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The writer and journalist Jowita Bydlowska discusses her new memoir Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After (Signal, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Unshaming

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

In 2013, Jowita Bydlowska published a critically acclaimed and bestselling memoir, Drunk Mom. The book was hailed and criticised for its honesty and candour. She explored her addiction to alcohol, and being a new mother. I talked to her about the book, and wished her well. As we read in her new book, Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After, being a poster child for recovery put a lot of pressure on her. It was hard to cope, and when she spiraling into alcoholism, it was difficult coming back up and out, especially with the expectations of readers, and her growing son. The book is raw and often unsparing as Ms. Bydlowska explores the intricacies of shame, illustrating with her own behaviour and the feelings that accompany this harrowing journey. She works through a lot in the book, and provides something helpful for the reader, whether it’s the space to work through one’s own expectations, or how to have conversations with people who are contending with addiction issues. Jowita Bydlowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to Canada as a teenager. The second half of the book narrates two trips back to Poland that Jowita takes, and it’s fascinating to see her reconciling her past and present, especially when she’s in the throes of booze again. Visit www.jowitabydlowska.com for more. This new book is published by Signal, which is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart. We spoke a week and a half ago, with Jowita joining me from Toronto. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Jowita Bydlowska; Ms. Bydlowska, good morning.  

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The writer Theresa Kishkan discusses her new memoir The Art of Looking Back: A Painter, An Obsession, and Reclaiming the Gaze (Thornapple Press, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Art of Looking Back

Text of the introduction by Joseph Plana:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

Theresa Kishkan joins me again. She’s just published a fascinating, captivating memoir, The Art of Looking Back: A Painter, An Obsession, and Reclaiming the Gaze. At the age of 23, she’d just finished school and was still living with her parents in Victoria. She was about to go to Europe for an extended time, but just before she meets and models for the artist Jack Wilkinson. He had been a member of The Limners, a group of artists who came together in the 1960s, not just painters like Wilkinson, but also sculptors, ceramicists, and other visual artists, including Maxwell Bates, Myfanwy Pavelic, Robert De Castro, and Robin Skelton, among others. Theresa knew some of them socially, so it wasn’t like Wilkinson was a stranger. He soon pursues Theresa as a model, and in candid and often personal letters proposes much more than an artist/muse relationship. He’s married, but he claims the marriage is ending. She’s not interested in any of this of course, but she doesn’t say much. She leaves for Europe, and when she comes back years later with a husband, John Pass, and children, he finds her and the letters continue. The book explores how in retrospect, she realises the incongruity of it all. She sees on rereading the letters how inappropriate Wilkinson was, especially when he propositions Theresa, but also when he discusses the earlier obsession he had with his daughter. The book is awfully timely, as our culture tries to reckon with the destructive male gaze, and try to do away with revenge porn, something that’s similar in how Wilkinson depicts Theresa in his art. Theresa is candid in the book about how the portrait of her in Wilkinson’s art has not been something she’s reconciled with, despite the piece that’s on the cover of the book, hangs in her home, something she’d see on a daily basis. I’ll ask her about the work she’s gone through to get to the place of addressing this important part of her life, and the ongoing relationship we have with the art of artists who are not just complicated but problematic. Visit www.theresakishkan.com for her website, and her regular blog. Theresa Kishkan is the author of sixteen books which include books of memoir, essays, poetry, and novellas. This new book is published by Thornapple Press. We spoke earlier this month, with Theresa joining me from her home on the Sechelt Peninsula. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Theresa Kishkan; Ms. Kishkan, good morning.  

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The former executive director of the Powell Street Festival Emiko Morita discusses the new book she’s edited Return to Paueru Gai: Fifty Years of Vancouver’s Powell Street Festival (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Return to Paueru Gai

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

Since 1977, with only a couple of interruptions, the pandemic and a relocation elsewhere in Vancouver, the Powell Street Festival in and around Oppenheimer Park has gathered varied people each August. The festival came about to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the first Japanese immigrant’s arrival in Canada, though later who that person was and when was found out to be somebody else and a little later. Nevertheless, a committee of volunteers, organisers, activists and artists came together to form a committee to organise a street festival, among them was the artist and activist Tamio Wakayama, the recent subject of a documentary by Cindy Mochizuki, and an exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. His art, many of the annual posters of the festival, as well his photographs, are part of a new book on the annual festival, Return to Paueru Gai: Fifty Years of Vancouver’s Powell Street Festival. The book’s editor Emiko Morita joins me now to talk about the book, and the festival that she was executive director of from 2015 to 2024. The book is a wonderful documentation of the challenges of organising a festival, as well as the sights and sounds, smells and even tastes of the two-day event. You can see dramatic photographs of dancing, sumo wrestling, drumming. As well, you’ll read about the activism and commemoration at the heart of the festival, that it has always been a community event for Japanese, but also for people of the Downtown Eastside, and beyond. It’s always been key that people living there today not be displaced for or during the festival, like the Japanese were during the internment of the Second World War. The book features essays by Musqueam Elder Mary Point, the seniors of Tonari Gumi (the Japanese Community Volunteers Association), Julia Aoki, Charlie Smith, Angela May, and members of the Japanese Canadian Art and Activism Project. The book is published by Arsenal Pulp Press. We taped this interview two weeks ago. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Emiko Morita; Ms. Morita, good morning.

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The writer Sam Wiebe discusses his latest novel, the sixth in the Wakeland series, Guns Across the River (Harbour Publishing, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Guns Across the River

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

Sam Wiebe joins me again. The celebrated and bestselling author has a new novel out, it’s the sixth in the Wakeland series, Guns Across the River. It’s been ten years now since private investigator Dave Wakeland first appeared. I’ll ask Sam about this fascinating character and what it’s like revisiting him. Dave rescues somebody who’s jumped off the Granville Bridge into False Creek, near the houseboat that Dave finds himself living on. He’s drawn into the world of Nicola Havoc, curious as to why she jumped. It’s not an attempted suicide as he’ll soon find out, as she’s running away from somebody. Dave and his partner Jeff Chen are pulled into a case that takes them throughout Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. There’s a billion-dollar scandal, and a gun-running operation. I’ll get Sam to tell us as much as he’d like about this new novel, as well as the Metro Vancouver he depicts. Sam Wiebe is the bestselling author of Ocean Drive, as the Wakeland novels, including Sunset and Jericho, and The Last Exile. His work has won the Crime Writers of Canada Award, the Kobo Emerging Writers prize, and a silver medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. He has been shortlisted for the Edgar, Hammett, Shamus, and City of Vancouver book prizes. Visit www.samwiebe.com for more. This new book is published by Harbour. We spoke two and a half weeks ago, with Sam joining me from his home in New Westminster. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Sam Wiebe; Mr. Wiebe, good morning.

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The author and artist Nathalie De Los Santos discusses the new collection she’s co-edited (with Dani Alcalde-Sidloski, Asia Alcalde-Sidloski, Marian Bolaños) Gathering Our Breath: Remembering Lapu Lapu Day 2025 (Sampaguita Press, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click for information on how to get the book: FilCanBookFest

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

Nathalie De Los Santos joins me again. She and Dani Alcalde-Sidloski, Asia Alcalde-Sidloski, and Maria Bolaños are the editors of a new poetry collection, Gathering Our Breath: Remembering Lapu Lapu Day 2025. They sought submissions from various writers, artists, photographers, musicians, artisans, and educators not just from Vancouver, but across Turtle Island. The collection, which the four editors self-funded, features different forms of creative expression, reflecting on the loss and mourning that touched the Filipino community in Vancouver and beyond following the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy on 26 April 2025. The list of contributors to the book include writers and artists that might be familiar to many, but also include first-time writers, providing a showcase for their work. There is an event this Sunday, 17 May 2026 at the Museum of Vancouver, 1.00pm to 3.30pm, where copies will be available to the Vancouver community for free. You can get a digital PDF of the collection at www.filcanbookfest.com. And on that site, you can also reserve a physical copy and donate towards their next print run. Nathalie’s own site is at www.natdls.com. We spoke two weeks ago. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Nathalie De Los Santos; Ms. De Los Santos, good morning.  

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The photographer and artist Michelle Leone Huisman discusses her exhibit Vapes & Butts (06 May-06 June 2026, Gallery 881), with Joseph Planta.

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

Tonight, at Gallery 881 in Vancouver, and running until June 6, 2026 is the new exhibit from the acclaimed photographer and artist Michelle Leone Huisman, Vapes & Butts. The new body of work takes the discarded remnants of contemporary life, and turns them into images of haunted beauty and permanence. There are 22 richly layered photographs in this exhibit and they depict the battered vape pods and cigarette butts we see all too often on our streets. Michelle, who joins me now, sees these on her walks, and safely and carefully picks them up and through her lens offers a reflection on symbols of addiction, consumption, pollution and ritual. These are expensive habits, and they’re reduced to trash. I’ll ask Michelle about what she sees when she finds these things, and the art that emerges. She’ll talk about the work of Irving Penn, and how his work speaks to her. I’ll ask Michelle about the platinum palladium printing process she uses. There will be an artist talk at Gallery 881, Saturday, 23 May 2026 at 2pm, 881 East Hastings Street. Visit www.michellehuisman.com for more. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Michele Leone Huisman; Ms. Huisman, good morning.  

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The poet and educator Elizabeth Bachinsky discusses her new collection Real Grownup (Nightwood Editions, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Real Grownup

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

Elizabeth Bachinsky joins me again. She was last on the program in 2013 when her previous poetry collection, The Hottest Summer in Recorded History was published. She has just published a new collection, Real Grownup. It’s a collection of poems that draw from experiences in Elizabeth’s life, as well as her childhood. In a way, the collection reflects the growing up she’s done. She’s given birth, is raising a child, contends with loss, death, as well as joy. There’s sex too. There’s humour and honesty, acceptance and relief. I’ll ask Liz about some of the feelings she works through in her work, like remembering people who were once in her life. I’ll ask her about writing, and teaching. Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of six books of poetry including Home of Sudden Service (2006) which was nominated for a Governor General’s Award, and God of Missed Connections (2009), which was nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the KOBZAR Book Award, and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. She teaches creative writing at Douglas College. This new collection is published by Nightwood Editions. She joined me from her home in New Westminster, when we spoke two and a half weeks ago. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Elizabeth Bachinsky; Ms. Bachinsky, good morning.

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The filmmaker Min Sook Lee discusses her documentary There Are No Words (having its BC premiere at the DOXA Festival, Sunday, 03 May 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

When my guest now, Min Sook Lee was 12 years old, her mother Song Ji Lee died by suicide. This is some nearly forty-five years ago now, and there aren’t many people who knew her mother from the 1970s and 1980s when Min Sook was growing up in Toronto, let alone when her mother was younger in Hwasun, South Korea. The last direct connection to her mother is her father, now 90-years old, who admittedly, Min Sook hasn’t had a particularly close connection. In fact, it was the isolation of the pandemic that made all of this urgent for Min Sook, as I’ll ask her about. The result is the documentary There Are No Words, which is having its British Columbia premiere. Her father worked for the national intelligence agency under the dictator Park Chung Hee. So, perhaps because of that work her father isn’t necessarily reliable as a narrator. Add to that, years of abuse, that her mother and she and her siblings suffered at his hands. There’s distance between Min Sook and her father, and it’s also linguistic and generational. It’s regional too, considering where her parents were from in Korea and the dialect he spoke. There’s class involved too as a result, and the shadow of her father’s militarism as well as the Cold War intelligence culture in which he worked darkens a lot of their family’s history. I’ll ask Min Sook, who joined me from Toronto last week, about the portrait of her mother that she’s gained as a result of making this film, and the complications of her relationship with her father. It’s a gripping story. It screens this Sunday afternoon at 2.45pm at the SFU Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, 149 West Hastings. It’s part of this year’s DOXA Festival. Visit www.doxfestival.ca for tickets and information. There Are No Words is a National Film Board of Canada production. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Min Sook Lee; Min Sook, good morning. 

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The writer Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho discusses her debut memoir The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street (Douglas & McIntyre, 2026), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

One of the best reads of the season, of the year frankly, is the debut memoir of Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho, The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street. In the book, she recounts coming to Canada with her parents and her four siblings. She’s the youngest of the children and it’s through her eyes we see what it was like for this young family from Taiwan to settle in Vancouver in the early 1980s. It’s a different sort of city then as now, but it’s still familiar to a lot of us. The political situation in Taiwan is what brings Wiley’s family here, and once here, it’s economic pressures, as well as social ones that precipitate Wiley’s parents returning to Taiwan, while the children stayed here. The book reflects the isolation that the family faces in Canada, racism of course, as well as the economic reality as Wiley’s father, a doctor, couldn’t practice here, while her mother, who ran the family hospital in Taiwan, was at home most of the time, unable to converse with the neighbours. And what might have been a few years, turns into a prolonged absence. Sure, her parents come back to visit, but by the time she’s out of university herself, the parents never really come back. In fact, three of Wiley’s sisters, get their education and then go back to Taiwan to get married. Not Wiley, and this opens another part of the memoir where there’s friction between Wiley’s independence, her parenting choices, and her mother’s insistence that she find a husband preferably one she’s suggested. It’s such an engaging book, that features many family dramas, but also a lot of laughs. I enjoyed the book a lot. Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho has published short stories and personal essays in PRISM International, Ricepaper Magazine, River Teeth, Room, and several anthologies. She was a finalist for the 2021 Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award. The book is published by Douglas & McIntyre. She joined me from North Vancouver last week. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho; Ms. Ho, good morning.

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The journalist, writer and playwright David Macfarlane discusses his new book On Sports (Biblioasis, 2026), the latest in the Biblioasis Field Notes series, with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: On Sports

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

David Macfarlane joins me now. He’s just written the latest in the Biblioasis Field Notes series, On Sports. It’s a fascinating rumination on the sports we seemingly all watch, and the complicated relationship we have because of the money involved. It’s not just the high salaries athletes command or the higher ticket prices to pay those salaries, but there’s the added layer of gambling that has objectively ruined the experience of sports. I happen to like gambling on sport, which is one of the reasons I started watching games on television or in person, even, after all these years, listening to them on the radio. But this newfound interest on sport on my part, is a marked departure from having little or no interest in hockey or baseball or American football or the myriad of offerings one can place a wager on. And it’s the experience of watching sports has changed whether at home or in the arena. We’re also looking at our phones watching the betting lines change, and at home on the television screen itself or on the various sports news broadcasts, wagering points are as much mentioned as the actual score of the game. Money does, as Mr. Macfarlane writes in this new book, fuck things up. There are some memorable figures that David writes about in this book, including Harold Ballard, and his friend, Alison Gordon, the late baseball writer. I’ll also ask David about fighting in hockey, the PWHL, and the demands that we place on athletes. A fine writer himself, David writes about the marvellous writers he grew up reading, who add so much to the enjoyment of the game. David Macfarlane is a journalist, author and playwright. His memoir The Danger Tree was described by Christopher Hitchens as “one of the finest and most intriguing miniature elegies that I have read in many a year.” His novel Summer Gone was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Visit www.davidmacfarlanewriter.com for more. He lives in Toronto, where he joined me from a week and a half ago. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, David Macfarlane; Mr. Macfarlane, good morning. 

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