What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

My guest on this episode is Russell Smith. Russell is the author of multiple novels and collections of short fiction, as well as one non-fiction book. His work has been nominated for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Award, the Rogers/Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Trillium Prize, the Chapters/Books In Canada First Novel Award, the City of Toronto Book Prize, and the Danuta Gleed Award. He is the editor of three story anthologies, and works as an acquiring editor for Dundurn Press. His most recent novel, Self Care, was published by Biblioasis in 2025. Kirkus Reviews called it “an uncomfortable, disturbing, and timely examination of relationships between men and women.”

Russell and I talk about the infamous and possibly apocryphal pitch letter that accompanied his very first novel, about how his very strong opinions as a writer and reader inform his work as an acquiring editor, and about the ways he feels the Canadian book world has sabotaged itself.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Elliott Gish. Elliott is a writer and librarian whose work has appeared in the Baltimore Review, Dark Matter, Grain, and the New Quarterly. Her debut novel, Grey Dog, was published by ECW Press in 2024. In a starred review of the novel, Publishers Weekly said “Gish’s prose is as sharp as a scalpel.”

Elliott and I talk about the impact a very nerdy-sounding historical summer camp had on her imagination, about why she’s not into writing horror stories set in the era of cellphones, and about why she’s both excited and a little concerned that her second novel will have far fewer horror elements than her first.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Jason Schneider. Jason has written for Exclaim!, the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, Paste, American Songwriter, Relix, Shindig and many other media outlets. His books include Whispering Pines: the Northern Roots of American Music, The Longest Suicide: The Authorized Biography of Art Bergmann, and the novel 3,000 Miles. He is the co-author of Have Not Been The Same: the CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995. His most recent two books are That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of ‘Hey Joe’ and Popular Music’s History of Violence, published by Anvil Press, and the novel The City Knows, published by Montag Press. Both books were published in 2025.

Jason and I talk about how he ended up publishing two books, in two different genres, in the same year, about turning a COVID-era deep dive into a single song into an entire book, and about how he is once again working on two books at once, in two different genres.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Jeannie Marshall. Jeannie is a nonfiction author, journalist, and former staff writer at the National Post. She has written for Maclean’s and the Walrus and has published literary nonfiction in The Common, the Literary Review of Canada, Brick, and elsewhere. Her first book was Outside the Box: Why Our Children Need Real Food, Not Food Products. Her most recent book is All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel, published by Biblioasis in 2023. Vanity Fair called the book “rich, meditative” and said “the book is part art history, part memoir; a case for slowing down, curiosity, a closer look.”

Jeannie and I talk about the early days of the National Post, about overcoming the skepticism of art historians who felt there was nothing new to say about the Sistine Chapel, and about how her new book project, a novel, fits in with her previous two books.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest on this episode is Emily Weedon. Emily is an award-winning screenwriter and author, whose first book was the novel Autokrator. Her most recent book is the novel Hemo Sapiens, which was published by Dundurn Press in 2025. Quill & Quire called the book “a fun and welcome addition to the vampire genre.”

Emily and I talk about the agent who advised her to change the male protagonist of her novel to a lesbian for no particular reason, about publishing two books in two years, and why she does not recommend doing that, and about the book world’s strange and contradictory relationship with hustle culture.

This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.