Alberta's Badlands, the world's largest dinosaur bone repository, set the eerie stage for Corinna Chong's novel Bad Land. It follows a loner whose family secrets, like the ancient bones buried deep beneath the earth, are destined to be uncovered. Corinna talks to Mattea Roach about drawing from her own life to bring flawed characters and complicate…

Everything and Nothing At All by Jenny Heijun Wills is an essay collection where the author reflects on her experiences as a transnational adoptee. Jenny was born in Korea and was adopted by a white Canadian family in southwestern Ontario when she was nine months old. Twenty years ago, she reconnected with her Korean birth family. She talks to Matt…

In Matt Haig's latest bestseller, The Life Impossible, a retired math teacher goes on a Spanish adventure after inheriting a house on Ibiza. But things on the island aren't quite what they seem. For Matt, the story's surrealist elements mirror aspects of his own journey through depression and mental illness — and coming through it with new ideas ab…

Poet Aldona Dziedziejko's Ice Safety Chart: Fragments is a beautiful, experimental essay about different moments from Aldona's life in the Northwest Territories. The writer, who now lives in Alberta, spoke to Mattea Roach about their life, literary inspirations and her big win.

Casey McQuiston is a blockbuster queer romance author who hit it big with their 2016 novel Red, White and Royal Blue. Casey’s latest is The Pairing, about childhood friends-turned-exes who reconnect on a sexy European adventure. Casey has an open conversation with Mattea Roach about queer love, blending joy with sadness and what the future holds fo…

Annie Carpenter's life was upended by colonialism, the Indian Act and the residential school system. For 80 years, her family tried to find out what happened to her. Now, journalist and filmmaker Tanya Talaga is telling her great-great grandmother's story in her new book and documentary series, The Knowing. She talks to Mattea Roach about the strug…

When Alison McCreesh was 21, she left her Quebec hometown and hitchhiked to the Yukon searching for something she couldn't quite put her finger on — and hasn't left. She talks to Mattea Roach about her graphic novel Degrees of Separation, which reflects on the everyday lives of people in the North... and how it's changed during her time there.…

The Paris-based Turkish writer spoke with Mattea Roach about her new novel, The Anthropologists, which centers on a young immigrant couple in an unnamed city, navigating love, friendships and the guilt of being away from family.

Sloane Crosley’s jewelry was stolen from her home, and one month later, her best friend, Russell, died. She writes about these experiences in the memoir Grief is For People, which is witty and heartbreaking. Sloane joined Mattea Roach to talk about her grief, her best friend and writing about it all.…

The novel Oil People is about a family in southwestern Ontario with deep connections to the oil industry. Oil is their present-day livelihood and heritage, but it might also be poisoning them physically and spiritually. David Huebert speaks to Mattea Roach about writing Oil People.

Heather O'Neill is an icon in Canadian literature who has won a ton of awards. And now she has a new novel. It’s called The Capital of Dreams and it’s about the influence of art and literature on our lives. It follows 14-year-old Sofia as she hunts for her mother’s lost manuscript during the chaos of war. Heather speaks to Mattea Roach about her la…

Iranian American writer Kaveh Akbar and his novel Martyr! are everywhere these days. Martyr! made the New York Times bestseller list and several summer reading lists, including Barack Obama's. Drawing on Kaveh's own experience with addiction and recovery, it's about Cyrus, a 20-something Iranian American poet who’s in the early years of sobriety. C…

When the book ends, the conversation begins. Mattea Roach speaks with writers who have something to say about their work, the world and our place in it. You'll always walk away with big questions to ponder and new books to read. Beginning Sept. 8 on CBC.

For the conclusion of Writers and Company, the tables are turned and author Madeleine Thien interviews Eleanor Wachtel. Recorded at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal last spring, Thien speaks with Eleanor about her early life in Montreal, memorable moments from her career and more. They also look back on Eleanor's conv…

The Scottish author reflects on the stories she grew up with, the influence of feminism and how time moves in circular patterns. Ali Smith has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize four times. Her 2014 novel How to Be Both won the Women's Prize for fiction and the Costa Book Award for novel. She spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2018 about the first tw…

The American architect, known for challenging the idea of form, reflects on his life and the experiences that shape his work, from his days as a lieutenant in the Korean War to his time studying in Europe. He founded the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and is the author of several books on architecture and design, including Lateness. P…

The American novelist draws on her experience growing up in an interracial family in her edgy, prize-winning fiction. Raised with an acute black consciousness, during a time when "'mixed' wasn't an option; you were either black or white," Senna brings an awareness — and astute analysis — of class, race and identity to all her writing. She spoke wit…

Novelist and biographer Francine du Plessix Gray reflects on the fascinating lives of her parents in her memoir, Them, which follows their journey from the artistic Russian émigré community of 1930s Paris to the top of New York's high society. The memoir won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Francine du Plessix Gray was…

Born during the Depression in Lockport, New York, Joyce Carol Oates started writing as a teen and has since written more than one hundred books, many of them portraying the darkness of American society. Her writing has earned her virtually every major American literary prize, as well as Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Grand Prix in 2012. After accepting…

The Indian journalist and novelist writes stories that are autobiographical and revealing. Kumar joined Eleanor Wachtel in 2018 to talk about his book Immigrant, Montana - a mix of fiction, memory, politics and the pursuit of romance. Kumar's new novel is called My Beloved Life.

Even though Edna O’Brien left Ireland more than 50 years ago, the texture and atmosphere of the country continue to permeate her work. Her first seven books were banned or suppressed in Ireland. In fact her debut novel, The Country Girls, was burned in her home parish for depicting the ambitions and sexual desires of young women. Today, O'Brien is …

In 2018, Eleanor Wachtel went to New York City to interview one of North America's most renowned and daring creative pioneers, Laurie Anderson. The multimedia artist and musician had just published her retrospective book, All the Things I Lost in the Flood, inspired by the devastation of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which destroyed Anderson's archive o…

This week, for Pride season, the Oscar-nominated playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner. Known most recently for his movie collaborations with Steven Spielberg, including Lincoln, Westside Story and The Fablemans, Kushner's breakout hit was his epic play Angels in America, the winner of multiple Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize, among many other awards…

This week, American Canadian novelist Claire Messud. Throughout her career and in her new book, This Strange Eventful History, one of TIME’s most anticipated of 2024, Messud draws on her own family's history, especially that of her French Algerian father. In 2001 she spoke with Eleanor about her novel The Last Life, which traces three generations o…

In honour of the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Eleanor Wachtel revisits her 2005 conversation with one of his biographers, Nicholas Murray.

Germany's Jenny Erpenbeck is the winner of the International Booker Prize 2024 for her novel Kairos, translated by Michael Hofmann. She spoke with Eleanor Wachtel, who chaired the International Booker Prize jury, in 2015 about The End of Days, an imaginative story that spans the 20th century through the eyes of a character who lives multiple versio…

The British born author moved to New York in 2008 to write a book set in sixteenth-century India. But he was drawn to write about America, focusing on life in the city and the Mojave Desert in his two novels White Tears and Gods Without Men. Hari Kunzru spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2017 from New York…

Jackie Kay’s adoption as a baby, and investigation into her birth parents — a Nigerian father and Scottish mother — give her an original take on Scotland and cultural identity. Jackie Kay talked about her uncomfortable discoveries upon meeting her birth parents, as well as her two books, Wish I Was Here and Darling: New and Selected Poems, when she…

In 2004, just before she won the Scotiabank Giller Prize (for the second time) for her story collection, Runaway, Alice Munro met Eleanor Wachtel at a restaurant near the author's home to discuss her new book, her interest in writing about infidelity and sex and her life growing up in Wingham, Ontario. The acclaimed Canadian short story writer, and…

Paul Auster spoke with Eleanor Wachtel about his novel Oracle Night, the ways in which reality and fiction blend and how coincidences shape our lives at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal in 2004. The writer of The New York Trilogy, Leviathan and 4 3 2 1, among many other books, was best known for his postmodernist fiction and meta-n…

From his childhood in San Francisco's sand dunes to sitting in French cafes with Philip Glass and Samuel Beckett, Richard Serra reflects on his life and work during a 2011 conversation with Eleanor Wachtel. Best known for his evocative and monumental steel structures, you can find Serra's sculptural works all over the world, including his piece Tit…

This week on Writers and Company, British poet Raymond Antrobus. Antrobus spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2019 about his collection, The Perseverance, which explores his complicated relationship with his late father and growing up deaf.