What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

My guest on this episode is Josh O’Kane. Josh is a reporter at the Globe and Mail whose first book, Nowhere With You: The East Coast Anthems of Joel Plaskett, The Emergency and Thrush Hermit was published by ECW Press and was a Canadian bestseller. Josh’s most recent book, Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy, was published by Random House Canada in 2022. It was a national bestseller and a finalist for numerous Canadian and international literary awards, including the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, the National Business Book Award, the Ontario Speaker’s Book Award, the Heritage Toronto Book Award, and the Best in Business Book Award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. It was named one of the best books of 2022 by The Globe and Mail, CBC, The Hill Times and more. The book was also adapted for the stage by Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre and Michael Healey as The Master Plan. Margaret O’Mara, author of The Code, called Sideways “a thrill ride of a book, revealing what really happened when Google tried to build a city and Silicon Valley’s magical thinking fell to earth.” Josh and I talk about the extremely unequal distribution of wealth in arts and culture (one his main beats as a reporter), the strangeness of seeing your deeply reported journalistic work become a hit play that features a talking tree, and the wait for the next big book-worthy idea.   This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus. Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

My guest on this episode is Casey Plett. Casey is the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, and A Safe Girl to Love, and the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers. She is also the publisher at LittlePuss Press. Casey’s most recent book is On Community, published in 2023 by Biblioasis. That book was a Finalist for the Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, and  the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature. Geist magazine called On Community  “a heartfelt, funny, wistful read—just conceptually rigorous enough to provoke thought, but without difficult theory or jargon.” Casey and I talk about her terrible author signature, surviving the first days of the new Trump regime, and the shift in approach she is taking with her novel-in-progress. This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus. Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

My guest on this episode is Alison McCreesh. Alison is a writer, visual artist, and the creator of the graphic novels Ramshackle: A Yellowknife Story, which won the NorthWords Best Book Award, and Norths: Two Suitcases and a Stroller Around the Circumpolar World. Both books were published by Conundrum Press. Alison’s most recent book is the graphic memoir Degrees of Separation: A Decade North of 60, published by Conundrum earlier this year. Joe Sacco called Degrees of Separation a “tender and loving ode to the people and landscapes of the Far North.” Alison and I talk about mostly eliding her artistic career in her own memoir, the miracle of family-friendly artist residencies, and the new graphic novel project she isn’t entirely sure she’ll ever complete. This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus. Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

My guest on this episode is Lisa Whittington-Hill. Lisa is a writer whose work has appeared in Longreads, Hazlitt, Catapult, The Walrus, and more. She is the publisher of This Magazine and teaches in the publishing program at Centennial College. Lisa’s most recent two books are The Go-Go's Beauty and the Beat, part of the 33 1/3 series published by Bloomsbury, and the essay collection Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture Is Failing Women, published by Véhicule Press. Both books were published in the fall of 2023. Lauren McKeon, author of No More Nice Girls, called Girls, Interrupted “brilliantly considered, meticulously researched, and laugh-out-loud funny.” Lisa and I talk about the gender gap in celebrity redemption arcs, the inadvertent marketing boost Britney Spears gave to Girls, Interrupted, and the magazine about the pets in her neighbourhood she made when she was seven years old. This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus. Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.