New Books in Literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with award-winning author Nancy Jo Cullen about her new novel, Dish (Wolsak & Wynn, 2026).

In this smart, sexy romp of a novel, Nancy Jo Cullen explores the joys of second chances – at life and at love.

Frida Davis-Lefebvre is back in her hometown of Lakeland, BC, sober and recovering from the sale of her popular, but debt-ridden, Toronto restaurant La Grange before she heads off to greener pastures when things get complicated. It’s hard enough settling in at home with her mothers, but then Perry, the sperm donor she’s never met, moves onto her mothers’ property to recover from his own difficulties and Frida discovers that her still-hot ex-fiancé, Charlie, is working at the hotel restaurant that just hired her. For his part, Perry is just trying to patch his life together enough to get back to the big city where he knows he belongs, until he is caught up in the whirl of the Davis-Lefebvre family and this young woman he finds an unexpected connection with. As Frida explores a frenemies-with-benefits situation with Charlie and Perry finds himself drawn into dog sitting for the local film producer and picking up his paintbrush for the first time in years, they both start to question the paths they had planned for themselves and whether or not what they really want is right in front of them.

Nancy Jo Cullen’s poetry and fiction have appeared in several Canadian literary journals and anthologies, including Journey: Celebrating the Journey Prize. She is the 2010 recipient for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers. Her first novel, The Western Alienation Merit Badge, was shortlisted for the 2020 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Her second novel, Dish, is forthcoming in the fall of 2026 with Wolsak & Wynn. Nancy Jo Cullen has published a collection of short stories, Canary, with Biblioasis and four collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Nothing Will Save Your Life, was published by Wolsak & Wynn in 2022.

Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com. 

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In upstate New York in 2001, nine-year-old twins Sabina and Camilla spend the summer weathering the moods of their erratic mother while finding themselves pulled toward diverging interests: Sabina into the mystery of their absent French father and Camilla into burgeoning popularity. But their lives are shaken up by the arrival of an Arab French family across the street. Thrilled by what she sees as a link to the country of her origins, Sabina attempts to befriend the family’s son, Khalil, and is rebuffed for reasons she doesn’t understand.

Yet as the twins and Khalil come of age, they are drawn into a tense and ever-shifting triangular dynamic. As Sabina strives to find her father and make sense of her mother, as Camilla confronts whether the power she held in youth translates to adulthood, and as Khalil reckons with the psychological fallout of a family tragedy, their paths converge in ways both surprising and inevitable. Bookended by events with global resonance, Mistranslation (U Iowa Press, 2026) is a continent-spanning chronicle of family, inheritance, and the reverberations of the choices we do—or don’t—make.

Madeleine Moss grew up in Ithaca, New York, and holds a degree in French literature from Cornell University. She received her MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis in 2020 and currently lives in Strasbourg, France. 

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Meg Reid and Will Evans join Mesha Maren to consider what makes up a literary ecosystem. As leaders of two nonprofit independent presses,Hub City Writers Project and Deep Vellum Press, Meg and Will describe their roles as publishers, booksellers, community builders, and advocates working with the many interconnected players in publishing: writers, readers, translators, critics, librarians, distributors, and funders. They discuss how independent presses create literary infrastructure by staying rooted in their communities, building relationships with readers, and making space for voices and stories that might otherwise be overlooked.

The conversation turns to the impact of consolidation across the publishing industry and the effects of a marketplace increasingly shaped by scale. Will explains how Deep Vellum’s origins were tied to a concern that conglomeration was narrowing access to translated literature—and how that same narrowing affects writers and readers in local communities. Meg reflects on Hub City’s intentionally small publishing model and the ways independent presses can offer an alternative built around people rather than volume. Together, they explore the possibilities of a more diverse literary landscape, one where readers are invited to discover books beyond the dominant channels.

From bookstores to distribution networks, Meg and Will unpack the systems that determine how books reach readers. They discuss why independent presses have increasingly opened their own bookstores, how distribution consolidation affects which books appear on shelves, and why availability in a warehouse does not necessarily mean availability in a bookstore. They also examine the difficult economics behind publishing: inventory costs, shipping, print runs, pricing, and the challenge of keeping books accessible while sustaining small presses.

Closing with the announcement of the Literary Arts Fund’s first round of grants, Meg and Will reflect on what sustained philanthropic investment could mean for literary nonprofits. They describe the importance of long-term support that allows presses to take risks, deepen community work, and collaborate across the literary field. For both publishers, the future of books depends on strengthening the connections among all parts of the ecosystem—and finding ways to invite more people into it.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Meg Reid, Hub City Writers Project
• Will Evans, Deep Vellum Press
• Dan Sinykin, scholar and author of Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature and American Literature & the Long Downturn
• Ingram
• Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
• Two Dollar Radio
• Milkweed Editions
• Center for the Art of Translation
• Two Lines Press
• The Literary Arts Fund
• Mellon Foundation
• National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

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“I hear whispers: Have you seen her? The woman who is not a woman, she is a walking museum. Have you seen her wares?”

The narrator of SL Carroll’s radiant debut leads an empty life in a small town until she is employed to catalogue the Museum's collection. She has never seen anyone rewrite their bones the way the Museum has, until they are hardly bones at all. Obsession takes hold and the Museum's display case body inhabits her mind. In an attempt to duplicate the Museum's existence, the narrator secretly begins collecting objects of her own. Can she curate an authentic collection, balancing her own desires with her increasing responsibilities to the Museum?

The Art of Conjuring (Terrazzo Editions, 2026) is a lyric and whimsical novella that probes the boundaries of femininity, friendship, and the fine line between obsession and inspiration. 

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Malon Edwards about his book, If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes (Fireside Fiction Company, 2023). 

“Electric Resurrection. Born again perfection. The six-zero correction.”

For the last decade, Malon Edwards has been spinning out a world where humans have conquered death but still haven't bothered to take care of the living. Where resurrection is the ultimate commodity—if you're rich enough, powerful enough, and white enough to buy in.

If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories collects 10 cyberpunk dispatches, including a brand-new, epic rap novella. On offer is a guided tour of an independent Chicago, a beacon of Black excellence that is done with the ever-hostile State of Illinois showing its ass.

Your guides are a little rough around the edges: hackers and assassins, thieves and grieving parents, elders and teenagers. Don't fret. These people will take good care of you, so long as you mind yourself.

Welcome to the Sovereign State of Chicago.

About Malon Edwards:

Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, I now live in the Greater Toronto Area. I write mostly short stories with a speculative fiction bent - horror, fantasy, steampunk, science fiction - but more often than not, you'll find a blend of genres in my writing.

Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and is a 2026 Giller Prize finalist. Her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Hollay was also featured on the cover of issue 10 of The Ampersand Review. Learn more about Hollay here.  

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Taylor D. Lott's The Stitches Between Us (Hawes & Jenkins, 2025) tells the story of Theo, a quiet, imaginative boy growing up in a home where sensitivity is punished and creativity is met with cruelty. He learns early to retreat inward, expressing what he cannot say through fabric, sketches, and observation. In a world that leaves little room for softness, Theo finds refuge in Danielle-unguarded, curious, and gently defiant. She recognizes his talent without trying to reshape him, and their connection becomes a fragile lifeline. Something fractures that lifeline. What once grounded Theo is slipping away, leaving him unmoored and overwhelmed. As the pressure inside his home mounts and the one place he felt seen becomes unreachable, Theo is pushed toward a breaking point. A final confrontation with his father sends him fleeing into the night, abandoning his family without explanation. Years later, Theo's older brother Noah built a successful career as a respected journalist, known for reporting on war zones, global crises, and international diplomacy. When he is assigned to cover a high-profile fashion show in Paris, he enters a world he doesn't understand-and one that feels disturbingly familiar. Recognition comes quietly. There is no announcement. No reunion. Only an unspoken awareness beneath the bright lights of Paris and the shadows of the past. As Noah navigates the spectacle surrounding the show, he must decide what kind of witness he wants to be: whether to turn private survival into public spectacle, or to protect a truth someone fought desperately to keep buried.

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Joanna Cockerline about her acclaimed novel, Still (The Porcupine's Quill, 2025).

Longlisted for the Giller Prize, Still is the story of Kayla, who lives and works on the streets of Kelowna, Canada, and of Little Zoe, a woman working in the sex trade who is missing. Set in a vibrant and diverse community of people living unhoused, the novel explores sex work, street life, the opioid crisis, what it means to survive, and what it means to find a home-especially in one's self.

As Kayla-whose past is darker than she tells-searches for her missing friend, she also uncovers much about her own life. The novel delves into both the pain and resiliency of childhood, with flashbacks to Kayla's past with horses and how she came to be on the streets. Kayla also becomes friends with an outreach volunteer struggling with postpartum depression, alcohol abuse, and bipolar-yet who yearns to rekindle her passion for photography and share it with Kayla.

The book considers what home means, how picture-perfect lives are not always what they seem, how different forms of community are possible, and how we can tell the stories that are ourselves. It asks what it means to be missing and what we can-and cannot-go back to. Ultimately, Still is a story of community, friendship, resilience, and hope.

Joanna Cockerline is a a CBC Literary Awards prizewinner who has been published in national and international journals and magazines such as Room, The Fiddlehead, En Route, and International Human Rights Arts. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022.

Joanna earned her BA and MA in Literature at the University of Guelph and completed a graduate program at the Humber School for Writers with two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey.

She co-authored the short story collection Seeing Our Sisters alongside Kenyan authors in The Girlship collective in 2024. She is actively at work on her next novel.

A long-time street outreach volunteer with an organization that won the City of Kelowna Volunteer Organization of the Year Award, Joanna has recently co-founded a street outreach organization dedicated to the unhoused community and, particularly, street-level sex workers.

Joanna lives with her family in the traditional, unceded Syilx Okanagan Territory of Kelowna, BC, where she teaches literature, communications, and creative writing at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan.

Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Learn more about Hollay here. 

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Su Chang, author of The Immortal Woman (House of Anansi, 2025). 

A sweeping generational story of heartbreak, resilience, and yearning, revealing an insider’s view of the fractured lives of Chinese immigrants and those they leave behind. 

Lemei, once a student Red Guard leader in 1960s Shanghai and a journalist at a state newspaper, was involved in a brutal act of violence during the Tiananmen Square protests and lost all hope for her country. Her daughter, Lin, is a student at an American university on a mission to become a true Westerner. She tirelessly erases her birth identity, abandons her Chinese suitor, and pursues a white lover, all the while haunted by the scars of her upbringing. Following China’s meteoric rise, Lemei is slowly dragged into a nationalistic perspective that stuns Lin. Their final confrontation results in tragic consequences, but ultimately, offers hope for a better future. By turns wry and lyrical, The Immortal Woman reminds us to hold tight to our humanity at any cost.

SU CHANG is a Chinese Canadian writer. Born and raised in Shanghai, she is the daughter of a former (reluctant) Red Guard leader. Her fiction has been recognized in Prairie Fire’s Short Fiction Contest, the Canadian Authors Association (Toronto) National Writing Contest, the ILS/Fence Fiction Contest, and the Masters Review’s Novel Excerpt Contest, among others.

Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Hollay was also featured on the cover of issue 10 of The Ampersand Review. Learn more about Hollay here.  

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Robin Blackburn McBride about her novel, River of Dreams (Guernica Editions, 2026).

A near-tragic accident. A life-changing phenomenon. A calling she couldn't foresee. Toronto, 1914. Avery Conlon's world turns upside down in an instant. Overhearing a comment that casts doubt on her blood ties with the mother raising her, the despairing twelve-year-old runs away--but ends up falling through a river of ice. Dragged out and on the edge of death, she awakens with secret, heightened powers of perception... and a vision of a strange woman. Learning to navigate her new abilities to sense what others cannot, and dreaming repeatedly of a mysterious silvery boy, Avery vows to track down the truth of her past. As a young adult in the 1920s, she becomes a nurse at a hospital for the insane where her gift for healing leads to possible answers about her mother, Avery's second sight, and whether her uncertain future can include real love. Will Avery step into her greatest destiny? In this enthralling narrative of one woman's journey, author Robin Blackburn McBride explores the power of intuition and giving voice to the silenced. And as the character grows from a vulnerable young girl to a strong person seeking to take charge of her fate, readers will delight in this suspenseful tale of self-discovery and romance. River of Dreams is a captivating work of metaphysical fiction. If you like feminist themes, historical settings, and elements of the supernatural, then you'll treasure Robin Blackburn McBride's enchanting story.

Robin Blackburn McBride is the author of two novels, River of Dreams and The Shining Fragments, and book of poetry, In Green, all published by Guernica Editions. Her short stories and poems have appeared in a variety of North American literary magazines. Find Robin on Substack at Awakening Wonder.

Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Hollay was also featured on the cover of issue 10 of The Ampersand Review. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.  

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Now I'm Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself (Black Lawrence Press, 2026) is a collection of ten playfully strange and unsettling stories, some realistic and some surreal. The characters in these pages feel alienated: from their communities and relationships, on the streets of wealthy suburbs, at the doctor's office, in classrooms and swimming pools, in their own homes and their own skin. They wonder: is it better to be alone, imagining the life you want, as fantastic and strange as you wish, or is it better to be in the real world with real people, even if that means you might be hurt, embarrassed, and misunderstood? What if the intensity of it all feels equally threatening and glorious?

In these stories, an angry father wishes he could be loving and gentle; a seven-year-old girl wants to be better at school and thin like her sister; an uncoordinated, awkward teenager is training to be an Olympic athlete. What would happen, we are left to wonder, if these characters brought their wild sides out into the light? What if they stopped trying to be normal?
 

Jill Rosenberg is a graduate of Vassar College and the MFA Program at the University of Montana. Her fiction has been published by the Kenyon Review, Swamp Pink, Black Warrior Review, and other journals. She currently writes and teaches in Montclair, New Jersey, where she also works with rescued cats and practices practicing Buddhism.

Recommended Books:

• Paul Russell, Sea of Tranquility
• Margo Steines, Brutalities

Chris Holmes is Professor of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. 

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