What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

Randy Boyagoda

My guest on this episode is Randy Boyagoda. Randy is the author of six books, including the novels Governor of the Northern Province, Beggar’s Feast, and Original Prin, and a scholarly biography of Richard John Neuhaus. His work has been nominated for the Giller Prize and for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize. He frequently writes for the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Walrus, Financial Times and Guardian, as well as many other places. He is former President of PEN Canada and is currently a member of The Walrus Educational Review Committee and a professor at the University of Toronto, where he is also a Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Arts and Science
Randy’s most recent novel, Dante’s Indiana, was published by Biblioasis in 2021. The Wall Street Journal said that the novel “juxtaposes the ridiculous and the sublime—fitting as both an homage to Dante and a portrayal of America.”
Randy and I talk about why he consciously shifted his fiction away from sprawling, multi-generational novels of immigration toward more pointed social satire, why he had to take time off from his day job, during a critical time at work, in order to complete the edits on Dante’s Indiana, even though he knew that meant it would be published in the middle of a pandemic, and why he has no real plans – yet - to complete the trilogy that began with Original Prin and Dante’s Indiana. We also talk about the cultural and social significance of... pickleball.
 
Dante's Indiana at Biblioasis.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Hiromi Goto

My guest on this episode is Hiromi Goto. Hiromi’s first novel, Chorus of Mushrooms, won the 1995 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, was the co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. Her second adult novel, The Kappa Child, won the 2001 James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award. She has published multiple novels for adults and children, as well as a book of poetry, and a collection of short stories. She has also won The Sunburst Award and the Carl Brandon Parallax Award.
Hiromi's most recent book, Shadow Life—her first graphic novel, created with artist Ann Xu—was published by First Second Books in 2021. Shadow Life won the 2022 Asian/Pacific American Literature Award for Adult Fiction and was nominated for a 2022 GLAAD Media Award and an LA Times Book Prize. The New York Public Library also declared it one of the best books of 2021. Publishers Weekly, in its review of Shadow Life, said: “this wry genre-bending graphic novel …delves into aging, independence, lost love, and mortality with a whimsy that doesn’t undercut its literary heft.”
Hiromi and I talk about her current situation in which she finds herself unable to read and write barely at all, and about the work she is doing as a part-time farmhand that, even if it doesn’t help her get writing again, is doing some good and necessary things for her soul.
 
Hiromi Goto: hiromigoto.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Dimitri Nasrallah

My guest on this episode is Dimitri Nasrallah. Dimitri is the author of four novels, which have received nominations for multiple awards and have won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize. His most recent book is the novel Hotline, published in 2022 by Véhicule Press, where Dimitri also serves as the fiction editor. Hotline was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a Canada Reads selection in 2023. In its review of Hotline, Quill & Quire said the the novel “intertwines hope and sorrow to create a moving story that sears the heart.”
 
Dimitri and I talk about how working as an editor changed the way he writes novels, and how his plan to keep Hotline alive in readers’ minds beyond the usual 5 or 6 weeks after publication got blown up, in a good way, by Canada Reads. We also talk about some of the frustrations he felt about how Hotline was discussed on Canada Reads, and how he is in no rush to complete the follow up to that novel.
 
Dimitri Nasrallah: vehiculepress.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Harley Rustad

My guest on this episode is Harley Rustad. Harley is an award-winning and bestselling author, journalist, and a senior editor at The Walrus magazine. Harley’s first book was Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees, published by House of Anansi in 2018. His most recent book is Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, published in 2022 by Knopf Canada and by Harper US. Lost in the Valley of Death won the 2023 Poland Mountain Literature Festival Award for Best Non-Fiction Book and the 2023 Religion News Association Award for Nonfiction Books. The CBC named it one of the best Canadian nonfiction books of 2022. In its feature review of the book, the New York Times said that “In prose that moves like a clear river... Rustad has done what the best storytellers do: tried to track the story to its last twig and then stepped aside.”
 
Harley and I talk about why he chose to narrate the audiobook for Lost in the Valley of Death himself, what it was like to find himself on the cover over the New York Times Book Review, and why he has had such a hard time letting go of this story and starting a new book.
 
Harley Rustad: harleyrustad.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Moe and Laura Berg

My guests on this episode are Moe and Laura Berg. Moe Berg is a musician, songwriter, and producer best known as the frontman for the band The Pursuit of Happiness. Moe’s first book, a short story collection called The Green Room, was published by Gutter Press in 2000. Laura Berg is a college professor, professional speaker, trained therapist. She has been named one of the Top 10 Mom Entrepreneurs, Savvy Mom of the Year, and was awarded YouTube’s Silver Play Button. Laura’s first book, The Baby Signing Bible, was published by Avery in 2012. Her most recent book, Thriving Life: How to Live Your Best Life No Matter the Cards You're Dealt was published by Health Communications Inc in 2021.
In its review of The Green Room, the Globe and Mail said “the stories… take the edgy, easy cynicism of Berg's songs and build from it some fascinating glimpses into young urban lives grappling with love and lust, flirting with fame and confronting the prospect of abject failure.”
 
In its review of Thriving Life, the Wisconsin Bookwatch said that “Laura Berg deftly draws upon her years of experience and expertise to create an ideal DIY instructional guide that is as practical and effective as it is inspired and inspiring.”
 
Moe and Laura and I talk about how moving into the publishing world after achieving success in another creative field can open doors, but can also create unrealistic expectations, how unforeseen problems—like, say, a breakdown in the distribution chain or a global pandemic—can mess up book release plans, and how an unexpected collaboration with their daughter has brought new life to an in-progress book project.
 
Moe Berg: moeberg.ca
Laura Berg: lauraberginc.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact
 

Gil Adamson

My guest on this episode is Gil Adamson. Gil is a Toronto author whose first novel, The Outlander, won the Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the ReLit Award, and the Drummer General’s Award. She is also the author of a collection of linked stories, Help Me, Jacques Cousteau, and two poetry collections, Primitive and Ashland. (She is also the co-author of one celebrity biography, which we discuss in the episode.)
 
Gil and I talk about nearly passing out the first time she ever read from one of her books in public, about her ongoing discomfort with discussing her work in the abstract, and about her occasional urges to abandon historical fiction altogether.
 
Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson: houseofanansi.com/products/ridgerunner
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact
 

Evan Munday

My guest on this episode is Evan Munday. Evan is the author and illustrator of the Silver Birch-shortlisted Dead Kid Detective Agency series, the fourth and most recent volume of which, Connect the Scotts, was published by ECW Press in 2018. Munday works as publicity manager for children’s books at Penguin Random House Canada. In its review of Connect the Scotts, the School Library Journal wrote that “fans of the series will be thrilled with another spectral mystery glinting with subtle mirth.”
Evan and I talk about the days when he was very frequently spotted at Toronto book events, and why those days are mostly over. (Spoiler: it’s age and kids; it’s almost always age and kids.) We talk about the as-yet unpublished fifth instalment of the Dead Kid Detective Agency Series, and why it is as yet unpublished, and why being a full-time writer simply does not fit Evan’s guilt-ridden  personality.
 
Evan Munday's Dead Kid Detective Agency series: ecwpress.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Joe Ollmann

My guest on this episode is Joe Ollmann. Joe is an artist and writer from Hamilton, Ontario, and the author of more than a half-dozen acclaimed graphic novels and collections of graphic stories. His book This Will All End in Tears, published by Insomniac Press, won the 2007 Doug Wright Award for best book.
Joe’s most recent graphic novel is Fictional Father, published in 2022 by Drawn & Quarterly. In a starred review of Fiction Father, Publishers Weekly wrote that "Ollmann’s funny, faux-meta memoir… is a complex look at an artist’s evolving relationship to the past." 
The book won the 2022 Hamilton Literary Award for fiction, and was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award.
Joe and I talk about his creative process—specifically how that process becomes less creative and more mechanical the closer a book gets to being finished—about how he is much more mellow and zen than he was when he wrote his visceral and emotionally raw early books, and about the time he successfully argued with a former Ontario premier over the work of fellow graphic novelist Kate Beaton.
 
Joe Ollman: wagpress.net
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Victoria Hetherington

My guest on this episode is Victoria Hetherington. Victoria is an author and professional ghostwriter whose first book was the novel Mooncalves, published by Now or Never in 2019. Victoria’s most recent books are Into the Mist: Finding CF-JDO, a non-fiction book published by Kestrel Publication, and Autonomy, published by the Rare Machines imprint of Dundurn Press. Both books were published in 2022.
Author Liz Harmer said about Autonomy that "Hetherington's vision is bleak, but their glittering prose gives even the most monstrous realities of late-capitalism an unsettling glimmer."
Victoria and I talk about her ghostwriting career (and why the professional pitch for her services sounds a little Philip K Dick-esque), about the difficulty that some sci-fi fans have had with Autonomy, and about the complicated reality of literary books being treats as aesthetic class signifiers online.
 
NB: Victoria and I will be appearing alongside three other great Rare Machines authors—and our editor, Russell Smith—at the Book Drunkard Festival hosted by Blue Heron books in Uxbridge, Ontario, on Thursday, October 19. Find info at bookdrunkard.com.
 
Victoria Hetherington: vhetherington.com
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact

Anna Fitzpatrick

My guest on this episode is Anna Fitzpatrick. Anna has written for The New York Times Magazine, Rookie, Vice, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The Hairpin, Hazlitt, The Believer, The Village Voice, Refinery29, the National Post, the Globe and Mail and many more. She is the author of the children’s picture book Margot and the Moon Landing, illustrated by Erika Medina, which was published by Annick Press in 2020. Her most recent book is the novel Good Girl, published by Flying Books in 2022. Writing about Good Girl, Buzzfeed said that “Fitzpatrick takes romance tropes and flips them on their head — then slaps them.”
Anna and I talk about the mix of luck, hard work, and privilege that defines her writing career, and about how her next book began life as a sequel to Good Girl, before her agent advised her to scrap the idea, and about how strange and often unhelpful it is that certain kinds of writers get lumped together as part of a literary trends.
 
Anna Fitzpatrick: bananafitz.ca
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact