Kobo in Conversation

Over the next few weeks we'll be sharing recordings of live interviews conducted at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre as part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors.

The first of these features international bestselling author Marian Keyes speaking about her pandemic project, Again, Rachel, the unexpected (to her) sequel to her breakout 90s bestseller Rachel's Holiday.

We spoke with Marian back in 2020 as well: Marian Keyes on getting older... but never feeling grown up

We were joined by actor, playwright, and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of the international bestseller Fall on Your Knees, to talk about her new novel, Fayne, a work of historical fiction about a girl named Charlotte, her father Henry, a painting of Charlotte's late mother and infant brother—and a secret that lies between them.

Ann-Marie MacDonald on staying open to surprise.

We spoke with Chief Robert Joseph, a Hereditary chief of the Gwawaenuk First Nation and honourary witness to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission about his new book Namwayut: A Pathway to Reconciliation. In the book and in this episode, Chief Joseph shares an intimate view of his own life while making an impassioned plea to readers to embrace vulnerability, summon the courage to recognize truth and trauma, and take steps towards reconciliation.

Chief Robert Joseph on the need and desire for reconciliation

Novelist Hernan Diaz is a professor at Columbia University and the author of In the Distance, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. We spoke with him about a range of topics that inform his new novel Trust, a fractured, multi-layered book about the life and ambitions of the fictional tycoon Andrew Bevel.

Hernan Diaz on power, truth, and Trust.

Deon Meyer is the author of The Dark Flood, the newest installment in his Benny Griessel series of detective novels set in South Africa. We spoke with Deon as part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors' Mystery & Crime Festival: MOTIVE.

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Enjoy this conversation with non-fiction thriller author Ben Mezrich, author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House about his new historical fiction novel The Midnight Ride, which started out as a wildly ambitious project taken up in the early days of the pandemic. We spoke with Ben as part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors' Mystery & Crime Festival: MOTIVE.

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We spoke with Cory Silverberg, educator, entrepreneur, researcher, and author of the books What Makes a Baby, Sex is a Funny Word, and the new book, You Know, Sex. These books are approachable and factual guides to sex and bodies, but also grown-up feelings, experiences, and all kinds of stuff that can be really hard for anyone to talk about. Supported by Fiona Smyth's vivid and playful illustrations, Cory Silverberg's writing always finds a humane and plain-spoken way to explain everything from the functioning of reproductive organs to the nuances of consent and everything else anybody could want to know about how to use their body.

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Some listeners may recognize the voice of our guest Elamin Abdelmahmoud from the CBC podcasts Party Lines and Pop Chat. He joined us to talk about his new book, Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces in which he writes movingly of his relationship to his personal elsewhere, the Sudanese city of Khartoum from which he came to Kingston, Ontario as a child. He also writes beautifully about his passion for country music and affinity for the American South, and mounts a convincing defense of the much-maligned musical genre known as Nu Metal.

In the course of our conversation he snuck into the interviewer's seat, proving just how much he wants to know about everyone's story about their own personal elsewhere—and what their favourite Carly Rae Jepsen song is.

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We were joined by science writer Riley Black, author of several bestsellers on paleontology including My Beloved Brontosaurus, Written in Stone, and Skeleton Keys. And if you've read literally anything anywhere about dinosaurs in the last decade, you've probably happened upon pieces by her in National Geographic, WIRED, Smithsonian Magazine, and Scientific American.

Her new book is The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World. It's a richly narrated story that starts with the end of the world, and also depicts the beginnings of the world where our mammal forebears would learn to thrive—and it represents a new beginning for the author as well.

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Sheila Heti is a novelist, playwright, and former interviews editor for the literary magazine The Believer. We spoke with her (and her dog Feldman) about her new novel Pure Colour and how her novels come into being.

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