the hope of making other people’s mental health journeys a little less lonely

From the outside, David A. Robertson looks as if he has it all together—a loving family, a successful career as an author, and a platform to promote Indigenous perspectives, cultures and concerns. But what we see on the outside rarely reveals what is happening inside. Robertson lives with “little monsters”: chronic, debilitating health anxiety and panic attacks accompanied, at times, by depression. During the worst periods, he finds getting out of bed to walk down the hall an insurmountable task. During the better times, he wrestles with the compulsion to scan his body for that sure sign of a dire health crisis.

In All the Little Monsters, Robertson reveals what it’s like to live inside his mind and his body and describes the toll his mental health challenges have taken on him and his family, and how he has learned to put one foot in front of the other as well as to get back up when he stumbles. He also writes about the tools that have helped him carry on, including community, therapy, medication and the simple question he asks himself on repeat: what if everything will be okay?

In candidly sharing his personal story and showing that he can be well even if he can’t be “cured,” Robertson hopes to help others on their own mental health journeys.

DAVID A. ROBERTSON is the winner of the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award, the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and the TWUC Freedom to Read Award. His books include The Barren Grounds: The Misewa Saga; When We Were Alone (winner of the Governor General’s Award, a finalist for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and a McNally Robinson Best Book for Young People); Will I See? (winner of the Manuela Dias Book Design and Illustration Award, graphic novel category); and the YA novel Strangers (recipient of the Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction). He is the creator and host of the podcast Kiwew. Through his writings about Canada’s Indigenous peoples, Robertson educates as well as entertains, reflecting Indigenous cultures, histories and communities while illuminating many contemporary issues. David A. Robertson is a member of Norway House Cree Nation. He lives in Winnipeg.

David A. Robertson's profile page

Shelagh Rogers began her career at CKWS Radio and Television in Kingston, Ontario in country music, news and TV weather.

In the early 1980’s, she joined CBC Radio in Ottawa. She moved to Toronto in 1984. In 1986, she interviewed Peter Gzowski about his plans to raise money for literacy. Peter then invited her to read the listener mail on his program Morningside. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

For ten years, she was host of The Arts Tonight, part of the wildly popular Humline Trio on Basic Black and sidekick to the inimitable Max Ferguson. In 1995, Peter Gzowski created a new role for Shelagh: Deputy Host of Morningside. In September of 2000, Rogers began two years as host of CBC Radio's flagship current affairs program This Morning. Her morning time slot morphed into Sounds Like Canada, which is now based out of Vancouver.
Shelagh adds her voice to a number of causes including mental illness awareness, homelessness, homeless youth training. She has been a literacy volunteer for more than two decades, continuing to make real Peter’s dream of ensuring everyone in this richly blessed country has the right to literacy. In her spare time, being gifted with surplus adipose tissue, she is a passionate ocean swimmer and doesn’t feel the cold at all.

Shelagh is the author of Canada, a book of photographs by the great Winnipeg photographer Mike Grandmaison. It’s published by Key Porter. She also contributed to Nobody’s Mother, a collection of essays by and about women who haven’t had children.

Three recent honours mean a lot to Shelagh: the John Drainie Award for Significant Contribution to Canadian Broadcasting, an Honourary Doctorate from the University of Western Ontario and a Certificate for best spring-roll maker and egg cracker from Mitzi’s Sister Restaurant in Toronto. 

Shelagh Rogers' profile page

“Canadians know the creativity and brilliance of David Robertson’s writing – but with All the Little Monsters they will learn about the bravery and burden to carry talent and anxiety at the same time. Robertson's story is more than just a biography of struggle but the truth of how to struggle, empower, and break from the cycles that imprison – freedom from a world of little monsters.” — Niigaan Sinclair, author of Wînipêk

“So many of us deal with depression and anxiety, and it’s lonely. Even in better days like these, when it’s talked of so much more, it’s lonely. But David walks it with you, and the marvelous thing about his open and intimate book is you find yourself walking it with him, too. I’ve read scores of books on this, but it’s rare to feel an author confiding in you like a friend by your side.” — Seamus O’Regan