Getting Lit with Linda - The Canadian Literature Podcast

Season 4 opens with Linda's announcement of the podcast's new website and then shifts to a discussion about her literary journey - how she came to focus first on Canadian literature and then Indigenous literatures, which all started with a vital conversation. Her first book in the latter field was Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach - and it was a game-changer, sending her off to read and understand a field about which she knew very little when she started her post-graduate studies. With brief nods to Robinson's extraordinary trajectory of writing (including Son of a Trickster), Linda explains why this novel remains a personal favourite. In the Takeaway, she addresses the fact that there is a corresponding movie for Monkey Beach, which has an ending that is arguably different than that of the novel - or is it? You'll have to read the novel and watch the film to know why ....

Linda informs listeners of a slight change in this year's scheduling of podcast episodes - but otherwise, welcome listeners to Season 4 of Getting Lit With Linda!Written by Linda MorraCo-produced by Linda Morra & Marco TimpanoMusic by Raphael Krux.

In this last episode of the season, Linda considers how empathy is often considered a function of literature and may be ideally represented -- as it is in Catherine Hernandez's Scarborough published by Arsenal Pulp Press. In order to explore how this should work, she considers the Classical orator, Cicero (and Aristotle's Poetics and Horace's Ars Poetica) to show how there is a long tradition of arguing that rhetoric and "good literature" should be able to teach, to delight, and to move us. Other highlights include:references to Brené Brown (2.30)the difference between empathy and sympathy (2.45)literature and empathy (3.00)references to Cicero, Aristotle, Horace (4.05)discussion of Hernandez's Scarborough (5.40)In the Takeaway, she considers the novel - a thriller - Truth is a Flightless Bird by Akbar Hussain and published by Iskanchi Press. And then she offers her best wishes for the new year.