Writers Festival Radio S08E03

with Wayne Johnston and Ashraf Zaghal

Hosted by Lucy van Oldenbarneveld and Sean Wilson

Podcast Fiction History Free

Admission

Free

Friday

Apr

4:00pm

Eastern

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Ashraf Zaghal · Photo by David Chang Wayne Johnston · Photo by Mark Raynes Roberts 2017

"Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer and his Newfoundland boots and boats, rough politics and rough country, history and journalism is vivid and sharp."

Annie Proulx

This episode features Wayne Johnston, whose latest bestseller is The Novice of Holloway Hall, and Ashraf Zaghal whose debut is Seven Heavens Away.

Both authors will be participating in the 2026 Spring Edition of the Ottawa International Writers Festival, April 30 to May 3 at Library and Archives Canada.

The Authors

Ashraf Zaghal

Ashraf Zaghal is a Palestinian Canadian author who was born and raised in Jerusalem. He has published four poetry collections, and his work has been translated into English, French, and Hebrew. He is an editor of an online magazine focused on progressive literature and translation. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Wayne Johnston

Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. His #1 nationally bestselling novels include First Snow, Last Light; The Custodian of Paradise; The Navigator of New York; and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Baltimore's Mansion, a memoir about his father and grandfather, won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, published in 1998, was nominated for sixteen national and international awards including the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, and was a Canada Reads finalist defended by Justin Trudeau. In 2011, Johnston was awarded the Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award honouring the work of a writer in mid-career. In 2023, his memoir Jennie’s Boy won The Stephen Leacock Gold Medal for Humour and was also a Canada Reads finalist, in 2025.