My guest on this episode is Alissa York. Alissa is the author of the novels Mercy, Effigy (which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize), Fauna and The Naturalist (which was winner of the Canadian Author’s Association Fiction Award, and the  short fiction collection, Any Given Power.  Alissa’s essays and articles have appeared in The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Brick magazine and elsewhere, and she teaches at Humber College, where she is the coordinator for the Creative Writing program. Full disclosure, we used to have offices right across the hall from each other at Humber.

Alissa’s most recent book is Far Cry, which was published by TK in 2023 by Random House Canada. The Toronto Star said Far Cry is “dazzling and brilliant” and called it “a transfixing, glorious novel.”

Alissa and I talk about the Humber Creative Writing program, how she makes herself disconnect from social media, and most other social things, when she is working on a book, and where she begins when she is starting a new novel.

Alissa York: alissayork.com

Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.

Contact Nathan Whitlock at nathanwhitlock.ca/contact