What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

Sheima Benembarek

My guest on this episode is Sheima Benembarek. Sheima is a journalist who’s written for The Walrus, Broadview, Maisonneuve, and the Literary Review of Canada. She has worked as special reports editor at Strategy, a senior editor for Toronto Life, an events manager for The Walrus, a business development and brand communications lead at Corporate Knights, and as an associate editor at Broadview. Currently, she is a contributing writer for The Walrus. In 2020, she was chosen as one of the five RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers of the year.
Sheima’s first book is Halal Sex: The Intimate Lives of Muslim Women in North America, published by Viking Canada in 2023. The book was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia University First Book Prize. Journalist Robyn Doolittle said about Halal Sex that it “pulls vital conversations into the open. I loved every minute I spent reading this book.”
Sheima and I talk about the why she chose to include intimate details about her own life in her book, about the reaction she had been anticipating to the book, and about her new work-in-progress, which extends the work she did in Halal Sex.
 
Sheima Benembarek: sheimabenembarek.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Scott Chantler

My guest on this episode is Scott Chantler. Scott is the creator of multiple graphic novels for both adults and young readers, including Northwest Passage, Two Generals, which was voted by CBC's Canada Reads as one of the 40 best Canadian non-fiction books of all time, the Three Thieves series (winner of the Joe Shuster Award for Best Comic for Kids), and Bix. He has been the illustrator for many other graphic novels and comic books, and has served as Cartoonist-in-Residence at the University of Windsor, the first cartoonist to be appointed to such a position by a Canadian university. Scott’s most recent book is Squire & Knight, published by First Second in 2023. Kirkus Reviews said that Squire & Knight "subverts typical fairy-tale tropes with dry humour” and says the book is “compelling and full of adventure, with a plot as clever as its main character."
Scott and I talk about bringing Three Thieves back into print after falling out with that series’s original publisher, about how the upcoming sequel to Squire & Knight might be the end of that series, unless he changes his mind—he also talks about how he’s not great at longterm career planning—and about how he want to focus on work that is darker and more adult than what he is best known for.
 
Scott Chantler: scottchantler.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact
 
 

Meaghan Strimas

My very special guest on this one-year-anniversary episode is Meaghan Strimas. Meaghan is the author of three collections of poetry, including Junkman's Daughter and A Good Time Had By All, which was shortlisted for the 2011 ReLit Award. She the editor of The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen and co-edited Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology with the late Priscila Uppal. She is a professor in the Faculty of Media and Creative Arts at Humber College, where she runs the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing degree. (She is also married... to me.) Meaghan’s most recent book is Yes or Nope, which was published by Mansfield Press in 2016 and was awarded the Trillium Book Award for Poetry in the following year. Author Zoe Whittall said of that book that “the poetry in Yes or Nope is whip-smart and tenderhearted, funny and alive.”
 
Meaghan and I talk about the shift that happened in her writing that allowed her to write Yes Or Nope under some difficult circumstances and time constraints, about working on the final books by her friends Priscila Uppal and Teva Harrison, books that, in both cases, were published posthumously, and about her new work, which she says further develops the stylistic freedoms she discovered in Yes or Nope and which will pay tribute to some of the writers who have inspired her.
 
Meaghan Strimas: notesandqueries.ca/meaghan-strimas
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Rob Benvie

My guest on this episode is Rob Benvie. Rob is the author of three novels, including Safety of War and Maintenance, both published by Coach House Books. His writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, Dazed, Vice, Joyland, The Puritan, CNQ, and Best Canadian Essays. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2021 film Stanleyville. Rob was a founding member of the band Thrush Hermit, and performs and records solo as Tigre Benvie. Rob’s most recent novel, Bleeding Light, was published in 2021 by Invisible Press. Author Liz Harmer called Bleeding Light "bizarre, terrifying, and wise." Rob’s upcoming novel, Book of the Flock, will be published by Knopf Canada in 2025.
Rob and I talk about how doing novel revisions can be a little bit like a band reunion, how, despite having a successful career as a musician and songwriter, it might be the case that he was a writer all along, and how being published by a multinational is not quite the same as a band signing with a major label (he hopes).
 
Rob Benvie: robbenvie.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact
 

Lawrence Hill

My guest on this episode is Lawrence Hill. Lawrence is the author of eleven books including the novels The Book of Negroes and The Illegal, and the memoir Black Berry Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada and Blood: The Stuff of Life, which was the CBC Massey Lecture in 2013. Lawrence is the winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, and both CBC Radio’s Canada Reads and Radio-Canada’s Combat des livres. Lawrence’s most recent book, his first YA novel, is Beatrice and Croc Harry, which was published in 2022 by HarperCollins Canada. The French version of Beatrice and Croc Harry is about to be published in Quebec by Mémoire d'encrier. It will come out in Europe in the fall. Author David Chariandy called Beatrice and Croc Harry “A modern fable of great beauty and sophistication.”
Lawrence and I talk about some peculiarities concerning his author name, about the grief that helped compel him to write his first book for children, and about the one disappointment he had when he met Queen Elizabeth II.
 
Lawrence Hill: lawrencehill.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact
 

Amber Cowie

My guest on this episode is Amber Cowie. Amber is the author of a number of bestselling novels, starting with Rapid Falls, which was published in 2018 by Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing and was a Whistler Book Awards nominee. Her essays have been published in the New York Times, Salon, the Globe and Mail, and Scary Mommy. Amber’s most recent novel, Last One Alive, was published here by Simon & Schuster Canada in 2022. The Globe and Mail said Last One Alive contains “as clever a twist as Agatha Christie ever envisioned.” Unusual for this podcast, Amber has a new book coming out very soon: The Off Season will be released by Simon and Schuster Canada in spring 2024. (We talk about that.)
Amber and I also talk about her love of TikTok, about selling a novel based on a one-sentence pitch – and why that ended up being way more stressful than if it had gone the usual way – and about why she feels she could easily be publishing a book a year.
Amber Cowie: ambercowie.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Joyce Grant

My guest on this episode is Joyce Grant. Joyce is an award-winning children’s author, a freelance journalist, an editor, and an educator. She is the author of a trio of picture books published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, and a pair of middle-grade novels published by Lorimer. Joyce’s most recent book is Can You Believe It? How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts, published by Kids Can Press in 2022. Can you Believe it? won two Hamilton Literary Awards, in the categories of children’s book and non-fiction, as well as a Press Freedom Teaching Award. The book was also nominated for Ontario Library Association’s Yellow Cedar Award and the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award. Kirkus Reviews called Can You Believe It? “a valuable—and entertaining—guide to an important subject.”
Joyce and I talk about her writing process, which she admits is a little more chaotic than she’d like, about why it took her until her sixth book to write about a subject she has been working on and teaching for decades, and about the multiple books she has on the go—including one for which she has a contract from a publisher sitting unsigned in her email inbox, a situation I believe our conversation guilted her into remedying.
 
Joyce Grant: joycegrantauthor.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Liz Harmer

My guest on this episode is Liz Harmer. Liz is a writer, editor, and teacher whose first novel, The Amateurs was published in 2018 by Knopf Canada and was a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award. In 2019, Liz was a Bread Loaf fellow and the runner-up to the Mitchell Prize in Poetry. She has won a National Magazine Award in Personal Journalism, was a finalist for the Journey Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her work has also been included in the annual Best Canadian Stories anthology. She currently teaches Creative Writing at Chapman University in California. Her most recent novel, Strange Loops, was published by Knopf Canada in 2023. Author Iain Reid called Strange Loops "Lean and enthralling,” and "a story that burns with intensity and daring."
Liz and I talk about the strangeness of being a Canadian writer in the US, about the occasional conflicts between her literary life and her academic life—but also where those two nourish each other—and about the novel she wrote in the third grade.
Liz Harmer: lizharmer.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Mark Pupo

My guest on this episode is Mark Pupo. Mark is a writer and editor who was a senior editor at Toronto Life magazine, and was their food writer for many years. Mark has also served as a senior editor at Chatelaine magazine, the director of Special Projects at Macleans magazine, and was the editor in chief at Reader’s Digest Canada. Mark’s first book is Sundays: A Celebration of Breakfast and Family in 52 Essential Recipes, which is both a cookbook and a memoir about Mark’s life with his neurodivergent son, Sam. It was published in 2023 by the Appetite by Random House imprint of Penguin Random House of Canada. Author John Birdsall called Sundays ”a quietly powerful testament to the power of a chosen family.”
Mark and I talk about how the book that he, his agent, and his publisher thought he was going to write was not a memoir at all, about how he, a lifelong words-on-a-page person, found he kind of enjoyed doing the rounds of morning TV, and about the oddest promotion he did for the book, which involved Wonder bread and the set of the show Reacher.
 
Mark Pupo: markpupo.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Terry Fallis

My guest on this episode is Terry Fallis. Terry’s first novel, The Best Laid Plans, which began as a podcast and was initially self-published, won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was re-published by McClelland & Stewart in 2008. That book went on to win the 2011 edition of Canada Reads and was adapted as a CBC Television series and a stage musical. His next two novels, The High Road and Up and Down, were finalists for the Leacock Medal. And In 2015, he won the prize a second time, for his fourth book, No Relation. His other novels include Poles Apart, One Brother Shy, Albatross, and Operation Angus, and were all national bestsellers. Terry’s most recent novel is A New Season, which was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2023. In its review of A New Season, The Winnipeg Free Press said, “It’s about grief, friendship, family and, most of all, love, with humour taking a backseat for a change.”
Terry and I talk about those early days of podcasting, about why, given all his success, he only recently retired from his day job to focus on writing full time, and about how readers and critics very often mistake comic novels for frivolous ones.
 
Terry Fallis: terryfallis.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact