What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

My guest on this episode is Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross. Jacquelyn’s fiction, poetry, essays, and art criticism have appeared in BOMB, C Mag, The Ex-Puritan, Fence, Mousse, and elsewhere. In addition, She is an editor at The Capilano Review. Her debut book, The Longest Way to Eat a Melon, was published by Sarabande Books in 2025. The New York Times called it "a collection of short stories each more satirical and surreal than the last."Jacquelyn and I talk about her book ending up in a New York Times trend piece, about turning self-consciousness from an obstacle to her writing into one of its central themes, and about how her approach to writing has been changed by becoming a parent.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 Miriam Toews. Miriam is the author of the internationally acclaimed and bestselling novels Fight Night, Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows, Irma Voth, The Flying Troutmans, A Complicated Kindness, A Boy of Good Breeding, and Summer of My Amazing Luck, and the memoir, Swing Low: A Life. She is the winner of numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award. Several of her novels have been made into feature films, including All My Puny Sorrows and the Oscar-winning Women Talking. Her most recent book is the bestselling memoir A Truce That Is Not Peace, published by Knopf Canada in 2025. That book was a finalist For The Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize For Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award For Autobiography, and was named a best book the year by TIME, The Globe and Mail, the CBC, The New Yorker, The Guardian and more. Author Paula Hawkins called it “beautiful, hilarious, devastating.”Miriam and I talk about the early days of her writing career, about how she thinks every new book she completes is her last, and about how she got to hold the Oscar for Women Talking for only about five seconds.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 Ira Wells. Ira’s work has appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, Literary Review of Canada, Los Angeles Review of Books, and many other publications. His books include Fighting Words: Polemics and Social Change in Literary Naturalism and Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. His most recent book is On Book Banning: Or, How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy, published by Biblioasis in 2025. That book is a finalist for the 2026 Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Quill & Quire called it “a testament to the life-altering power of books and ideas.” Ira and I talk about the sense of cultural fear and helplessness that seems to be behind the resurgence of book banning, about how his book was inspired, not by a conservative drive to ban books, but by a so-called “library audit” at a school in the heart of progressive Toronto, and about his return to biography for his next book project.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 Meredith Hambrock. Meredith’s debut book was the novel Other People’s Secrets. She has been a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and worked extensively in television, most recently in the writers’ room for the Canadian Screen Award–winning sitcom Corner Gas Animated. Her most recent book is She’s a Lamb!, published by ECW Press in 2025. Booklist called the novel “a dive into the mind of a deeply delusional woman,” and said it is “audacious and darkly funny.” Meredith and I talk about her habit of deleting entire manuscripts (not permanently) while they are in progress, about her love of dark comedy and her resistance to sticking to the rules of genre, and about her next book, which has a narrative hook so good, she had to make sure nobody else had thought of it already.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 Ethan Lou. Ethan is a journalist whose work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, The Guardian, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He is the opinion editor for the Globe and Mail’s business section. His first book, Field Notes from a Pandemic, was a finalist for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. His most recent book is Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West, published by ECW Press in 2021. Publishers Weekly called the book a “roller-coaster ride” and said that “readers interested in an in-the-trenches view of the Bitcoin world will appreciate Lou’s willingness to tell all.” Ethan and I talk about the current state of crypto culture, about how he ended up publishing two books in very quick succession, and about the going cost of illicit drugs on the dark web. 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 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.