Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of five novels, Cherry Beach, Breaking and Entering, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata; a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History; and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto. His latest book is Cherry Beach, published by Biblioasis in 2026.

https://www.biblioasis.com/author/gillmor-don/

In this episode dedicated to the art of Canadian detective fiction, we have a bonus reading from Amherstburg mystery writer John Schlarbaum.

John Schlarbaum began his professional writing career working in the television industry before embarking on a career as a licensed Private Investigator. Along the way, he’s also co-owned an award-winning independent bookstore, reviewed books for CBC Radio, and has written mystery and thriller novels, children's books, as well as interactive plays. He’s best known for his two separate mystery series featuring flawed P.I. Steve Cassidy and feisty newspaper reporter Jennifer Malone.

John reads for us from The Groom Wore Red.

https://www.amazon.ca/stores/author/B086WMCHCG/about

Fartumo Kusow is a high school English teacher, novelist, podcaster, activist, and mother of five who lives in Windsor, Ontario. Born in Somalia, Fartumo immigrated to Canada in 1991, at the start of the civil war, with fluency in Somali and Arabic but not English, and went on to earn two degrees. Fartumo Kusow first appeared on this podcast in 2020, chatting about her second novel which was her debut novel in English, Tale of a Boon’s Wife. She’s here with us today to discuss her new novel, Winter of My Spring, published by Spark Press in March 2026.

https://fartumokusow.com/

https://gosparkpress.com/portfolio/fartumo-kusow/

Curtis Chin is the author of the award-winning memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. The restaurant of the title was a popular downtown Detroit eatery owned by his family for generations.

Chin was recently in Windsor, kicking off his five-stop Canadian book tour. A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the nonprofit's first Executive Director. He went on to write comedy for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in twenty countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appétit, the Detroit Free Press, and the Emancipator/Boston Globe.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. We caught up with him at Biblioasis bookshop. This podcast features the recorded highlights of his book talk and his conversation with Scarlet Kennedy. You can find out more about the book and Curtis on his website, curtisfromdetroit.com.