What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

My guest on this episode is Jon Klassen. Jon is the creator of beloved, bestselling and award-winning “hat” serious of picture books: I Want My Hat Back, This Is Not My Hat, and We Found a Hat, in addition to The Rock from the Sky, and The Skull. He has also worked as an illustrator for many other authors’ books, as well as for feature animated films, music videos, and editorial pieces. His most recent book(s) are a series of board...

My guest on this episode is Chelene Knight. Chelene is the author of the collection Braided Skin, the memoir Dear Current Occupant, which won the Vancouver Book Award, the novel Junie, which also won the Vancouver Book Award, and the self-help memoir Let It Go. Chelene’s most recent book is Safekeeping: A Writer’s Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love, published by House of Anansi in early 2025. Author Kai Thomas called it ...

My guest on this episode is Jason Logan. Jason is an artist, graphic designer, and ink maker, and the founder of the Toronto Ink Company. He is the author of the books If We Ever Break Up, This Is My Book, iGeneration, Festus, and Make Ink: A Forager's Guide to Natural Inkmaking. He is the subject of the 2022 documentary The Colour of Ink, which premiered at that year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Jason’s most recent ...

My guest on this episode is Glenn Dixon. Glenn is an author and former educator whose work has appeared in National Geographic, the New York Post, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and Psychology Today. His books include the travel memoirs Tripping the World Fantastic, Pilgrim in the Palace of Words, and Juliet’s Answer, which was a national bestseller and has been published in twelve countries. His most recent book is the novel Boot...

My guest on this episode is Aviva Rubin. Aviva is an author and essayist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Toronto Life, amongst other places. She is the author of the memoirs Tomorrow was Always Too Late For Me and Lost and Found in Lymphomaland. Her most recent book is the novel WHITE, published by re:books in 2024. Kirkus Reviews called it “a provocative exploration of the ti...

My guest on this special live episode is Anne Michaels. Anne is an internationally award-winning novelist whose books have been translated into more than forty-five languages. She is the winner of the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Trillium Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize and twice for t...

My guest on this episode is Steve Paikin. Steve is an author, journalist, and broadcaster who hosted TVO’s nightly current affairs show The Agenda for 19 years, until that show ended earlier this summer. He is an officer of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario, and the author of eight books. His most recent book, John Turner: An Intimate Biography of Canada's 17th Prime Minister, was published by Sutherland House i...

My guest on this episode is Valérie Bah. Valérie is a multidisciplinary Québécois artist, filmmaker, documentarian, photographer, and writer whose first book was the collection The Rage Letters, translated from the French and published by Metonymy Press. Valérie’s most recent book is their first novel (and first book in English) Subterrane. That book was published by Véhicule Press in 2024 and was the winner of the Amazon Canada Fi...

My guest on this episode is Leanne Toshiko Simpson. Leanne is an author and educator who co-founded a reflective writing program at Canada’s largest mental health hospital and teaches at the University of Toronto. Her debut is the novel Never Been Better, published by HarperCollins Canada in 2024. That book recently won the KOBO Emerging Writer Prize in the category of Romance. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called the novel “...

My guest on this episode is Natalie Zina Walschots. Natalie is an author, game designer and journalist whose books include two poetry collections, DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains and Thumbscrews. Her most recent book is the novel Hench, published by HarperCollins in 2021. That book was a finalist on Canada Reads and was nominated for a Locus Award for Best First Novel. The New York Times called it “witty and inventive.”

Nat...

My guest on this episode is Michelle Good. Michelle’s first book, the novel Five Little Indians, won the HarperCollins/UBC Best New Fiction Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award, the Evergreen Award, the City of Vancouver Book of the Year Award, and even Canada Reads. Her most recent book, Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous life in Canada ...

My guest on this episode is Michael Crummey. Michael is the author of seven books of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a half-dozen novels, all of which have won and/or been shortlisted for major literary prizes, including the Giller, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. His most recent novel, The Adversary, was published in 20...

My guest on this episode is Teresa Wong. Teresa is an author and artist whose work has appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and The Walrus. Her first book, the graphic novel Dear Scarlet, was longlisted for CBC Canada Reads. Her most recent book is the graphic novel All Our Ordinary Stories, published in 2024 by Arsenal Pulp Press. It was also longlisted for Canada Reads, and won two Alberta Literary Awards. (NB: a...

My guest on this episode is Kerry Clare. Kerry is the author of the novels Mitzi Bytes and Waiting for a Star to Fall and the editor of The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood, Kerry also edits the Canadian books website 49thShelf.com, is host of the BOOKSPO podcast, and writes about books and reading at her longtime blog, Pickle Me This. Kerry’s most recent book is the novel Asking for a Friend, published by Doubleday Canada in...

My guest on this episode is Sid Sharp. Sid is an artist and illustrator whose debut graphic novel for young readers, The Wolf Suit, was featured in Best of the Year lists by the New York Public Library, School Library Journal, and The Globe and Mail, and has been translated into French, German, and Italian. Their most recent graphic novel, Bog Myrtle, was published in 2024 by Annick Press, and was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standa...

My guest on this episode is John Lorinc. John is a journalist and editor who writes regularly for places like the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Walrus, and Spacing Magazine, where he is a senior editor. His previous books include The New City and Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias. He has also contributed to, co-edited, or project-managed a number of essay anthologies for Coach House Bo...

My guest on this episode is Charlie Angus. Charlie is a politician, musician, and author who has published nine books, including Unlikely Radicals, Children of the Broken Treaty, and Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower, which was shortlisted for the Trillium Prize. Charlie served in the Canadian Parliament for more than twenty years, representing the riding of Timmins—James Bay as a member of the N...

My guest on this episode is C.S. Richardson. C.S. Richardson is an award-winning book designer who worked in book publishing for more than forty years, and an author whose first novel, The End of the Alphabet, was an international bestseller, published in fourteen countries and ten languages, and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Canada and the Caribbean). His second novel, The Emperor of Paris, was a national...

My guest on this episode is Carol Off. Carol is an author, journalist, and broadcaster who spent almost sixteen years co-hosting the multi-award-winning CBC radio program, As It Happens. Before that, she covered news and current affairs in Canada and around the world. Her books include The Lion, The Fox and the Eagle, The Ghosts of Medak Pocket, Bitter Chocolate, and All We Leave Behind, which won the British Columbia National Awar...