Get Lit

Hey all! Just got back from an incredible trip to Europe. I'm lucky to be able to do these things, lucky to have friends to draw us there (us being my family), and lucky that I could still continue to GET LIT while I was away. This week we chat with Hamilton-based author Maxie Dara about her novel, the first “S.C.Y.T.H.E. Mystery,” A Grim Reaper's Guide To Catching A Killer. Enjoy!

Hey all! Greg Rhyno‘s back on the show this week to talk about the second Dame Polara mystery, Who By Water. Enjoy!

Hey folks! Greetings from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. This week we talk to Sara Flemington about her novel, R.I.P. Scoot. Check out the show (and the book)!

Hey folks! I'm headed off on some adventures soon so I'll keep it brief. Today's show features author Tim Welsh, talking about his cool and fairly wild novel Ley Lines. Check it out!

Hey folks! Poets in the house today. My pal Chris Bailey joins us to talk about Forecast: Pretty Bleak, followed by the excellent Tolu Oloruntoba, discussing his latest, Unravel. Listen in.

Great conversation with my friend Jess Rose, Artistic Director for the super GritLit festival coming up this month in Hamilton. Lots happening this year, it promises to be a blast. Also, come see me and some great local authors!

This week! We talk to author Julie Salverson about her new book A Necessary Distance: Confessions of a Scriptwriter's Daughter. It's a blend of memoir, confessional, investigative journalism, biography, and more. Enjoy the show.

A pleasure to see fellow Hamiltonian and friend Amanda Leduc back in the studios. She joins us to talk about her newest novel, Wild Life. Please ignore the shoddy sound at the very start, it improves!

Hey folks! Double shot today. We speak with Kelly Watt about her collection The Weeping Degree, and then with Grant Douglas Linney about Outdoor Magic. Enjoy the show.

Hey everyone. Who'd have thought this would be an issue in 2025? Well. Ira Wells joins me to talk about his latest in the Biblioasis Field Notes series, On Book Banning: Or, How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy. Read it and listen in! But not necessarily in that order.

This week we have a great conversation with author Peter Darbyshire, about his reissued (and ongoing) Book of Cross series, especially the first one, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice since that's the one I read hahaha. Tune in! And also read on… Even if you've never actually listened to 93.3 FM or cfmu.ca the importance of local and independent media continues to expand. Here in Hamilton, local media has been hit so badly that, technically, CFMU/The Silhouette is the largest newsroom in Hamilton. I'm being serious. In a better world we'd have trained journalists and do more hard news (look for more of that, though, come September). In the meantime, we do the best we can with our amazing student staff and community/campus volunteers. We are NOT owned by a hedge fund company that'll cut us for lack of profit. We are NOT a talented, well-meaning blogger who simply can't keep up the pace or afford to quit the day job. We have resources. We can do more. BUT NOT WITHOUT YOUR HELP. PLEASE consider donating to 93.3 CFMU. We're not doing as well as we usually do because a few major donors had to scale back. We need the community to step up more than we ever have. $5. $10. $20. $30 gets you a Friends of CFMU card. Every bit helps. cfmu.ca/fundraising Thanks friends

This week we welcome J.R. McConvey back to the program to talk about his new sea monster/cosmic horror series-bound novel False Bodies. Thanks again for your support on last week's show with Jason Pargin, too!

would check out cracked.com, largely for the work of David Wong. His essays were hilarious, human, and insightful; he had a rational way of looking at the world that resonated deeply. Fast forward: cracked.com is not the same. The current top story is “29 Inopportune Times People Farted” (okay, the title did make me laugh, but it still suggests a downward slide). On the other hand, Wong – aka author Jason Pargin – has gone on to much success. He has written the John Dies At The End series, the first book of which as famously released for free on his blog (and made into a film by legend Don Coscarelli). Then came the successful Zoey Ashe series. Now he has published a stand-alone novel called I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom. It is one of my favourite books of 2024, if not the favourite. And I read about sixty books last year. It was strange to see Jason in horizontal format (I follow him on Tik Tok, what can I say) but a true pleasure to talk to him about this book. Which you should read. Now. Listen in!

Hey folks! It's been a long time since I last talked to author Zoe Whittall. Listen in to the great conversation with her about her latest, No Credit River.

Hey folks! This week we speak with author Jules Delorme about his latest, I Heard A Crow Before I Was Born. Hope you enjoy the show.

As I type this it's a brisk -17 degrees here in Hamilton, so stay warm and GET LIT with author Andrew Boden! We talk about his novel When We Were Ashes.  

This week our guest is Renée D. Bondy, here to talk about her novel, [non]disclosure. Hope you enjoy!

Hey everyone! On this week's episode, Mark Kingwell returns. We talk about his latest, Question Authority: A polemic about trust in five meditations.

We kick off 2025 with Nina Berkhout, talking about her latest, This Bright Dust. Thanks for listening!

Hey folks. Hope you're enjoying the season. If you're off for a few days you've got some time to catch up on GET LIT! This week's guest is the excellent Hollay Ghadery, talking about her collection, Widow Fantasies.

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, etc! It fast approaches. Hope you're all enjoying it. Today's guest is Rob McLennan, here to talk about his collection, On Beauty. Listen in.

He's baaaack! Gary Barwin joins us today for the (6th? 23rd?) time. We talk about his collection of short fiction, Scandal At The Alphorn Factory. Check it out!

Hey folks. Today we chat with the excellent Pasha Malla about All You Can Kill, a continuation of the story begun with his last novel, Kill the Mall. Hope you enjoy.

Hey folks! This week we talk with writer and author Jeffrey Round. His latest novel is The Sulphur Springs Cure (and for you Hamilton locals, it's set in Ancaster!). Enjoy the program.

Hey folks! Two of my favourite people on the show today. First up is Liz Worth, talking about her newest poetry collection Inside Every Dream, A Raging Sea. Then we talk with fellow music critic Steacy Easton about their 33 1/3 entry, White Limozeen. Very different books, very excellent people. Listen in!

Hey all! I first met Jarrett Mazza at the GritLit fest years ago, and now here's on the scene with not one but a whole series of books. Listen to our conversation here!

Hey folks! Great chat this with week Lynne Kutsukake about her novel The Art of Vanishing. Hope you enjoy!

What better day than Hallowe'en (yes, I like the apostrophe) to talk to Craig Davidson, aka Nick Cutter? The newest Cutter book, The Queen, hit in all the right spots for a horror fan like me. It's a heckuva ride. Highly recommended! Enjoy our conversation on Get Lit.

Hey all! Excellent double bill today with author Kit Dobson (author of We Are Already Ghosts) and my pal Ben Robinson (discussing his first collection of poetry, As Is). Tune in! Also: tune in on Hallowe'en for spooky seasonal programming – we talk horror with Nick Cutter!

Hey folks! Today's guest is author Ai Jiang. She's a Nebula winner and a Hugo nominee, which is amazing, but she's also just a great storyteller and a cool, humble person. Check out both her recent works, Linghun and I am AI - and check out our show!

Today on the show, we chat with journalist/columnist/author Elizabeth Renzetti about her collection of essays, What She Said: Conversations About Equality. Listen in!

Hey all! Fun interview with author Ben German Ghan, talking about his wildly inventive spec fic novel (if we have to classify it) The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits. Listen in!

Hey folks! Had a great chat with Sarah Henstra, author of The Lost Tarot. Tune in! Also: Oct 11 is my deadline for my novel's first crappy draft to be completed. Wish me luck.

  Today we talk with the Director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors, Roland Gulliver. The festival runs Sept 19 – 29. As an added bonus we chat with author Anuja Varghese about the LitLive reading series here in Hamilton. Enjoy the show.

Hey folks! This one's for the locals (or the folks willing to travel). Two great events coming up. This weekend, we have the Author's Tent at Supercrawl (Sept 13 - 15). Noelle Allen joins us to flesh out some of the details. Then we have Bailey Duff from the Telling Tales Festival, talking about their exciting event, focusing on lit for kids (Sept 21 & 22). Listen in! :D

Hey folks! Just back from adventures in Ontario's near north...September is upon us in mere days...things are bananas but there's still gonna be more Get Lit. Today's guest is filmmaker and author Lulu Keating, talking about their collection of stories, Splinter & Shard. Listen if you can!

This week on GET LIT we talk with Jeff Rubin. He's an economist and author and his newest book is A Map of the New Normal: How Inflation, War, and Sanctions Will Change Your World Forever. An extremely interesting read. Listen in!

Don't confuse the episode number with an "Error 404" okay? You might miss my conversation with Leslie Shimotakahara, who is here to talk about her latest, Sisters of the Spruce!

This week we have my pal Margaret Nowaczyk back on the show, to talk about her collection Marrow Memory: Essays of Discovery. Enjoy!

Autokrator is one of the most original books I've read in a while (also: thought-provoking, exciting, horrifying). That's why I wasn't surprised by how much enjoyed this conversation with author Emily A. Weedon. Check it out!

Hey folks! Today's guest is Avik Jain Chatlani, here to talk about his amazing (and occasionally harrowing) novel, This Country Is No Longer Yours. Enjoy the show.

FOUR HUNDRED, PEOPLE That's wild. As I mentioned on the show last week, I'm looking at winding the show down. The book-a-week reading pace has really interrupted my writing time. Then again, when I say “winding down” I mean…maybe episode 500? Which is about 100 books away? I imagine after I do that, I'll start up a new pod, likely about writing, but not likely on a weekly basis. In the meantime to celebrate 400 we have Shashi Bhat, here to talk about her excellent collection of stories, Death by A Thousand Cuts. I hope you like!

Hey folks! Today we talk with author Nicola Winstanley about her collection of stories, Smoke, New Zealand, and other fun things. Listen in!

Hey folks! Recovering from COVID over here. Good times. I'm OK though. Today we talk with Sheila James about her novel, Outcaste. Enjoy!

On today's show we chat with Lynne Golodner about her novel, Woman of Valor. After that, we're joined by Gerald Arthur Moore, to talk about his collection Flak Jacket. Enjoy the show!

Hey folks! Seems every time I read a Canadian horror book, I'm floored. Last time it was Andrew F. Sullivan‘s The Marigold. Now it's A.G.A. Wilmot‘s Withered. Big ups to ECW Press, I guess! It hit all my horror sweet spots (creepy spots?). Listen in as we discuss Withered, mental health, and horror stuff.

Today's show is a double-header. We welcome back David Eisenstadt, to talk about his book, Under the Radar: 36 Notable Canadian Jewish Performers. We also talk with J Andersen about his debut collection of stories and poems,  A Nasty Piece of Work Vol. 1. Hope you enjoy the show.

Welcome to this week's show! We had a great conversation with author Frankie Barnet, talking about their latest, Mood Swings. Listen in.

I've probably taken the Bruce Trail for granted, growing up in Hamilton, on the Niagara Escarpment. That might be different now, thanks to Nicola Ross and her book, 40 Days & 40 Hikes. Listen to our conversation this week on the show!

This week we chat with author Gwen Tuinman! Had a great conversation about her book Unrest (highly recommend it btw). Hope you're pre-summer is going well out there.