What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books

My guest on this episode is Maria Reva. Maria is an author and opera librettist whose debut book was the collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear. Her most recent book is the novel Endling, published by Knopf Canada in 2025. That book won the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Amazon First Novel Award. It was also nominated for The Booker Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award For Fiction, and the Climate Fiction Prize. The New York Times called it “startling and ambitious” and “a shining novel."

Maria and I talk about her finally coming to the end, sort of, of her time promoting her novel, about why she thinks some people get thrown by stories of trauma and tragedy that are also kinda funny, and about the file-naming trick she uses to boost her confidence while writing a book.

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 Marc Bendavid. Marc is an author and actor who has appeared on shows like Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Murdoch Mysteries, Dark Matter, and Reacher, as well as films such as Unholy Night, which came out earlier this year. His debut book is the The Sapling, which was published by Simon & Schuster Canada in 2025, and which recently won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for fiction. Author Liz Harmer called it “a gorgeous, subtle novel of an unconventional friendship developed out of a strange kinship, a love for art, and a desire to hold on to the beauty of the world.”

Marc and I talk about his dual existence as an award-winning literary author and a guy who appeared on multiple episodes of Reacher, about how his novel began as a kind of personal archival project, and about the messy but disciplined process he has committed to for what may become his next book.

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 Rachel Deutsch. Rachel is a writer, cartoonist, and illustrator whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, PRISM, The Pinch, McSweeney’s, Mother Tongue, Mutha Magazine, and in the popular newsletter ParentData by author Emily Oster. Her first book is the graphic memoir The Mother, published in 2025 by Douglas & McIntyre. Author Ashley Audrain called the book “profound, candid and wonderfully witty,” and “a tender self-reflection about the tumbling journey through early motherhood.”

Rachel and I talk about the creative tensions that sometimes arise between her illustrator side and her writer side, about why she has not re-read her graphic memoir since it was published, and about being surprised and a little heartened to discover that, even among her fellow New Yorker cartoonists, there is no shortage of imposter syndrome.

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 Thea Lim. Thea is a novelist and culture writer whose work has appeared in The Nation, the Paris Review, Guernica, The Guardian, Granta, The Walrus, and elsewhere. Her debut book was the novel The Same Woman, and her most recent is the novel An Ocean of Minutes, which was published by Penguin Canada in 2018 and was nominated for Canada Reads, the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, the ALA Reading List for Science Fiction, the Giller Prize, and the Sunburst Award. The Irish Times called it “a timely novel that brings a fresh perspective on the complex subjects of migration and displacement that plague our world today.”

Thea and I talk about an essay she wrote recently for The Walrus about the flattening of book culture, about why it’s been so long since her last book (spoiler: it’s because of kids and capitalism), and about her new novel, which is both a mystery story and a critical look at the realities of work.

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 Susan Holbrook. Susan is an author and poet whose works include ink earl, Throaty Wipes, Joy Is So Exhausting, and misled. She is also the author of How to Read (and Write About) Poetry and edited Intertidal: Daphne Marlatt - The Collected Earlier Poems and The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson: Composition as Conversation. Her work has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Book Award, the Trillium Award for Poetry, and the Pat Lowther Award. Her most recent book is Steamy: A Menopause Symptomology, published by Coach House Books in 2025. That book was shortlisted for a Warland Award. Author Suzette Mayr called it “a refreshing, irreverent, no-effs-left-to-give exploration and meditation on what it means to grow older and go through menopause.”

Susan and I talk about the chapbook she published a few years ago, in which she reinterpreted a number of classic poems using a calculator, about where her love of exploring the quirkiness of language first originated, and about her surprise, after having published what she thought was a funny book about menopause, at having readers starting to ask her for health advice.

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.