The Next Chapter Creators & Guests

Shelagh Rogers is a broadcast journalist. She is the host and producer of CBC Radio One's "The Next Chapter."Rogers began her broadcasting career at CFRC at Queen's University, and became a country music DJ at CKWS in Kingston while at university. She became a producer and host at CKWS. In 1980, became a local host for CBC Radio in Ottawa, and then host of the national classical concert program "Mostly Music." She moved to CBC Toronto, where she hosted local programs and contributed to national shows, including "Morningside," "The Max Ferguson Show," and "Basic Black." She has hosted the national shows such as "The Arts Tonight," "Take Five," and "This Morning," and "Sounds Like Canada." She also appeared on TVOntario's show "Imprint," and hosted "Saturday Night at the Movies."

David Bezmozgis is a writer and filmmaker. Currently, he is the Creative Director of the Humber School for Writers.Bezmozgis's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's and Zoetrope All-Story. His first book, the collection "Natasha and Other Stories," was published in 2004. He has published two collections and two novels. He has written and produced films, and produced a season of the television show "Orphan Black."David’s stories have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, Harpers, Zoetrope All-Story, and The Walrus.His books have been nominated for the Scotiabank/Giller Prize, The Governor-General's Award, the Trillium Prize and won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the National Jewish Book Award.​In the summer of 2010, David was included in The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 issue, celebrating the twenty most promising fiction writers under the age of forty.​A graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, David's first feature film, Victoria Day, premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. His second feature, was an adaptation of his story Natasha.

Chelsea Louise Polk is a fantasy fiction author. They are best known for their first novel, "Witchmark," which was published in 2018 and won the 2019 World Fantasy Award.

André Alexis is a novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He is best known for his Quincunx Cycle, a series of five novels.Alexis began his career in the theatre and was playwright-in-residence at the Canadian Stage ​Company.

Jesse Thistle is a Métis-Cree author and assistant professor in the Department of Humanities at York University in Toronto. He is the author of the best-selling memoir, From the Ashes. Thistle is an advocate for the homeless. He is a PhD candidate in the History program at York University where he is working on theories of intergenerational and historic trauma of the Métis people. This work, which involves reflections on his own previous struggles with addiction and homelessness, has been recognized as having wide impact on both the scholarly community and the greater public.

Naben Ruthnum is a writer. He has published under both his own name and the pen name Nathan Ripley.Previously, Ruthnum was a National Post books columnist, and has written book reviews and cultural criticism for the Globe and Mail, Hazlitt, and the Walrus.Ruthnum's crime fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Joyland. His first book, "Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race," was published in 2017.He won the Journey Prize in 2013 for his short story "Cinema Rex", and has since published the books Curry: Reading, Eating and Race (2017), a non-fiction essay collection about immigrant cultural identity in food and literature, and two literary thriller novels, Find You in the Dark and Your Life is Mine. Ruthnum's current novel, A Hero of Our Time, was published in January, 2022 and a novella, Helpmeet, was published in May, 2022.Originally from Kelowna, British Columbia, Ruthnum is of Mauritian descent. He has a master's degree from McGill University, where he wrote his thesis on the role of Oscar Wilde in the development of the ghost story in British literature.Outside of his literary work, Ruthnum is also a former musician, most notable as the founding guitarist for Bend Sinister, a Vancouver-based progressive rock band.

Cory Efram Doctorow is a blogger, journalist, and science fiction author. He serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing.

Kate Beaton is a Canadian comics artist and the creator of the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant.

Crime Lady. Columnist, New York Times Books. Author, SCOUNDREL & THE REAL LOLITA. Editor, UNSPEAKABLE ACTS & EVIDENCE OF THINGS SEEN. Next: WITHOUT CONSENT. She/her.

Madeline Ashby is an American-Canadian science fiction writer, best known for her novel Company Town, which was selected for the 2017 edition of Canada Reads.

Aida Edemariam is a journalist, writer, and editor. Currently, she is a senior feature writer and editor at The Guardian.Edemariam has reported in New York, Toronto and London. She was formerly deputy review and books editor of the Canadian National Post. Her first book, the memoir "The Wife's Tale: A Personal History," was published in 2018 and won the 2019 Ondaatje Prize.Edemariam studied English literature at Oxford University and the University of Toronto.

Miriam Toews is a writer and author.

Emma Donoghue is a playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. She is best known for Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.Donoghue received her B.A. in English and French from University College Dublin and her Ph.D. in English from Girton College at Cambridge.

Author of Fatty Legs, Decolonizing Unconquerable Dreamer

Pauline Dakin is a journalist and journalism professor, currently teaching at University of King's College. She is best known for her memoir, "Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood," which was published in 2017.Previously, Dakin was a producer of radio and television current affairs programming for CBC News in Nova Scotia.

Kim Fu is a writer of science fiction. They also teach writing, co-host the podcast "The Rough Puffs," and produce electronic music under the name DJ Foof.Fu's stories have appeared in the New York Times, Granta, the Atlantic, BOMB, Hazlitt, and the TLS. Their first novel, "For Today I Am a Boy," was published in 2014 and won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award. Their second novel, "The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore," was published in 2018. Their third book, the collection "Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century," was published in 2022.Kim Fu is the author of two novels, a collection of poetry, and most recently, the story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award and a finalist for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Fu has been longlisted for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize for mid-career authors.Fu’s first novel, It was also a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and the Lambda Literary Awards, as well as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her second novel, The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award.