What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

My guest on this episode is Ken McGoogan. Ken is the author of sixteen books—most of them nonfiction narratives, but also a few novels. His books include Fatal Passage, Lady Franklin’s Revenge, and Canada’s Undeclared War: Fighting Words from the Literary Trenches. Ken has won the Pierre Berton Award for Popular History and the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography. A fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal...

My guest on this episode is Sheima Benembarek. Sheima is a journalist who’s written for The Walrus, Broadview, Maisonneuve, and the Literary Review of Canada. She has worked as special reports editor at Strategy, a senior editor for Toronto Life, an events manager for The Walrus, a business development and brand communications lead at Corporate Knights, and as an associate editor at Broadview. Currently, she is a contributing write...

My guest on this episode is Scott Chantler. Scott is the creator of multiple graphic novels for both adults and young readers, including Northwest Passage, Two Generals, which was voted by CBC's Canada Reads as one of the 40 best Canadian non-fiction books of all time, the Three Thieves series (winner of the Joe Shuster Award for Best Comic for Kids), and Bix. He has been the illustrator for many other graphic novels and comic book...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 Ca...

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 H...

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’Con...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

My guest on this episode is Amy Jones. Amy is the author of What Boys Like, a collection of stories published in 2009 by Biblioasis, and the novels We're All in This Together and Every Little Piece of Me, published in 2016 and 2019, respectively, by McClelland & Stewart. A film version of We’re All In this Together, directed by and starring Kate Boland, was released in 2021. Amy’s most recent book, Pebble and Dove, was publishe...

My guest on this episode is Natalie MacLean. Natalie is a journalist and wine writer whose first book, Red, White and Drunk All Over, was published in 2006. Her second, Unquenchable, was published by in 2011. Her most recent book, the memoir Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much, was published in 2023 by Dundurn Press and was a national bestseller. Natalie is the wine expert on CTV'...

My guest on this episode us Meg Remy. Meg is a multi-disciplinary artist and performer, primarily known as the creative force behind U.S. Girls. Her most recent album as U.S. Girls was Lives, a live record released in November 2023. Her first book, Begin By Telling, a kind of fragmentary and poetic memoir about abuse and trauma and sexual politics, was published by Book*Hug Press in 2021. In its review of Begin By Telling, Quill &a...

My guest on this episode Kamal Al-Solaylee. Kamal is the author of the bestselling memoir Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, published in 2012 by HarperCollins Canada, which has published all of his books to date. His second book, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone) was published in 2016. His most recent book, Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From, was published in 2021, and was a Book of the year ...

My guest on this episode is Anita Lahey. Anita is the author of six books, including The Mystery Shopping Cart: Essays on Poetry and Culture and two poetry collections: Spinning Side Kick and Out to Dry in Cape Breton and a the memoir The Last Goldfish, which was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. She is also an award-winning magazine journalist, and she serves as the series editor of the annual Best Canadian Poetry anthology. A...

My guest on this episode is Jen Sookfong Lee. Jen is the author of three acclaimed novels, four works for children, a collection of poetry, and two works of non-fiction, including Gentlemen Of The Shade, about the movie My Own Private Idaho, and her most recent book, Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke my Heart, which was published by McClelland and Stewart in 2023. Jen is also works as an acquiring editor for ECW Press, and is the co-...