Getting Lit with Linda - The Canadian Literature Podcast

Season 4 opens with Linda's announcement of the podcast's new website and then shifts to a discussion about her literary journey - how she came to focus first on Canadian literature and then Indigenous literatures, which all started with a vital conversation. Her first book in the latter field was Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach - and it was a game-changer, sending her off to read and understand a field about which she knew very little when she started her post-graduate studies. With brief nods to Robinson's extraordinary trajectory of writing (including Son of a Trickster), Linda explains why this novel remains a personal favourite. In the Takeaway, she addresses the fact that there is a corresponding movie for Monkey Beach, which has an ending that is arguably different than that of the novel - or is it? You'll have to read the novel and watch the film to know why ....

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Linda informs listeners of a slight change in this year's scheduling of podcast episodes - but otherwise, welcome listeners to Season 4 of Getting Lit With Linda!

Written by Linda Morra

Co-produced by Linda Morra & Marco Timpano

Music by Raphael Krux.

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In this last episode of the season, Linda considers how empathy is often considered a function of literature and may be ideally represented -- as it is in Catherine Hernandez's Scarborough published by Arsenal Pulp Press. In order to explore how this should work, she considers the Classical orator, Cicero (and Aristotle's Poetics and Horace's Ars Poetica) to show how there is a long tradition of arguing that rhetoric and "good literature" should be able to teach, to delight, and to move us.

Other highlights include:

• references to Brené Brown (2.30)
• the difference between empathy and sympathy (2.45)
• literature and empathy (3.00)
• references to Cicero, Aristotle, Horace (4.05)
• discussion of Hernandez's Scarborough (5.40)

In the Takeaway, she considers the novel - a thriller - Truth is a Flightless Bird by Akbar Hussain and published by Iskanchi Press. And then she offers her best wishes for the new year.

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In this episode of Getting Lit With Linda, the guests over the course of the 2022 year offer their reading recommendations and their wishes to you for the holidays--including Stephen Collis, Ali Hassan, Terri Favro, Gillian Sze, Marco Timpano, Amanda Barker, Isabella Wang, Amy Spurway, Chantel Lavoie, and Kate Ready. This is our second-last episode of the season (one more before December 31) before we sign off for a break--we will be back at the end of February 2023 for Season Four!

Warmest holiday wishes to all!

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In this episode, Linda considers the moment she came across the handwritten memoir of Jane Rule at the University of British Columbia Archives and Rare books. She considers the idea of "discovering" or "divining" in the archive and how that relates to meeting poet and instructor, Sheryda Warrener, who invited her to look at the work of her students during one of Linda's visits to the archive. Two poets from that exhibit--Graeme Kennedy and MacKenzie Sewell--are highlighted in this episode, along with Warrener and her collection, Test Piece (Coach House Books, 2022). The other students who took that class are Bayleigh Marelj, Sinead Tebbutt, Stephanie Okoli, Faria Malik, Ava Kucharski, and Charis Young.

Episode highlights:

• the nature of "discovery" and "divining"
• the importance of process (over "creative product")
• a consideration of ekphrasis

In the Takeaway, she recommends Montreal's Salon du Livre, taking place in Montreal at the moment of this episode's release - and tonight's event (as part of "Salon Dans La Ville"), Sean Michaels and David Mitchell (hosted by the Quebec Writers' Federation) at the Atwater Library.

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** Explicit language in this episode

Linda opens this episode on a celebratory note – the fact that Getting Lit with Linda won in the category of Outstanding Education Series in the Canadian Podcast Awards. We are grateful to our listeners, voters, and guests on the show! (And Linda recommends reaching out to her producer, Marco Timpano, if you want more information about podcasting in general!)

In this episode, Linda begins with a reflection on the “weight of Atlas” in relation to Greek mythology (no, not the band “The Weight of Atlas” that did a cover of one of Taylor Swift’s songs) and how we use it in the present. She ties that reflection to the themes of Amy Spurway’s Crow (Goose Lane Books), winner of the "IPPY Award for Best First Book - Fiction and Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Fiction" and  the subject of this episode. The narrator, also named Crow, has returned back to her home on the East Coast of Canada, where she must learn that adapting to her environment is no longer enough—real transformation is required, which happens when one puts down the weight--our past baggage--that one has been unnecessarily carrying. The episode also involves:

• Linda's promise to examine other East Coast writers, like Michael Crummey, Lisa Moore, Joel Thomas Hynes, Donna Morrissey, and Alistair MacLeod (5.35);
• Discussions about Spurway’s Crow (GooseLane Books), with selections from the audiobook, available on Kobo (6.07);
• references to authors Heather O'Neill and Kevin Lambert and their rendering of class (12.43).

In the Takeaway (15.10), Linda discusses with actor and audiobook narrator, Amanda Barker, about what is involved in this kind of work—and especially in relation to Crow, for which she was the reader.

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What does it really mean to be haunted? Is being haunted always a sinister experience? For this Hallowe'en episode, Linda considers

• memory and loss
• trauma
• and the nature of haunting and feeling haunted

She considers, for example, Emily Bronte's nineteenth-century British novel Wuthering Heights (and Kate Bush's song, "Wuthering Heights" based on the novel) or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as examples outside of literature in Canada. But then she counts down to her top five books that either haunt her or delineate haunting experiences.

Which five works of literature in Canada make the cut? You'll have to listen to find out ...

In the "Takeaway" section, she recommends Miram Toews' All My Puny Sorrows - an extraordinary novel that challenges us about what our responsibility to others is and means.

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In this episode, Linda reflects on a strike in which she was a participant and the real complexities of its participants and affiliated institutions as a way into Kevin Lambert's marvellous new book, Querelle of Roberval (Biblioasis). Invoking the proportions and form of Greek tragedy, Lambert locates the conflict of this book in a small town in Quebec and shows how its participants all have complex motivations for their actions--including hatred, lust, and revenge.

In the Takeaway, Linda highly recommends a column by Casey Plett called "Balls Out: A Column on Being Transgendered" (which appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency.), a poignant and engaging series about the process of transitioning.

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Is there Bacon in Heaven? Maybe – but there’s certainly bacon on earth, Ali Hassan reminds us, and he enjoys it—and he doesn’t mean it simply literally either. In his new book--a memoir titled Is There Bacon in Heaven? (Simon & Schuster) -- he looks at what is good here on earth and how to locate those moments of goodness—in addition to those of humour and comedy and joy. In this interview, Linda and he talk about the fundamentals of his memoir, the boundaries of comedy, and the power of humour—to restore relationships and connect us meaningfully to others.

Some of the topics we broach?:

• 9/11 and crossing the border;
• the purposes of comedy;
• the difference between writing for the page and for the stage.

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Ever wonder what was the "first" book of Canadian literature? How do we even know how to define what that would be? In this episode, Linda chats with eighteenth-century British literature scholar, Dr. Kathryn Ready, about what is sometimes claimed as the first book of Canadian literature--Frances Brooke's The History of Emily Montague. Linda and Dr. Ready may -- or may not -- have tussled over whether this book is British or Canadian, but what they absolutely do is consider the finer aspects of the novel and its global investments.

Linda opens with a consideration of "firsts" (referencing Abbott and Costello's comedy routine, "Who's on First?," 1.05) and then turns to Dr. Ready who speaks about the following:

• epistolary narratives, tradition of letter-writing (4.25; 5.15)
• Samuel Richardson's Pamela (4.35, 6.30)
• Frances Brooke (8.25)
• travel writing (11.25)
• aesthetic of the sublime and beautiful (11.40)
• the Seven Years War (12.05)

And so much more ....

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