What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

 My guest on this episode is Zalika Reid-Benta. Zalika’s debut book was the story collection Frying Plantain, which won the 2020 Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the 2020 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction. It was also shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, the Trillium Book Award, the White Pine Award, and the Evergreen Award, and was longlisted for the 2020 Giller Prize. Zalika was the 2019 and 2023 winner of the ByBlacks People’s Choice Award for Best Author. Her most recent book is the novel River Mumma, published in 2023 by Penguin Canada. That book was shortlisted for the 2024 Trillium Book Award. The Walrus said that “amid a crash course in Jamaican folklore, Reid-Benta’s novel takes a gleeful swipe at everything from Toronto’s unreliable transit system to the cult of celebrity.”Zalika and I talk about her current relationship with Toronto as a city, which features so heavily in her fiction, about her irritation with readers who insist on seeing her work as autobiographical, and about training her agent to accept her chaotic creative process.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 Giles Blunt. Giles is the author of a dozen books, including the six novels in the Cardinal series, which were made into a long-running TV series. He has won the British Crime Writers Silver Dagger award, the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award for best novel, and has been twice longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC award. His most recent book is the novel Bad Juilet, published by Dundurn Press in 2025. The Toronto Star called it “captivating and beautifully written,” and “an intriguing tale with the taut pace of a thriller.”Giles and I talk about the shift from crime writing to historical fiction that Bad Juilet represents, about the notes to himself he will sometimes insert into his manuscripts, indicating his intention to quit writing them, and about why his most recent book has been harder to let go of than anything else he has written.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 Donna Jones Alward. Donna wrote and published dozens of romance novels before shifting to historical fiction in 2024 with the bestselling novel When the World Fell Silent. Her most recent book is the novel Ship of Dreams, which was published in 2025 by HarperCollins Canada, and was also a national bestseller. Author Jennifer Robson called it “a thoughtful and immersive novel that confirms Alward’s gift for meaningful and character-driven storytelling.” Donna and talk about the astonishing fast pace with which she published books up until this year, which is the first one of her career in which she has no new books coming out, about that shift from romance to historical fiction, and about the perils inherent in writing a novel about a story everyone feels they already know… such as the sinking of the Titanic.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 Eddy Boudel Tan. Eddy has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for his novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide. He was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His most recent book is the novel The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, which was published by Viking Canada in 2025 and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Author Ashley Audrain said that “The Tiger and the Cosmonaut is the kind of rich literary suspense that grips your heart and your throat at once.” Eddy and I talk about the multiple novels he wrote as a kid, about giving up on trying to look serious in his author photos, and about the shift he made in his writing process with his most recent book, which previously involved the use of spreadsheets.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 Merilyn Simonds. Merilyn is the author of more than 20 books, most recently Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay and the novel Refuge. Her most recent book is Walking with Beth: Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend, which was published by Random House Canada in 2025, and was a national bestseller. Author Suzette Mayr says, about the book, that “Simonds explores aging, connection, and the power of family and community with a poetic grace that is unparalleled in this moving meditation on a friendship between two remarkable and unforgettable women.” Merilyn and I talk about the well-known and beloved editor whose process was so intense and so unrelenting it actually made her ill, about why she never pitches her books to publishers before she is finished writing them, and why she has zero plans to retire from writing anytime soon. 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 Liann Zhang. Liann is a former social media content creator whose debut novel, Julie Chan Is Dead, was published by Simon & Schuster Canada in 2025, and was an instant bestseller. It has been translated into multiple languages, and was longlisted for Canada Reads 2026. Chatelaine called the book “a delicious and outrageous exploration of influencer culture [that] has both Yellowface and Yellowjackets vibes.” Liann and I talk about how she manages her own online profile, now that she is a published author, about the unsavoury behaviour she witnessed in the influencer world that inspired her novel, and about she deals with worries that, given all the success she’s had so far with her debut, she may have peaked as a writer.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 Karen Solie. Karen is the author of the poetry collections Short Haul Engine, Modern and Normal, Pigeon, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out, and The Caiplie Caves–which have won her the Dorothy Livesay Award, the Pat Lowther Award, the Trillium Poetry Prize, and the Griffin Prize. Her most recent collection, Wellwater, was published by House of Anansi in 2025. It won the Governor General's Award For Poetry, the Forward Prize, and the T.S. Eliot Prize. It was also named a book of the year by the Guardian, the Financial Times, the CBC, and the Observer. The Times Literary Supplement called the book “authoritative and unforgettable.” Karen and I talk about how little stress she felt going into T.S. Eliot Prize event, mostly because she assumed she had very little chance of winning, about the joy of using the prize money to pay off her credit card debt, and about her plans for her next book, which may see her taking a break from poetry.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 Haley Mlotek. Haley is an author, editor, and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Bookforum, The Paris Review, The Columbia Journalism Review, Vogue, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, and n+1, among others. She is a founding member of the Freelance Solidarity Project in the National Writers Union, and is currently the director of content at Feeld. Her first book, No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce, was published by Viking Books and McClelland & Stewart in 2025. Author Susan Orlean called the book “an ideal hybrid of rigorous reporting, social commentary, and personal reflection on the nature of love and divorce.” Haley and I talk about the brief urge she had to cancel publication of her book the night before it came out, about resisting the idea that writing a book about divorce makes her either an expert on divorce or an advocate for it, and about the importance of recognizing that books are not built upon two or three moments of inspiration, but upon hundreds and hundreds of small decisions.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 Michelle Shephard. Michelle is an award-winning author, journalist, filmmaker, and podcast host and producer. She is the author of Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr and Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism’s Grey Zone. Her films include the Emmy-nominated documentary Guantanamo’s Child, The Perfect Story, The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain, and The Way Out. Her most recent book is Code Name: Pale Horse, which she co-wrote with retired FBI Special Agent Scott Payne, and which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. Kirkus Reviews called it “an eye-opening look at the small but eminently dangerous radical right-wing fringe out there in the shadows.”Michelle and I talk about the kinds of things she has witnessed while reporting in places like Guantanamo Bay, about how she—an unapologetically lefty journalist who has reported extensively on abuses by the police and other government forces—handled co-writing a book with a former FBI agent, and about the journalist/novelist she looks to as a model as she contemplates trying her hand at a work of fiction.This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.