Farzana Doctor's new novel, Seven, juggles family, history, culture, and the incredible weight of those forces on women today. It's a detective story and travel novel, and a powerful insight into a woman struggling with sex, identity, her past,

...after 99 Episodes

Sep 4th, 2020 58m 46s

It's been over two years since host Ben Charland kicked off this podcast in a basement in Kingston, Ontario. After nearly 100 fascinating conversations about everything from the mafia to the water supply, from science to philosophy, we're revis

...with Changing Cities

Aug 21st, 2020 59m 1s

The one thing that doesn't change about cities is the fact that they are constantly changing. Most people now live in cities, transforming them with their consumer behaviour, their culture, their ideas and their advocacy. City planners have to

...with Creativity, Music and Politics during COVID-19

Aug 7th, 2020 1h 2m

The coronavirus pandemic is altering our lives in ways we cannot yet comprehend, and in decades we will marvel at this transformative time. COVID-19 is not just accelerating trends that were in place beforehand, but it is creating new realities

...with Kingston WritersFest (Ep. 97)

Jul 24th, 2020 1h 10m

What makes a book interesting? Beautiful? Provocative? Necessary? Is reading still the best way to get a message across and tell a good story, and how is it changing in our world today? The Kingston WritersFest is one of Canada's premiere liter

...with Disability

Jul 10th, 2020 50m 30s

We will all encounter disability in our lives, either ourselves or someone we know and love. What is our responsibility when that happens? What role should the greater community play to provide care and support? What about government, public po

...with Rebuilding Democracy

Jun 26th, 2020 1h 13m

What if being a Member of Parliament or Congress had nothing to do with an election, but rather worked like jury duty? What if our officials were seated randomly in a legislature? What if we innovated the very idea of government itself? Dave Me

...with Writing Biography

Jun 12th, 2020 1h

Rosemary Sullivan is an acclaimed Canadian poet and biographer. She has written definitive biographies about Elizabeth Smart and Gwendolyn MacEwen as well as a book about the early life of Margaret Atwood. In 2015, Rosemary published Stalin's D

...with Politics and its Future

May 29th, 2020 1h 2m

Kent Hehr is a former federal Liberal cabinet minister and member of parliament for Calgary Centre. As a so-called "recovering politician" with careers on both the federal and provincial levels, Kent has a lot to say about what on earth is goin

...with Acting, Gaming and Creativity

May 15th, 2020 1h 11m

Aurora Browne is one of Canada's national treasures. Best known as one of the cast members of the Baroness von Sketch Show and as co-host of the Great Canadian Baking Show, Aurora has been creating daring, funny and original work for theatre, t

...with the Writing Process, Genre, and the Rise of Stupid

May 1st, 2020 1h 12m

What does it take to write a novel? What about genre? How does marketing define the books we read before we even open the first page? What does it mean to find a space that isn't programmed? And is the old right-left divide being replaced by a

...with Writing Novels

Apr 17th, 2020 58m 54s

Elizabeth Hay is a Giller Prize-winning author of novels such as Late Nights on Air, His Whole Life, and Alone in the Classroom. Most recently, she published a memoir about her parents' final years in Ottawa: All Things Consoled. She has been w

...with Generations and the Ethical Choice to Have Children

Apr 3rd, 2020 1h 14m

Is dividing people up by their generation (Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, etc.) unhelpful and even harmful? Is it a form of ageism, along the same lines as racism or sexism? What is the coming crisis of our time, and have we already arrived? A

...with Polling in Politics

Mar 20th, 2020 1h 2m

One of the key features of the democratic process is opinion polling, whether it is leader likability or attitudes on various issues. But do these snapshots of the horserace have an impact on the race itself? How has scientific polling and stat

...with the Power of Names

Mar 6th, 2020 1h 7m

Do our names shape our destiny? What does it mean to live life as Don as opposed to Donald or Donnie? What prejudices do we carry with our names and the names of others, and what about those who change theirs? When we name our children, are we

...with Political Philosophy

Feb 21st, 2020 1h 12m

Humans are living longer, delaying disease and decay later and later. It's conceivable that we could eradicate the big killers and attain a certain kind of infinite postponement of death. But what would this mean for our humanity? What does phi

...with The Reality Bubble

Feb 7th, 2020 54m 42s

Ziya Tong is "one of the world's most engaging science journalists" and after co-hosting Discovery Canada's Daily Planet television program for ten years, she wrote her first book, The Reality Bubble. It's a veil-removing tour-de-force, filled

...with Guy Gavriel Kay

Jan 24th, 2020 1h 14m

Guy Gavriel Kay is a bestselling, world-renowned author whose works have been translated into over 30 languages. Originally from western Canada, Guy practiced law, developed a radio series with the CBC, and even assisted Christopher Tolkien wit

...according to the novel, Ducks, Newburyport

Jan 10th, 2020 52m 21s

Lucy Ellmann's groundbreaking and award-winning novel, "Ducks, Newburyport", consists of a single sentence broken up only by the small bits of a parallel story of a mountain lioness protecting her cubs. It's a powerful, engrossing and genuinely

...with Rebalancing Society

Dec 27th, 2019 44m 29s

Do the problems we face today -- political gridlock, climate change, social upheaval, accelerating economic inequality -- stem from fundamental imbalances in our society and thinking? What role might the plural (or civil) sector play in rejiggi

...with Poetry

Dec 13th, 2019 1h 8m

Do music and poetry share the same roots? How do you write poetry that embraces complexity, history, beauty and atrocity? How can literature confront the self with the past, and the events that seem out of our control with the urgent need for a

...with Polygraphs, Technology and the Music of Plants (Ep. 80)

Nov 29th, 2019 51m 1s

What is the future of technology, and what does it take to be a real lifelong innovator at the ground level? Ben's guest is James Brown, a serial entrepreneur, technologist, and head of Limestone Technologies in Kingston. They have been at the

...with Theatre

Nov 15th, 2019 59m 38s

Live theatre is one of the oldest art forms, but rather than fade away in the face of easy social media and instant entertainment, it is experiencing a resurgence. What is it about live drama that keeps filling theatres around the world? How ar

...with Politics in the US and Canada

Nov 1st, 2019 1h 6m

Rampant and increasing polarization of our politics? The turn to populism as a result of economic inequality? The growing, scarcely regulated political power of social media and Big Data? These are some of the forces that are reshaping our poli

...with Gambling

Oct 25th, 2019 1h 2m

We can't seem to talk about gambling without reference to its very real, very serious social problems -- whether it's the association with organized crime, the addictiveness, or the ruination of many people's lives. But what if we look at gambl