Talkingbooksandstuff's podcast

Jill started life in Lamlash street, moved on to Grammar school, got numerous 'O'and 'A' levels and after a few years working in London in a solicitor's office decided that she would emigrate to Canada. She spent 30 years working there as an Occupational Therapist and Hospital manager, and towards the end of her career when other people were slowing down their lives, she sped everything up. She di...

Canadian novelist and short story writer, best known for his Western novel trilogy, The Englishman's Boy, The Last Crossing, and A Good Man set in the 19th-century American and Canadian West. Vanderhaeghe has won three Governor General's Awards for his fiction, one for his short story collection Man Descending in 1982, the second for his novel The Englishman's Boy in 1996, and the third for his sh...

Dennis meets again with Yvonne Rediger

Lindsay Zier-Vogel is a Toronto-based writer, arts educator and the creator of the internationally-acclaimed Love Lettering Project. After studying contemporary dance, she received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. Her writing has been widely published in Canada and the U.K. Since 2001, she has been teaching creative writing workshops in schools and communities. Her hand-b...

Chris Austin Hadfield OC OOnt MSC CD is a Canadian retired astronaut, engineer, singer, fighter pilot and author. The first Canadian to perform extravehicular activity in space, Hadfield has flown two Space Shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to his career as an astronaut, Hadfield served in the Canadian Forces for 25 years as an Air Command fig...

Jenna Greene is a middle school teacher, dance enthusiast, dragonboat coach, and semi-professional napper. She lives with her husband, Scott, and daughter, Olivia, in Alberta, Canada.  

Raphael "Ralph" Benmergui (born 1955) is a Canadian television and radio personality, a writer, an ordained spiritual director, and a strategic advisor in political, environmental, and academic realms. Dennis talks with Ralph about his book, " I thought he was dead".

Dennis chats with award winning columnist, Jack Knox.

Born in Kamloops, British Columbia, Adam currently lives in Saskatoon. He was educated at the University of Northern BC (BA, 2006; MA, 2008) and the University of Saskatchewan (PhD, 2016). He was born deaf in both ears, and sensory calibration helped him become a writer by stoking my imagination and lending me a unique relationship with language. He was inspired by Mordecai Richler, John Steinbeck...

Cassandra Gay Peterson (born September 17, 1951) is an American actress, writer, and singer. She is best known for her portrayal of the horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Peterson gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ-TV in her stage persona as Elvira, hosting Elvira's Movie Macabre, a weekly B movie presentation.

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Jacqueline D'Acre had an old-fashioned childhood: playing in the street, milk delivered by horse-drawn wagons. From age three, She was riding horses every day. She moved to San Francisco and went to Lone Mountain College, an adjunct to the University of San Francisco, on a Drama scholarship. She then worked in Alaska at an ad agency as a media buyer and copywriter....

Elisabeth de Mariaffi is a Canadian writer, whose debut short story collection How to Get Along With Women was a longlisted nominee for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a shortlisted nominee for the ReLit Award in 2013. Her poetry and fiction have been published in literary magazines including CV2, Descant, The Fiddlehead, This Magazine and The New Quarterly. Her first poetry chapbook, Letter on St...

Dawn Dumont is a Plains Cree writer, former lawyer, comedian and journalist from the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada. Her first book, Nobody Cries at Bingo (2011), is a fictionalized, humorous account of her own life growing up on a reserve. Dumont says that the book was inspired by the writing of David Sedaris. In 2012 it was shortlisted for an Alberta Readers' Choice Award and a Rob...

Born to the 1958 Cape Breton coal town road of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and primarily raised in Halifax, RON JAMES moved to Toronto after graduating from Acadia University with a BA in History. Once in Toronto, he joined the premiere breeding ground of North American comedy, the Second City. Canada's most verbally virtuosic comic makes his literary debut—and he's just as richly, gloriously funny on...

John Patrick "Jack" Perconte (born August 31, 1954) is an American former professional baseball second baseman. Perconte played in Major League Baseball from 1980 to 1986. Perconte has authored four books - "The Success Trail: Learn to Win with a Marathon Runner's Mindset" "Creating a Season to Remember: The New Youth Sports Coaching Leadership Handbook"The Making of a Hitter- A Proven and Practic...

Joy Fielding is back with a new book!

Jay Semko returns, to discuss his poetry

Don spent pretty much his entire working career at the Ottawa Citizen . Hired right out of journalism school and he worked there for over 40 years. In his book, A Life of Bliss, Bliss Browning has few friends, a failed marriage and a pathological fear of adventure. His sole claim to fame is his vast knowledge of the late opera diva Maria Callas. When someone purporting to be Callas contacts him fr...

Quinn Kayser-Cochran lives in Colorado. He was a 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Writer semi-finalist. Widowmaker is his second novel and the first in a planned series following Shepard Sunday through America's pre-Depression West.

Lover of nature and chocolate, and a student of life Joann spent most of her life on the Plains of Nebraska. She is the author of the Pepperville Stories, about 50 years in the town of Pepperville, Iowa. She also wrote a series of mystery books.

The "J" is for Jo-Anne. Her memories are sitting in her father's lap with a picture book from the library while her Dad would help her sound them out. Known for her Blood Mark series, where life has always been a battle for her protagonist Jane Walker. She and her best friend, Sadie,fight to survive Vancouver's cutthroat underbelly.

Dennis talks to Glenna, and Bud Sarich about his book, 9 Decades.

Gail Bowen returns to talk about her new books

Dennis talks to Bennie the program director of the Viking River Cruise Ship Atla.

Originally from Lancashire, she now lives with her husband and two cat overlords in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. After many years of teaching very small children, she decided to finally put her degree in Classical Studies, along with decades of re-enacting 16th and 17th century life, to constructive use authoring the Ships of Britannia series.