My guest on this episode is Rachel Deutsch. Rachel is a writer, cartoonist, and illustrator whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, PRISM, The Pinch, McSweeney’s, Mother Tongue, Mutha Magazine, and in the popular newsletter ParentData by author Emily Oster. Her first book is the graphic memoir The Mother, published in 2025 by Douglas & McIntyre. Author Ashley Audrain called the book “profound, candid and wonderfully witty,” and “a tender self-reflection about the tumbling journey through early motherhood.”

Rachel and I talk about the creative tensions that sometimes arise between her illustrator side and her writer side, about why she has not re-read her graphic memoir since it was published, and about being surprised and a little heartened to discover that, even among her fellow New Yorker cartoonists, there is no shortage of imposter syndrome.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Thea Lim. Thea is a novelist and culture writer whose work has appeared in The Nation, the Paris Review, Guernica, The Guardian, Granta, The Walrus, and elsewhere. Her debut book was the novel The Same Woman, and her most recent is the novel An Ocean of Minutes, which was published by Penguin Canada in 2018 and was nominated for Canada Reads, the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, the ALA Reading List for Science Fiction, the Giller Prize, and the Sunburst Award. The Irish Times called it “a timely novel that brings a fresh perspective on the complex subjects of migration and displacement that plague our world today.”

Thea and I talk about an essay she wrote recently for The Walrus about the flattening of book culture, about why it’s been so long since her last book (spoiler: it’s because of kids and capitalism), and about her new novel, which is both a mystery story and a critical look at the realities of work.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Susan Holbrook. Susan is an author and poet whose works include ink earl, Throaty Wipes, Joy Is So Exhausting, and misled. She is also the author of How to Read (and Write About) Poetry and edited Intertidal: Daphne Marlatt - The Collected Earlier Poems and The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson: Composition as Conversation. Her work has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Book Award, the Trillium Award for Poetry, and the Pat Lowther Award. Her most recent book is Steamy: A Menopause Symptomology, published by Coach House Books in 2025. That book was shortlisted for a Warland Award. Author Suzette Mayr called it “a refreshing, irreverent, no-effs-left-to-give exploration and meditation on what it means to grow older and go through menopause.”

Susan and I talk about the chapbook she published a few years ago, in which she reinterpreted a number of classic poems using a calculator, about where her love of exploring the quirkiness of language first originated, and about her surprise, after having published what she thought was a funny book about menopause, at having readers starting to ask her for health advice.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Stephen R. Bown. Stephen is an author and historian whose books have been translated into nine languages and have won the BC Book Prize, the Alberta Book Award, the William Mills Prize for Polar Books, among others. His 2020 book, The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire, won the J.W. Defoe Book Prize and the National Business Book Award. His most recent book is Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada, published by Doubleday Canada in 2023. That book was a national bestseller and was named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, History Today and The Hill Times. The Literary Review of Canada said that “at a time when too many writers and readers are turning away from historical non-fiction, Dominion reminds us that Canadian history is nothing to be afraid of.”

Stephen and I talk about his novelistic approach to writing history, about how each of his last few books began as material he had to leave out of the previous one, and how, despite his status as a bestselling author, people continue to get his last name wrong.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Katrina Onstad. Katrina is the author of three novels and one non-fiction book. Her books have been nominated for the Giller Prize and a Toronto Book Award. Her journalism, which has won several National Magazine Awards, has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Toronto Life, Elle, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and elsewhere. She recently began creating podcasts, including the award-winning series Don’t Listen to Us with Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody. Katrina’s most recent book is the novel Stay Where I Can See You, published by HarperCollins Canada in 2020. That novel won an award for Best Crime Writing in Canada, and the Toronto Star called it “a fine piece of storytelling from one of Toronto’s most versatile writers.”

Katrina and I talk about what precipitated her shift into the podcast space, about how publishing a novel in the cursed year of 2020 was a major factor in stopping her writing fiction for a long time, and about how she is starting to feel a new sense of freedom in her writing.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Elizabeth Renzetti. Elizabeth is an author and journalist who worked for the Globe and Mail as a reporter, editor, and columnist, and currently writes a regular column for the Toronto Star. Her books include Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls, What She Said: Conversations about Equality, and the Bury the Lead, which she co-wrote with novelist Kate Hilton. Her most recent book, also co-written with Kate Hilton, is Widows and Orphans, published by House of Anansi Press in 2025. Chatelaine called the book "a smart whodunnit."

Elizabeth and I talk about why she is Elizabeth on the covers of her books but Liz in real life, and why the Globe and Mail is partly responsible for that, about the benefits of having a co-author, and about how everything that happens in her life gets stored away as potential plot points for her mysteries.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Raymond Biesinger. Raymond is a Montréal-based illustrator, artist, and author whose work has been published in places like Billboard, the Economist, the Globe & Mail, the Guardian, the New Yorker, The Walrus, and more. His debut book was the bestseller 305 Lost Buildings of Canada, which he illustrated and which was written by Alex Bozikovic. His most recent book is 9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off, published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2025. Author Cory Doctorow called the book “a masterclass in how creative workers can transform the endless, low-grade seething about the endless ripoffs of the industry into something productive and even profound.”

Raymond and I talk about his original plan to become a journalist, not an illustrator, about how his most recent book started life essentially as an act of blackmail, and about how having published a book about being ripped off has already helped in encouraging clients to pay him on time.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Michelle Berry. Michelle is the author of more than half a dozen novels and three collections of short stories. Her books have been nominated for multiple awards and been optioned for film several times. For five years Berry owned and operated her own independent bookstore in Peterborough, Ontario, called Hunter Street Books. Her most recent two novels, which were both published in 2025 by Turnstone Press under the name MS Berry, are the thrillers The Tenant and Behind the Door. The Seaboard Review of Books called Behind The Door “a riveting experience.”

Michelle and I talk about how border collies are basically writers in dog form, about the culture shock that came with opening her own bookstore, and about the trade-offs that come with writing in a new genre under a pen name.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.