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Makes You Stronger

with Nathan Whitlock, Amy Jones and Terry Fallis

Hosted by CKCU’s Susan Johnston

In Person Streaming Fiction

Friday

Oct , 2023

8:00pm

Eastern

Christ Church Cathedral

414 Sparks St. • Ottawa

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Amy Jones · Photo by Pamela Crichton Ten West Photography Nathan Whitlock · Photo by lago McEvenue Nathan Whitlock Terry Fallis · Photo by Tim Fallis

Parenthood, money, marriage, illness — everyday mini-tragedies morph into snort-worthy comedy when put under Nathan Whitlock's microscope. Lump drives in shivs of self-recognition on every page, along with lines you'll want to share with the stranger sitting next to you on the subway.

Andrew Pyper

Join our host, Susan Johnston, for a lively conversation with three authors whose fiction tackles some of life’s toughest obstacles without skimping on the humour.

Lump, the latest novel by Nathan Whitlock, spotlights Cat, who finds out that she is pregnant, that a lump in her breast is the worst thing it could be, and that her husband has done something unforgivably repulsive, and responds by running away from her marriage and her life.

Pebble & Dove by CBC Literary Prize-winner Amy Jones, is the story of a family falling apart, only to be brought back together again by an unlikely champion—a 1,000-pound aquatic mammal named Pebble.

A New Season, the latest by beloved and bestselling author Terry Fallis is a thoughtful exploration of aging, loss, family, friendship, and love, all told with his trademark humour and heart. Full of sincerity and warmth, it suggests that sometimes, making a change in your life can save your life.

Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.

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The Authors

Amy Jones

Amy Jones is the author of the novels We're All in This Together, a national bestseller, winner of the Northern Lit Award, a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire, and Every Little Piece of Me, named a Best Book of Summer by the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and NOW Magazine. Her debut collection of stories, What Boys Like, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and was a finalist for the ReLit Award. Her fiction has won the CBC Literary Prize for Short Fiction, appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories, and been selected as Longform's Pick of the Week. Originally from Halifax, she now lives in Hamilton.

Nathan Whitlock

Nathan Whitlock’s award-winning fiction and non-fiction has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Toronto Life, Report on Business, Flare, Fashion, Geist, Maisonneuve, and Best Canadian Essays, and he has appeared on radio and television discussing books and culture. Heather O’Neill called A Week of This, Whitlock’s first novel, “a portrait of people in a small town so intimate that it feels like you are under the covers with them.” He is a contributing editor for Quill & Quire. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.

Nathan Whitlock

Nathan Whitlock grew up in the Ottawa Valley, in a small town best known for its military base. (He wrote about the area in his first novel, 2008’s A Week of This.) Whitlock started writing as a teenager, getting his first publication credit by reviewing Oliver Stone’s JFK in the Ottawa Citizen at the age of 17. Whitlock attended Concordia University in Montreal, where he supported himself by, among other things, working nights at a hotel, unloading trucks at a carpet warehouse, and stocking St Lawrence cruise boats in the Old Port. After moving to Toronto in the late 90s, Whitlock ended up managing two busy bar-restaurants on College Street, an experience that inspired his 2016 novel Congratulations on Everything. He later became the managing editor of Descant literary quarterly, then the review editor of Quill & Quire, and then an associate editor at Toronto Life, all while contributing work to the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, Maclean’s, and other publications. He also spent some time as an associate at Anne McDermid’s literary agency. In 2014, he began teaching writing and media communications at Humber College in Toronto, where he was also hired to build and run a scholarly press for the college, which he did until 2020, when he was hired as a full-time professor and as the coordinator for the Creative Book Publishing program. He plays music as a hobby, and has regularly played drums with the Toronto Star band at the annual Newzapalooza media battle of the bands. He played in the ‘house band’ (alongside CNN’s Daniel Dale) for the launch of Crazy Town, journalist Robyn Doolittle’s book about former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. Whitlock has three children, and is married to Meaghan Strimas, an award-winning poet and fellow professor at Humber College. They live in Hamilton, Ontario. Whitlock is a cancer survivor who underwent treatment for a tumour in his neck in 2016 while launching his second book. He wrote about this experience in a short memoir piece for Chatelaine magazine. (https://www.chatelaine.com/health/a-little-bit-of-cancer/)

Terry Fallis

Terry Fallis grew up in Toronto and earned an engineering degree from McMaster University. Drawn to politics at an early age, he worked for cabinet ministers at Queen's Park and in Ottawa. His first novel, The Best Laid Plans, began as a podcast, then was self-published, won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, was re-published by McClelland & Stewart to great reviews, was crowned the 2011 winner of CBC's Canada Reads as "the essential Canadian novel of the decade," and became a CBC Television series. His next two novels, The High Road and Up and Down were finalists for the Leacock Medal, and in 2015, he won the prize a second time, for his fourth book, No Relation. A skilled public speaker, Terry Fallis is also co-founder of the public relations agency Thornley Fallis. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons, and blogs at www.terryfallis.com. Follow @TerryFallis on Twitter. The author lives in Toronto.

Included in Friday Pass

Wine Witch on Fire ›

6:30pm

Makes You Stronger ›

8:00pm