Hi folks! I’m taking a mini-vacation this week, so I’m going to keep this brief! Today’s show features author Grace O’Connell. We talk about her new(ish) novel, Be Ready for the Lightning. Super book, tore through it in record time as I was enjoying it so much. Enjoy the show!
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GET LIT E34 with David Layton
Summer fun is exhausting. Yet I manage to plug away at the new book! In the meantime I understand The Captain of Kinnoull Hill is finally going to be reviewed…I’ll obviously be posting that when it happens 🙂
In the meantime, this week’s show. I spoke with David Layton about his new book The Dictator. He’s a successful author of fiction and memoir, a creative writing teacher, and if you want historical context, the son of famous poet Irving Layton (and, fun fact, Leonard Cohen was his godfather). Enjoy!
Get Lit E32 with Mark Sampson
Hi everyone, hope your summer is going. Here in southern Ontario, the weather’s decidedly unsummery many days, but at least you can leave the house without risking frostbite, so my complaints are fairly muted.
Work on the new novel continues. Waking early in the morning is far less painful now. The new pain is one some of you know all too well – grant applications. The Canada Council generously offers grants for research and creation, so I’m applying for one of those to cover the costs of heading to Japan for research. I missed the deadline that would have me approved/declined in September, but I’m going whether or not I get the grant, so I’m going to apply and find out if I get money in March. Why not. Still, grant writing. Ugh.
Today’s show is a great one because it features Mark Sampson, poet and author of Sad Peninsula and The Slip, his most recent novel (with Dundurn Press). I met Mark at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference, as we share a publisher (not Dundurn, but Palimpsest). I’m happy to have had the privilege. There’s also that weird little bit of serendipity involving his wife Rebecca Rosenblum, which you might recall from episode 25.
You’ll also notice that there’s a weird technical glitch two or three minutes from the end. Turns out you can work in a place for almost twenty years and still forget about the existence of an important power switch (and, hence, not think about it when your guest back his chair into it).
Enjoy the show!
Get Lit Episode 12 with Shanthi Sekaran
Happy Thursday! Time for another edition of Get Lit. Shanthi Sekaran is a Berkeley author whose latest, Lucky Boy, came out with Putnam/Penguin Canada. I enjoyed this book immensely, I hope you do as well.
E08 with DAVID LEE
Feature interview with author David Lee. His book The Midnight Games is based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft…sort of? Also, Lee wrote a book about Ornette Coleman, so, instant cred.
Enjoy!
E07 with SEAN MICHAELS
Hey folks!
In the early days of this program, I wasn’t swamped with wonderful reading material as I am today. This is one of the few examples of a filler – i.e. when I took a past interview and “turned it into” an episode of Get Let.
But what filler! 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels!
I had the distinct pleasure of working, however briefly, with Sean Michaels. As he runs the music blog Said the Gramophone, he’s considered a music journo; as Program Director at CFMU and freelancer, I am the same. As such, we’re both on the jury for the Polaris Music Prize. In 2013, the year of the “controversial” Godspeed You! Black Emperor win, both Sean and I were on the grand jury. He was “working on a book” at the time and was remarkably modest about it, even though that book turned out to be the fabulous Us Conductors. If you watched the Gillers that year, that look of shock on his face when he won? 100% genuine. A humble fellow and a cool dude.
Anyhow, I interviewed him a propos of nothing, and here it is now, repackaged as episode seven of Get Lit. Dig!
E06 with ANDREW BAULCOMB
Hey folks! This show features my pal and fellow Hamilton music enthusiast Andrew Baulcomb, talking about his music history/memoir, Evenings and Weekends. Enjoy.
E05 with JOWITA BYDLOWSKA
Jowita Bydlowska gained fame and a bit of notoriety with her memoir Drunk Mum. Her hilarious (yet also pointed and critical) novel, Guy, is available through Hamilton’s Wolsak and Wynn!
E04 with NOELLE ALLEN from WOLSAK AND WYNN
If you’re doing a Hamilton-based literary show/podcast, you have to talk to Noelle Allen. Wolsak and Wynn is the city’s premiere independent publisher and it was a pleasure to talk to Noelle about the house. Noelle is also a tireless supporter of the Hamilton lit scene and is actually the reason I’m published!
You see, Noelle’s one of those publishers who actually takes the time to help you out even though she can’t publish your book. When I first sent The Captain of Kinnoull Hill to publishers (after all the nation’s agencies turned me down, of course), I was overwhelmed at the number of publishers. I decided, for my own sanity, to start local and move outwards. Noelle wasn’t able to publish me, but she thought there was something there, and suggested publishers A, B and C. I sent it to A. A made me an offer. So, Noelle clearly rocks.
Hope you dig.
E03 with EMILY SASO
Back when I first started out on this “published author” gig, I got to travel to Midland, ON to be part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. It was a travellin’ roadshow kinda deal, a reading featuring myself, Jowita Bydlowska, and Emily Saso. Emily and I swapped books and that’s how I discovered her amazing novel The Weather Inside. You should check it out if you have not already, and keep an eye out for new work from her. She is boss.