What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

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

Denise Da Costa

My guest on this episode is Denise Da Costa. Denise is an author and visual artist who studied Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and is an alumna of the Humber School of Writers and the Diaspora Dialogues mentorship program. Her debut novel, And the Walls Came Down, was published in 2023 by Dundurn Press. Author Zalika Reid-Benta called And the Walls Came Down  “a beautiful exploration of memory and perception and will linger in the minds of readers long after they’ve finished."
Denise and I talk about how she learned the public side of being a writer reciting poetry in church as a child, how her colleagues in the corporate sales world reacted to the launch of her first book, and how she is looking forward to having written and published enough books that she starts to forget what’s in each of them.
 
Denise Da Costa: denisedacostaauthor.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Omar El Akkad

My guest on this episode is Omar El Akkad. Omar is an author and celebrated journalist whose debut novel, American War, was published in 2017. It was an international bestseller, was translated into thirteen languages, and won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize as well as being nominated for nearly a dozen other awards. It was also a finalist on Canada Reads. His second and most recent novel, What Strange Paradise, was published in 2021 by McClelland & Stewart in Canada. It won the Giller Prize, The Pacific Northwest Book Award, and landed on the shortlist for many other awards. It, too, was a finalist on Canada Reads. In its review, which Omar mentions in our conversation, the New York Times Book Review said that What Strange Paradise “deserves to be an instant classic.”
Omar and I talk about the three unpublished novels he wrote before American War, about the fact that, though he is very grateful for the success he has had so far, he still feels some nostalgic for the years he spent writing those unpublished novels, and about a recent creative writing retreat, his first, that was a disaster of nearly novelistic proportions.
 
Omar El Akkad: omarelakkad.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact