Alan Hollinghurst discusses his sixth novel, The Sparsholt Affair, with author Dimitri Nasrallah. The Sparsholt Affair explores the changing attitudes towards homosexuality in England through the lives of two men: David Sparsholt, a teeneager briefly attending Oxford University during WW2, and his openly gay son, Johnny Sparsholt, who comes of age in London just as homosexuality is being decriminalized. Alan Hollinghurst is the author of the novels The Swimming-Pool Library; The Folding Star; The Spell; The Line of Beauty, winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and The Stranger’s Child. He has also received the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He lives in London. Dimitri Nasrallah is the author of three novels. He was born in Lebanon in 1977, during the civil war, and lived in Kuwait, Greece, and Dubai before moving to Canada in 1988. He’s won Quebec’s McAuslan First Book Prize, the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and was nominated for CBC’s Canada Reads and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and went on to become a critical and commercial success in French. A film adaptation is currently in pre-production. He is currently translating Éric Plamondon’s 1984 Trilogy from French to English. Alan Hollinghurst appeared in conversation with Dimitri Nasrallah on March 23, 2018 at Toronto Reference Library's Appel Salon.

Saeed Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise, winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry and the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. The poetry collection was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as awards from Lambda Literary and the Publishing Triangle in 2015. Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in Lewisville, Texas. He earned a BA at Western Kentucky University and an MFA at Rutgers University-Newark. He lives in Columbus, Ohio. Tajja Isen has written for BuzzFeed, Longreads, Literary Hub and various other publications. She is a co-editor of the forthcoming essay anthology House on Fire: Dispatches from a Climate-Changed World and a contributing editor at Catapult. She has also provided voices for dozens of cartoon characters. This conversation took place on November 21, 2019 at the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram & Bluma Appel Salon.

When Abbi Jacobson announced to friends and acquaintances that she planned to drive across the country alone, she was met with lots of questions and opinions: the most common one… why? Abbi had always found comfort in solitude, and needed space to step back and hit the reset button. As she spent time in each city and town on her way to Los Angeles, she mulled over the big questions — What do I really want? What is the worst possible scenario in which I could run into my ex? How has the decision to wear my shirts tucked in been pivotal in my adulthood? Abbi Jacobson sat down with Rachel Giese to discuss this collection of anecdotes, observations and reflections–all told in the sharp, wildly funny, and relatable voice that has endeared Abbi to critics and fans alike. Abbi Jacobson is one of the series creators, executive producers, and stars of Comedy Central’s critically acclaimed hit show Broad City. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the illustrated book Carry This Book, and has also created two coloring books: Color This Book: New York City and Color This Book: San Francisco. She is the host of A Piece of Work, the Webby Award-winning podcast from the Museum of Modern Art and WNYC Studios. Rachel Giese is an award-winning journalist and the editorial director of Xtra, the world’s oldest LGBTQ2 media organization. Her book Boys: What it Means to Become a Man was named one of the Globe and Mail’s 100 favourite books of 2018. For years, her weekly column on politics, pop culture and feminism appeared in Chatelaine, where she was the editor-at-large. She is also a regular contributor to CBC Radio and the Globe and Mail. Giese has taught journalism at Ryerson University, and U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs. She lives in Toronto with her wife and son. This conversation took place on June 16, 2019 at the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram & Bluma Appel Salon.

Normal People was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won the Costa Novel Award. Sally Rooney discusses her sophomore novel, a coming-of-age story set in contemporary Ireland. An exploration of mutual fascination, friendship and love, Normal People takes us from the first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t. She is heard in conversation with bestselling and critically acclaimed author, Sheila Heti. Sally Rooney was born in the west of Ireland in 1991. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta and The London Review of Books. Winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, she is the author of Conversations with Friends. In 2019, she was named to the inaugural Time 100 Next list and she is the current editor of The Stinging Fly. Her latest novel, Normal People was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Costa Book Award, making her the youngest ever recipient of the award. Sheila Heti is the author of eight books, including the novels Motherhood, How Should a Person Be?, Ticknor, and the story collection, The Middle Stories. She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times; a list of fifteen women writers from around the world who are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her books have been translated into twenty-two languages. She has spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the New Yorker Festival, the 92nd Street Y, the Hammer Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and at universities across North America, and festivals internationally.

In February 2017, Canadian journalist Robyn Doolittle published Unfounded, her 20-month-long investigation into how police across Canada handle sexual assault allegations. Her work forced changes around the country, and prompted federal plans for better police training and oversight, including funds pledged to combating gender-based violence. In October 2017, American journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor published their New York Times investigation into sexual abuses by Harvey Weinstein, which helped start the global #MeToo movement. In 2018, Twohey and Kantor were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for this work. Here, Twohey and Doolittle sit down with Canadian journalist Garvia Bailey on what it was like to publish their investigations, and what has happened since. Robyn Doolittle is a Globe and Mail investigative journalist. Her reporting on Mayor Rob Ford for the Toronto Star made headlines around the world, won the Michener Award for public service journalism, and her number-one bestselling book on the topic, Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, earned her the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. Her Unfounded series, which investigated how police services handle sexual assault cases, was one of the most viewed and read stories in the Globe's modern history. She was named Journalist of the Year in 2017 by the Canadian Centre for Journalism. Megan Towhey is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter with The New York Times and co-author of the book SHE SAID: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite A Movement. The book takes readers behind the scenes of Twohey's and Jodi Kantor's 2017 investigation of Harvey Weinstein, which helped trigger the global reckoning on sexual misconduct. Along with a team of reporters who exposed sexual harassment and abuse across industries, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2018. Twohey has reported on Donald J. Trump, helping to reveal allegations of sexual misconduct against him, his business interests in Russia and illegal efforts to silence two women who claimed they had affairs with him. Garvia Bailey is the co-founder of the Jazzcast.ca, a scrappy, smart, community driven platform for jazz enthusiasts and those who like to dig into the stories of the colourful musicians who inhabit that world. Before founding jazzcast, Bailey was host of Good Morning, Toronto on JazzFM.91, and prior to that spent 10 years with the CBC as an arts journalist/producer, and broadcaster. While with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Bailey served as the host of a variety of radio programs, including Big City Small World and Canada Live, as a columnist for Metro Morning and as a contributor at cbcmusic.ca, CBC Television, as well as a producer on the documentary programs Global Village and Outfront.

Barry Lopez discusses Horizon, his most personal and expansive work to date. Moving through the author’s travels across six regions of the world from Western Oregon to the High Arctic; the Galapagos to the Kenyan desert; from Botany Bay to ice shelves of Antarctica. In this revelatory journey that searches for meaning and purpose in a broken world, Lopez voices concern, frustration along with humanity, hope and love, and forces readers to see the world differently. Barry Lopez is the author of two collections of essays, several story collections, Arctic Dreams, for which he received the National Book Award, Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist, and Crow and Weasel, a novella-length fable. He contributes regularly to both American and foreign journals and has traveled to more than 70 countries to conduct research. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Lannan, and National Science Foundations and has been honored by a number of institutions for his literary, humanitarian, and environmental work. Alissa York is the internationally acclaimed author of Mercy, Effigy (short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), Fauna and, most recently, The Naturalist (winner of the Canadian Authors’ Association Fiction Award). York is also the author of the short fiction collection, Any Given Power, stories from which have won the Journey Prize and the Bronwen Wallace Award. Her essays and articles have appeared in The Guardian, Brick magazine, Canadian Geographic and elsewhere.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic, Emily Nussbaum, went from graduate student to TV superfan after watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since then, Nussbaum’s criticism rejects the idea that there is a hierarchy that elevates certain types of TV (dramatic, gritty, violent) over another (joyful, funny, stylized). She embraces the idea that there are many types of beauty, complexity and nuance in a variety of artistic visions and voices. Her collection of essays, I Like to Watch, celebrates television for what it is, even as the way we consume it changes constantly. Emily Nussbaum has written for The New Yorker since 2011. She is the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for criticism and the 2014 National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. Previously, she was the TV critic and editor of the Culture Pages for New York magazine, where she created the Approval Matrix, the playful cultural charticle that closes each issue. Nussbaum has written for The New York Times, Slate and Lingua Franca. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Clive Thompson, and their two children. Rachel Giese is an award-winning journalist and the editorial director of Xtra, the world’s oldest LGBTQ2 media organization. Her book, Boys: What it Means to Become a Man, was named one of the Globe and Mail’s 100 favourite books of 2018. For years, her weekly column on politics, pop culture and feminism appeared in Chatelaine, where she was the editor-at-large. She is also a regular contributor to CBC Radio and the Globe and Mail. Giese has taught journalism at Ryerson University, and U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs. She lives in Toronto with her wife and son.

Over the last couple of years, American writer and intellectual, Susan Sontag, has been experiencing a “rediscovery,” as evidenced by Benjamin Moser’s 2019 biography of Sontag (the subject of this conversation with Sheila Heti), as well as the much talked about 2019 Met exhibition, Camp: Notes on Fashion, that took as its theme Sontag’s highly influential 1964 essay “Notes on Camp.” And as part of the podcast series, Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA, TPL released its own four-part episode of Sontag herself talking in 2001 with Evan Solomon at the International Festival of Authors (now called TIFA) to celebrate the release of her book, In America. This is the conversation that Sheila Heti references when this conversation here with Ben Moser begins and Heti exclaims that she “she was so fierce, she was so terrifying, and I've never forgotten it, all these years…” Benjamin Moser is the author of Sontag: A Life. Moser was born in Houston. He is the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book. For his work bringing Clarice Lispector to international prominence, he received Brazil’s first State Prize for Cultural Diplomacy. He has published translations from French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. A former books columnist for Harper's Magazine and The New York Times Book Review, he has also written for The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, and The New York Review of Books. Sheila Heti is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including Motherhood, How Should a Person Be? which was a New York Times Notable Book and was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker. She is co-editor of the New York Times bestseller Women in Clothes, and is the former Interviews Editor for The Believer magazine. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The London Review of Books, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, Harper's, and n+1.

A decade in the works, Penashue’s book, Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep The Land Alive, is the focus of this conversation between author and activist Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue, her daughter and sometimes interpreter, Kanani Davis, and host Jessica Lea Fleming. Beginning as a daily diary, the book is a detailed account of her daily life peppered with Innu politics, history and culture, culminating in the formation of a full-fledged activist whose view of her own power changes as she is arrested for a protest and taken off to jail with nine other activists. Moving between English and Montagnais (the Innu language), the conversation shows us that one can come to a cause that ignites our passion at any age and transform lives. Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue is a cultural and environmental activist who is well known both in her community and internationally. For many years, she and other peaceful protesters fought against low level flying and bomb testing in Innu homelands in Labrador and Newfoundland and she was arrested a number of times for her activism. Her work has been recognized by a National Aboriginal Achievement award, an honourary doctorate from Memorial University, and numerous media interviews and profiles, articles and consultations. Her first book, Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep The Land Alive (University of Manitoba Press, 2019), chronicles her experiences as a community activist in battles to preserve the culture and language of the Innu people in Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Quebec, and her work in stopping the practice of low-level flying by the military that caused enormous disruptions in these communities. Kanani Davis is the Director, Administration & Professional Services of Mamu Tshishkutamashutau Innu Education. She is is an Innu educator. Kanani was the first Innu speaking graduate from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a Bachelor of Education. She also has linguistic training in standardized Innu spelling. She has developed many Innu children’s books in Innu aimun. Equally comfortable in a tent, a classroom or a boardroom, Kanani brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and passion to all of her endeavours. She is married with four children. Jessica Lea Fleming is of Métis and Scottish ancestry from Penetanguishene, Ontario. She is an award-winning artist, published poet, producer and performer based in Hamilton. Jessica works in theatre, film and multi-disciplinary mediums as a means of exploring connection, identity, land-based knowledge and the Divine Feminine.

How much do politics play into book reviewing? What goes into assigning a critic a book review? Why should readers and the publishing industry alike listen to what critics have to say? Phillipa K. Chong takes us behind the scenes in the world of fiction reviewing, exploring the inherent subjectivity involved in the process, especially considering that seemingly anyone can be a reviewer. Deconstructing the complexities, values, cultural and personal anxieties that shape what critics do, Chong gives book-lovers an inside peek at the politics and social implications of daring to review a modern work of fiction. Phillipa K. Chong is a cultural sociologist who specializes in how we define and evaluate worth: this includes the value we assign to social objects (e.g. books, paintings, knowledge, opinions, etc) and social groups (e.g. experts, artists, minority groups, etc). Chong’s first book, Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times was published in 2020 with Princeton University Press. Chong earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. She currently works as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at McMaster University. Johanna Schneller is one of North America's leading freelance journalists specializing in entertainment features. She has profiled the most prominent actors of our time - among them, Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp, Diane Keaton, Brad Pitt, Julianne Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Bridges, Liam Neeson, Robert Downey, Jr. and Nicole Kidman. Her cover stories have appeared in a variety of major magazines, including InStyle, Premiere, Vanity Fair, Ladies Home Journal and more. She was a senior writer in the Los Angeles bureau of GQ magazine from 1990 to 1994. Currently, she writes the weekly Fame Game column for The Globe and Mail, and for two seasons, she hosted TVO's renowned film series, Saturday Night at the Movies. She lives in Toronto with her husband, the writer and broadcaster Ian Brown, and their two children.

Plants give life to Earth, but we don’t really think about them very often. We don’t know their names. We don’t know their powers as medicine. Philosophers, thinkers and writers have long neglected them and rarely acknowledge their power over our lives. Plants are everywhere and give us the very air that we breathe, but we take them for granted. So Italian academic and writer, Emanuele Coccia, argues in his fascinating book, The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture, which skirts the line between philosophy, nature writing and science. In this conversation, Coccia talks to host Adria Vasil (journalist and author of the bestselling Ecoholic series) about why we should think more about the vital ways that plants shape our lives. Emanuele Coccia is an Associate Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He received his PhD in Florence and was formerly an Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy in Freiburg, Germany. He worked on the history of European normativity and on aesthetics. His current research topics focus on the ontological status of images and their normative power, especially in fashion and advertising. Among his publications: La trasparenza delle immagini. Averroè e l’averroismo (Milan 2005, Spanish translation 2008), La vie sensible (Paris 2010, translated in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian; English translation in press) and Le bien dans les choses (Paris 2013 translated in Italian and Spanish; English and German translation in press). With Giorgio Agamben as a co-editor, he published an anthology on angels in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic contexts: Angeli. Ebraismo Cristianesimo Islam (Milan 2009). Adria Vasil is a Canadian environmental journalist. She started writing NOW Magazine's Ecoholic column in 2004 and has published three books based on her column: Ecoholic, Ecoholic Home, and Ecoholic Body. Vasil is a lecturer at the Ryerson School of Journalism, from which she herself graduated in 2003.

In her first two novels, Boston-based Crystal King has explored the unique ways that history and food both reflect and affect each other. King talks with Canadian historical novelist, Roberta Rich, about The Chef’s Secret, set in Renaissance Italy, which details the life of Bartolomeo Scappi, the legendary chef to several popes and author of one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time. King talks about, among other topics, how the few details known of Scappi’s life afforded her an opportunity as a novelist to invent and imagine. Crystal King is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at several universities including Harvard Extension School and Boston University, as well as at GrubStreet, one of the leading creative writing centers in the US. A Pushcart Prize–nominated poet and former co-editor of the online literary arts journal Plum Ruby Review, Crystal received her MA in critical and creative thinking from UMass Boston, where she developed a series of exercises and writing prompts to help fiction writers in medias res. She resides in Boston but considers Italy her next great love after her husband, Joe, and their two cats, Nero and Merlin. Roberta Rich divides her time between Vancouver and Colima, Mexico. She is a former family law lawyer. The Midwife of Venice, her #1 bestselling debut novel, has been published to acclaim in thirteen territories, including the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Spain and Brazil. Her second novel, the nationally bestselling The Harem Midwife, has published in over ten countries.

Mexican novelist, Yuri Herrera, talks to Alejandro Soifer about his work which explores the relationship between power and art. The conversation centres around two of Herrera’s most recent English translations, showing how novelists can deftly challenge the fictions of the particular societies that they are portraying. He reads from his work Transmigration of Bodies, (published in Mexico in 2013 and translated to English in 2016 by Lisa Dillman) and demonstrates how there is humour to be found even in the midst of violence and terror that challenge the very structures of power that keep a country from receding into chaos. Born in Actopan, Mexico, in 1970, Yuri Herrera studied Politics in Mexico, Creative Writing in El Paso and took his PhD in literature at Berkeley. His first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, was published to great critical acclaim in 2015 and included in many Best-of-Year lists, including The Guardian‘s Best Fiction and NBC News’s Ten Great Latino Books, going on to win the 2016 Best Translated Book Award. He is currently teaching at the Tulane University, in New Orleans. The host of this episode is Alejandro Soifer. Alejandro was born in Buenos Aires in 1983 and holds a degree in Letras (Comparative Literature) with a specialization in Argentinian and Latin American Literature and a degree in Spanish Language and Literature Teaching both granted by the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Book History and Print Culture program. His field of studies is Modern and Contemporary Hispanic Literature and Culture (1700-present) and his field of research is popular literature genres in Latin America. His current research is on contemporary noir, hardboiled and mystery Mexican literature.

Professor and scholar Vanessa R. Sasson talks with Parul Pandya about her fictionalized account of the often overlooked story of the Buddha’s wife. It is through her eyes that the reader witnesses the transformation of Siddhārtha Gautama, from pampered prince to the journey that will end in Buddhahood, all the while portraying the fabulist and magical touches that call back to the tradition of the age as well as showing the confined roles that women played “behind the scenes.” Vanessa R. Sasson is a professor of Religious Studies in the Liberal and Creative Arts and Humanities Department at Marianopolis College, Quebec. She is also a Research Fellow for the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State in South Africa, as well as Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Religious Studies of McGill University, Montreal. As a scholar, her focus is on Buddhist studies, with particular emphasis on hagiography, gender and childhoods. Vanessa’s published books include The Birth of Moses and the Buddha: A Paradigm for the Comparative Study of Religions, and the edited volumes Little Buddhas: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts and Traditions and imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion and Culture. The host of this episode is Parul Pandya. Parul has been working in non-profit in various roles through the past decade, including as a community builder, consultant, programmer and producer. She specializes in using arts for social change. After finishing managing in community granting for the largest government funder in Canada, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, she began her own consulting practice, Community Impact Non-Profit Consulting, which enables community engagement and equitable innovation. She is also a Queer South Asian freelance writer/poet, and has worked for various activist causes for over a decade. She has a deep passion for ethics and social justice, which she also teaches at Centennial College.

Who was Nede Wade Christie? Was he a violent criminal guilty of murdering a federal officer? Or a Cherokee statesman who suffered a martyr’s death for a crime he did not commit? For more than a century, journalists, pulp fiction authors, and even serious historians have produced largely fictitious accounts of “Ned” Christie’s life. Now, in a tour de force of investigative scholarship, Devon A. Mihesuah offers a far more accurate depiction of Christie and the times in which he lived. In this conversation, Mihesuah talks to playwright, Falen Johnson, placing Christie’s story within the rich context of Cherokee governance and nineteenth-century American political and social conditions. More than a biography, Ned Christie traces the making of an American myth. Devon Abbott Mihesuah is the Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor in International Cultural Understanding. She holds a Ph.D. in American History from Texas Christian University. Her career has been devoted to the empowerment and well-being of Indigenous peoples. She served as Editor of the American Indian Quarterly for nine years. Her research, writing and speaking focuses on decolonization strategies and is one of the few Indigenous writers who successfully writes non-fiction and fiction. She regularly speaks nationally and internationally about issues pertaining to empowerment of Indigenous peoples; her works are cited and reprinted in hundreds of publications and her books and essays are used in classrooms across the world. The host of this episode is Falen Johnson, Mohawk and Tuscarora from Six Nations Grand River Territory. She is bear clan. Falen is a writer, producer, director, and actor. Her plays Salt Baby, Two Indians, and Ipperwash have played in theatres across the country. Her writing appears in publications such as Granta Magazine, Brick Literary Journal. She has also been featured in The Canadian Theatre Review as well as on the Moth Storytelling podcast. Falen has earned TV writing credits for Urban Native Girl (APTN) and was a researcher on Colonization Road (Frog Girl Films). She co-hosts the podcast The Secret Life of Canada with co-creator Leah-Simone Bowen.

Australian Aboriginal writer and activist, Bruce Pascoe, presents his ground-breaking book, Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? with University of Guelph Métis scholar, Kim Anderson. Using compelling evidence from the records and diaries of early Australian explorers and colonists, Pascoe reveals that Aboriginal systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required - for the benefit of all Australians and Indigenous people around the world. Bruce Pascoe is a Bunurong, Yuin and Tasmanian man born in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. He is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria and has been the director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission. Bruce has had a varied career as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor. His book Fog a Dox won the Young Adult category of the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His book Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?, won the NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award in 2016. The host of this episode is Dr. Kim Anderson, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Relationships, whose work explores how “all our relations” are developed and maintained in urban environments. Anderson builds on decades-long work with Indigenous Friendship Centres in Canada to determine how women build community. Knowing that the position of men and masculinities is an underexplored area at the heart of Indigenous relationships, Anderson and her research team are also working with a growing network of Indigenous masculinities scholars to publish collective work, sponsor public dialogue, and set the stage for program and policy work for Indigenous men. She has published six books, including Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings and Story Medicine and Indigenous Men and Masculinities: Legacies, Identities, Regeneration.

How does a country live in peace when for generations, there has been no model for peace? How does growing up amidst violence and fear affect the way a child sees the world - and how might she come to feel about that country looking back as an adult in a wealthier country? These are questions that author Ingrid Rojas Contreras considers in her gripping debut novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree. Set in Colombia during the height of the Escobar cartel’s grip on Colombia, the novel tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two young girls growing up in a climate of political assassinations, kidnappings and car bombs. “You don’t need to have grown up in Bogotá to be taken in by Contreras’s simple but memorable prose and absorbing story line,” says The New York Times review of Contreras’s Impac-Dublin Literary Award-nominated book. Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree is an Indie Next selection, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and a New York Times editor's choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Buzzfeed, Nylon, and Guernica, among others. Rojas Contreras has received numerous awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, VONA, Hedgebrook, The Camargo Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. She is the book columnist for KQED, the Bay Area's NPR affiliate. She teaches writing at the University of San Francisco, and works with immigrant high school students as part of a San Francisco Arts Commission initiative bringing writers into public schools. She is working on a family memoir about her grandfather, a curandero from Colombia who it was said had the power to move clouds. The host of this episode is Jael Richardson, the author of The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lesson, a Father’s Life, a memoir based on her relationship with her father, CFL quarterback Chuck Ealey. The Stone Thrower was adapted into a children’s book in 2016 and was shortlisted for a Canadian picture book award. Richardson is a book columnist and guest host on CBC’s q. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and lives in Brampton, Ontario where she founded and serves as the Artistic Director for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD). Her debut novel, Gutter Child, is coming Fall 2020 with HarperCollins Canada.

Writer Will Aitken, poet and translator, Anne Carson, and AGO’s Director of Public Programming, Devyani Saltzman, talk about Aitken’s haunting 2018 genre-busting memoir, Antigone Undone, which chronicles the effects that Sophocles’ tragic and doomed character have on Aitken when he is deeply immersed in her story. Why do so many continue to find her a potent symbol of the plight of the strong woman in a misogynist society? What toll does stepping out onto the stage night after night, interpreting Antigone and her tragic fate, have on actress Juliette Binoche (who starred in a touring production of the play, translated by Carson and directed by Dutch theatre director Ivo van Hove)? And just what does collaboration mean when artists have strong feelings about how a work should be presented to modern audiences or readers today?

Three of Canada’s best-loved writers talk about their experiences as Indigenous artists competing on Canada Reads.

The Amazing Race Canada season one winner (along with his son, Tim Hague, Jr.) talks about the ways his life has been a lottery of positive outcomes, despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at age 46.