Getting Lit With Linda

Perhaps strangely, Linda applies Betty Friedan’s 1963 feminist critique of patriarchal society The Feminine Mystique, and specifically the text “The Problem That Has No Name,” to The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana. An Australian/British author, Khurana wrote this very fine debut novel about the real-life events of two young men from Port Alberni, Northern BC and about their toxic masculinity. This novel thus addresses another problem not yet properly identified, except perhaps in more general ways: disaffected or disconnected young men in Western society, who are situated in that space between adolescence and adulthood, and who are making key decisions about who they will become as they mature.Linda calls upon Sarah Dowling’s very fine study, Here is a Figure: Grounding Literary Form to examine how that problem has been represented in literature in terms of upright (radicalized white male) figures and prone or supine figures (victims, casualties, gendered subjects). ButThe Passenger Seat suggests a posture that is somewhere in-between. And what is that posture and who is implicated? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out....Host/Writer: Linda MorraAssociate Producer: Maia HarrisMusic: Raphael Krux

Linda met Dr. Wendy Wong at a conference in Kelowna, organized by Dr. Karis Shearer (1:25) and hosted by SpokenWeb (1:20), when Dr. Wong spoke about her book, We, the Data (a nod to the preamble of the United States Constitution, 4:10) -- and, since then, Linda has been obsessed. Being an expert on archival theory in relation to women writers' materials, Linda has digitization - and now datafication (7:45) - very much on the brain (and probably on her computer too). It led Linda to raise a question in this interview – at what point is datafication a form of digital trespassing? When is it going too far -- and when do we get to say it's gone too far? -- mining the details of our personal lives, even our bodies (as facial recognition technology reminds us), often for capitalist pursuits, without the direct (if not implied) consent of those furnishing the data? And what's the difference, she also asks Dr. Wong, between libraries and their archives and datafication, another means of preservation? And in her telling response, Dr. Wong reminds us that libraries (3:30) are more important than ever before.Other points of discussion:The Daily Show (Tristan Harris, Center for Humane Technology, 6:00)AI and Chat GPT and existential questions raised (6:50)algorithms (10:45)

Does anyone remember that series, New Canadian Literature (NCL), produced by McClelland & Stewart? In this interview, Linda discusses the very much new and improved series, Kanata Classics (15:06), with Stephanie Sinclair, the publisher of McClelland & Stewart -- with special guest feature, Holly, her cat. A co-editor in her own right (with her sister, Sara Sinclair), she produced You Were Made for this World (7:55) and A Steady Brightness of Being (8:02, conceived and developed in 2020, before Stephanie began working with McClelland & Stewart). Kanata Classics is Sinclair’s answer to NCL, although Kanata Classics has a much broader view in terms of who is included, represented, and celebrated within its purview - and it has a much broader reach, extending beyond Canadian borders. Kanata Classics, launched in July of this year, 2025, features six books a year from a range of Indigenous and Canadian writers. Beautifully crafted and produced, with covers and design by Kelly Hill, Kanata Classics in its first year features Halfbreed by Maria Campbell (the restored edition!), Ru by Kim Thúy, Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese, Bear by Marian Engel, Island by Alistair MacLeod and Nishga by Jordan Abel – and, of course, listeners will remember Linda had interviewed Jordan Abel in Episode 18 of Season 2. Other references include Cody Caetano (2:51), Joshua Whithead (3:30), Jessica Johns (3:34), Billy-Ray Belcourt (2:53) and Niigaan Sinclair (15:40).

In this episode, Linda examines the resurgence of the memoir, and what readers expect - and what she expects - when we pick one up. While the first part of the episode examines the features and history of the memoir, the last part is devoted to the wonderful new memoir by Susan Swan, Big Girls Don't Cry. Highlights of this episode include:Giller prize long list (.45 sec)\Lucy Knight and The Salt Path Scandal (1.11)James Fray A Million Little Pieces (3.35)Frederick Philip Grove, In Search of Myself  (3:30)The “truth” of memoir (5:44)Difference between memoir and autobiography (7:34)Julie Rak and her scholarly book, Boom! (6:12; 8:55)Guernica Press, Eva Krakow, Voice Lessons (11:52)ECW Press and a list of its published memoirs (13:00)Random House and their list of memoirs (12:03, reference to Minelle Mahtani, 12:08)Atwood and her new memoir, Book of Lives (13:35)Philippe Lejeune & the autobiographical pact (9:56) Betty Friedan, The Problem that Has No Name (19:09)

In this episode, Linda begins by speaking about the Kingston Writers Fest (KWF) - if you are in reasonable distance, you MUST go! The most incredible line-up of authors will be there, including Madeleine Thien, Margaret Atwood, Canisia Lubrin, Nita Prose, and Ian Williams.She then thinks about Atlantis as a way of considering the dystopian novel, Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (Penguin Random House). Using James Cairns’ In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Trouble Times (Wolsak & Wyne), she thinks about why we read novels that are apocalyptic in nature. Cairns, she notes, refers to Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind (HarperCollins) and shows how we get some measure of satisfaction from reading them. Dimaline’s novel may offer that kind of satisfaction, but it is very much based in Indigenous community and what Daniel Heath Justice would call “embodied sovereignty.”Other highlights:The Lost City of Atlantis (2:15; 3:04; 4:22)Plato (2:50; 3:11)Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (4:12)Thomas More’s Utopia (4:14)Shakespeare’s Macbeth, hubris, and the tyranny of completion (8:14)Daniel Heath Justice’s essay, “Go Away Water” (15:29)

In this episode, Linda interviews the phenomenal Canisia Lubrin - the acclaimed writer, critic, professor, poet, and editor. Her first book Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, 2017) was named a CBC Best Book. Her second book, The Dyzgraphxst (M & S, 2020) won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and the overall Literature prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Derek Walcott Prize. She is also a 2022 Civitella Ranieri Fellow and has held writer residences at Queen’s University and the appointed inaugural 2021 Shaftesbury Writer in Residence at Victoria College, University of Toronto, where she has taught creative writing.This episode of Getting Lit With Linda focuses on her award-winning book, Code Noir (Knopf 2023), for which Lubrin won the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, among other accolades. In consideration of this book and how the reader is invited to engage with it, Linda mulls over Eve Sedgewick's essay, "Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, Or You're so Paranoid, You probably Think This Essay is About You." Applying Sedgewick's sense of the "reparative reader," Linda sees Lubrin's Code Noir (based on the real-life set of historical decrees that were passed centuries ago, in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France) as enjoining readers to participate in this way - not with a sense of paranoia (defensive!) but rather with an open and unassuming posture. Because Lubrin's Code Noir reminds us of the possibilities of art, form, and language, and our engagement with them.

In this episode, Linda chats with Kevin Chong about his novel The Double Life of Benson Yu (Simon & Schuster) shortlisted for the 2023 Giller Prize. It's a "meta" novel, in some ways - a concept that Linda explains in this episode - but it also had Linda thinking about the social media platform, Meta (formerly, Facebook). Whatever insights you might glean from this association and from this interview, what is clear is the real and urgent need to re-examine various forms of masculinity. The timing of this episode’s release - Father’s Day - underscores this importance.In this novel, the main character, Benson Yu, is writing a graphic novel based on his own life, and he tells us as readers what he can't or won't talk about because of his traumatic past and injured masculinity. It's a compelling read that makes us consider character and genre in ways that are quite provocative.Linda Morra (writer/producer), Maia Harris (associate producer), Rafael Krux (music), Aki Barabadi (marketing)

What are flying monkeys?, Linda wonders - until her friend illuminates their place in relation to narcissists. Narcissism is key to understanding the Widow and Abe Strapp, two deliciously terrible main characters in Michael Crummey's novel, The Adversary (Knopf) -- which just won the Dublin Literary Award for 2025; this psychology is also key to understanding why certain subplot characters choose to orbit around them. Since the novel may be read as a kind of running commentary on the present political moment, we must remember that we - not just readers, but rather the people who might see our reflections in the "subplot" characters - are important to the kinds of decisions made. The conditions of the subplot are affected by those of the plot - but that may also work in reverse. The interview with Crummey also connects his earlier novel, The Innocents (2019, Random House Canada), and The Adversary to William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, explaining how these two novels might be read in relation to each other.Linda Morra (executive producer); Maia Harris (associate producer); Raphael Krux (music)

It's Mother's Day - and, while Linda considers how the mother is represented in several books (specifically Rachel Deustch (6:30), Boum (5:50; 6:55), and Mary Thaler (5:47), in their respective works, The Mother, Jellyfish, and Ulfhildr), she turns her attention to the figure of the stepmother, inspired in part by her conversation with the authors of La Belle-Mère/The Stepmother (L'Hexagone) by Rachel McCrum and Amélie Prévost (8:10) while she was at the Imagination Literary Festival (held at the Morrin Centre in Quebec City, 5:33).C'est la fête des mères - et, tandis que Linda examine la façon dont la mère est représentée dans plusieurs livres (en particulier Rachel Deustch (6:30), Boum (5:50 ; 6:55), et Mary Thaler (5 : 47), dans leurs ouvrages respectifs,The Mother, Jellyfish, and Ulfhildr), elle s'intéresse à la figure de la belle-mère, inspirée en partie par sa conversation avec les auteurs de La Belle-Mère/The Stepmother (L'Hexagone) de Rachel McCrum et Amélie Prévost (8:10) lors de sa participation au festival littéraire Imagination (qui s'est tenu au Morrin Centre à Québec, 5:33).Host & Writer: Linda Morra; Associate Producer: Maia Harris; Music: Raphael Krux.