Linda speaks with Métis playwright, actor, and director, Keith Barker about his play, This is How We Got Here (Playwrights Canada Press) It is a moving interview, as Barker explains the origins and shape of this play.

Linda also invites Barker to read from his play, which he does, selecting the first scene related to the fox figure (25.25).

In this episode, Linda begins by speaking about the kinds of assumptions made about her because of her Italian-Canadian immigrant background - and then expands that consideration to show how making such assumptions can actually be harmful. Case in point? The Christie-Pitts riot on August 16, 1933. There have been two graphic novels written about this riot: one simply titled Christie Pitts and the other titled The Good Fight.

This episode focuses on Amy Jones (2.13), author of Every Little Piece of Me (2.27), We're All in This Together (2.27), What Boys Like (2.37), and Pebble & Dove (2.45), published by McClelland & Stewart -- and the focus of this episode.

We also discussed Amy’s appearance at Word on the Street (.39 and 9.08) and her forthcoming appearance at the Eden Mills Literary Festival (5.12 and 8.53) on September 9th (see this link for tickets to the event). If you'd like to know more about how to support manatees and the seagrass programs that are important to their survival, visit the Save the Manatee Program.

In this episode, Linda first celebrates with her co-producer, Marco Timpano, that the podcast has been named a Finalist for the People's Choice Podcast Awards. Then she chats about the new Barbie movie around which there has been so much hype. She differentiates between change and transformation in relation to gender, and then applies this to the wonderful literary work of Vivek Shraya, including People Change. In the Takeaway, she connects Shani Mootoo's Cerebus Blooms at Night and Moving Foreward Sideways Like a Crab to the notion of transformation.

Erum Shazia Hasan’s We Meant Well (ECW Press) – Linda raves about this debut novel by Erum Shazia Hasan. In this novel, Maya’s colleague, Marc, has been accused of assaulting a local girl in Likanni, and so Maya is called from Los Angeles to deal with the crisis. The pressures are mounting for Maya as she tries to contend with this situation, grapple with her complex past, and grapple with her present personal life, which threatens to collapse. In this interview, Hasan talks about how difficult it is to doubt colleagues or people we like or trust, and who have done noble things – things which stand in contrast to the accusations that have been leveled at them.

Linda and Lisa Moore converse about her most recent novel, This is How We Love (House of Anansi). Their conversation traverses various subjects, including the formal aspects of the novel, the job of the novelist (5.40), questions of genre (6.40), the use of Audible, the importance of editors (with a nod to Melanie Little, Lisa's editor, 10.30)and the complexities of loving. One of the most fascinating turns in this discussion relates to Lisa's point about the democracy of loving and voice (8.40 and 27.23), her understanding that reading literature is an anti-capitalist endeavour (16.20). The interview is a wonderful introduction to a compelling, exquisite novel, in which every page is rich in detail and affective complexity.

As a fellow endo-patient, Linda makes herself vulnerable in this episode, talking frankly with the author, Tracey Lindeman, by whom she was so inspired. Lindeman, who authored Bleed: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care (published by ECW Press in 2023), uses personal experience, interviews, and research to take a deep dive into the healthcare system and the medical treatment (or lack thereof) of endo-patients.

In this episode, in honour of Mother’s Day, Linda considers four different books that feature discussions about mothers, in whatever form they assume. She tackles four different genres -- non-fiction, the short story, poetry, and a novel/thriller -- to consider how loving and caring actions are given and received - or withheld. The four works include: Hannah McGregor, A Sentimental Education (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 4.45); Margaret Atwood, Old Babes in the Wood (McClelland & Stewart, 11.04); Jenny Boychuk, Antonyms for Daughter (Signal, 13.53); Charlene Carr, Hold My Girl (Harper Collins, 16.23).
In the Takeaway, she recommends Kim Thúy's Secrets from my Vietnamese Kitchen: Simple Recipes from my Many Mothers (Penguin Random House, 19.05).

• Her guest, Bil Antoniou - Toronto theatre actor and podcast host of Bad Gay Movies and My Criterions - discusses with Linda a series of Canadian and Indigenous novels that have been adapted to the screen, including the most recent Oscar award-winning movie, Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley (original novel by Miriam Toews). They also discuss the following:

• Yann Martel's Life of Pi (Knopf)

• Jane Rule's The Desert of the Heart (Talon)

• Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient (Penguin Random House)

• and Mordecai Richler's Barney Version (Penguin Random House)
  
  The winner of the adaptation award? Listen to find out!

Linda begins by taking up The Hockey Jersey (1.48; 3.15; 3.22) by Jael Richardson (1.58; 4.45; 26.17; 28.38), whom she interviews in this episode. The Hockey Jersey is a kind of response to The Hockey Sweater by Quebecois writer, Roch Carrier (4.18; 10.15; 14.55). Written in collaboration with the Toronto-based hockey player, Eva Perron (31.37), and with illustrations by Chelsea Charles (6.18), this book was the source of discussion between Linda and Richardson for this episode and how this children’s book, commissioned and supported by Scotiabank (3.20; 4.07, 5.42, 7.22), is directed toward changing the face of hockey.

In this episode, Linda interviews Jason Camlot about his new collection of poetry, Vlarf - and it includes references to all manner of Victorian writing/writers, such as the following:

• Oscar Wilde

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• John Ruskin

  While there is much play and whimsy in this episode, it takes a deep dive into what went into making this collection of Victorianist flarf (and what "flarf" actually is).

Linda doesn't care if she has to take less sunscreen when she goes on vacation - if it means she gets to pack an extra couple of books. What books would she recommend? Listen to find out!

Linda also references Mordecai Richler (at 3.43 and 13.20) and Alice Munro (4.36), the production of MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and MacDonald's term as the inaugural Mordecai Richler writer in residence at Concordia University. Check out MacDonald's “Dispatches” from the latter period, which are downright funny, offering welcome critique of Richler's masculinist tendencies.

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 …

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.

In this episode of Getting Lit With Linda, the guests over the course of the 2022 year offer their reading recommendations and their wishes to you for the holidays--including Stephen Collis, Ali Hassan, Terri Favro, Gillian Sze, Marco Timpano, Amanda Barker, Isabella Wang, Amy Spurway, Chantel Lavoie, and Kate Ready. This is our second-last episode of the season (one more before December 31) before we sign off for a break--we will be back at the end of February 2023 for Season Four!


Warmest holiday wishes to all!

In this episode, Linda considers the moment she came across the handwritten memoir of Jane Rule at the University of British Columbia Archives and Rare books. She considers the idea of "discovering" or "divining" in the archive and how that relates to meeting poet and instructor, Sheryda Warrener, who invited her to look at the work of her students during one of Linda's visits to the archive. Two poets from that exhibit--Graeme Kennedy and MacKenzie Sewell--are highlighted in this episode, along with Warrener and her collection, Test Piece (Coach House Books, 2022). The other students who took that class are Bayleigh Marelj, Sinead Tebbutt, Stephanie Okoli, Faria Malik, Ava Kucharski, and Charis Young.

In this episode, Linda begins with a reflection on the “weight of Atlas” in relation to Greek mythology (no, not the band “The Weight of Atlas” that did a cover of one of Taylor Swift’s songs) and how we use it in the present. She ties that reflection to the themes of Amy Spurway’s Crow (Goose Lane Books), winner of the "IPPY Award for Best First Book - Fiction and Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Fiction" and the subject of this episode. The narrator, also named Crow, has returned back to her home on the East Coast of Canada, where she must learn that adapting to her environment is no longer enough—real transformation is required, which happens when one puts down the weight--our past baggage--that one has been unnecessarily carrying.

What does it really mean to be haunted? Is being haunted always a sinister experience? For this Hallowe'en episode, Linda considers memory and loss, trauma, the nature of haunting, and feeling haunted.

In this episode, Linda reflects on a strike in which she was a participant and the real complexities of its participants and affiliated institutions as a way into Kevin Lambert's marvellous new book, Querelle of Roberval (Biblioasis). Invoking the proportions and form of Greek tragedy, Lambert locates the conflict of this book in a small town in Quebec and shows how its participants all have complex motivations for their actions--including hatred, lust, and revenge.

Is there Bacon in Heaven? Maybe – but there’s certainly bacon on earth, Ali Hassan reminds us, and he enjoys it—and he doesn’t mean it simply literally either. In his new book--a memoir titled Is There Bacon in Heaven? (Simon & Schuster) -- he looks at what is good here on earth and how to locate those moments of goodness—in addition to those of humour and comedy and joy. In this interview, Linda and he talk about the fundamentals of his memoir, the boundaries of comedy, and the power of humour—to restore relationships and connect us meaningfully to others.