Watershed Writers w/ Tanis MacDonald

Join host Tanis MacDonald this week on Watershed Writers when she talks to Nasser Hussain — Wilfrid Laurier University's 2024 Edna Staebler Writer in Residence — about the PLAYFUL SERIOUSNESS which informs his recent work.

Tanis MacDonald is joined by the celebrated and prolific Kitchener poet Chris Banks to discuss the speed of life in the 21st Century, writing metaphors for anxiety, and using humour to cast light on the heaviest subjects.

Host Tanis MacDonald brings us Anuja Varghese, winner of this year’s Governor General’s Award for Fiction to discuss her genre-bending use of gothic elements in the familiar settings of her horror-adjacent dark fiction in her collection of short stories, Chrysalis (2023).

Tanis MacDonald spends an hour talking with author and mentor Carrie Snyder on her career writing through real-life FRICTION — and how her writing is informed by her busy life in the Grand River community.

Tanis MacDonald sits down with Alison Fishburn to talk about purity culture, writing about class and finding fellowship as an author, and her award-winning performance in her one-woman play… Church Boyfriends and Other Impure Thoughts.

Tanis MacDonald hosts Sarah Tolmie to laugh about medieval literature, learn about Sarah’s astonishing novella-writing process, and to discover the meaning of… WEIRD FICTION!

Carol Duncan talks to us about writing short stories inflected with Caribbean history and culture, and about her research roots when writing the historical fantastic. Her collection of short stories, This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto is available through Wilfrid Laurier University Press and fine booksellers everywhere.

We kick off our fourth season with the ‘To and Fro’ episode. We’ll take a look back at writers we’ve interviewed, a sneak peek at who we’ll be talking to this fall, and discover what local authors are writing — and reading!

Tanis speaks with novelist Jessica Vitalis about her work for middle-grade readers treating big issues like life, death, empathy, and social justice in The Rabbit’s Gift and her forthcoming Coyote Queen .

This week on Watershed Writers, we talk with writer and epidemiologist David Waltner-Toews about the fun and frustrations of raising backyard birds, and his new book, A Conspiracy of Chickens .

This week, Tanis learns from Waterloo Region author and historian Peggy Plet about her work weaving the stories of Black settlers back into the fabric of both local and global history, and her new book, Jan Earnst Matzeliger: A Lasting Invention .

In this episode of Watershed Writers, Tanis talks with co-authors Clarence Cachagee and Seth Ratzlaff about finding a voice, reconnecting with one's culture, and allyship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the Waterloo Region. 

In this episode, Tanis MacDonald talks with local dj and music journalist, Coral Andrews about her memoir about The Back Door — Kitchener’s legendary underground bar and dance club — and its role in developing artists.

Join Tanis and her guest Laurie D. Graham as they discuss Laurie's latest work, 'Fast Commute' and her approach to the poetry of place and displacement with respect and compassion.

Tanis MacDonald's guest is celebrated Canadian novelist Donna Morrissey, discussing her tenure as this year's Writer In Residence at Wilfrid Laurier University. Find out how 'fiction informs memoir' at the intersection of life and stories we tell about it.

This week on Watershed Writers, novelist Benjamin Lefebvre sits down with interviewer Tanis MacDonald to discuss writing Young Adult Fiction and subverting the usual coming-out narrative in his first novel, In the Key of Dale."

This episode features Iranian-Canadian novelist Kimia Eslah talking with interviewer Tanis MacDonald about her aims in writing fiction to serve social justice and combat gendered violence and about feminism, diversity, and friendship in her second novel Sister Seen, Sister Heard

This episode features Jamaican-Canadian poet, novelist, and children's writer Pamela Mordecai talking with Tanis MacDonald about her long career in writing, and about being bold and irreverent on the page and in performance.

In this clip from Watershed Writer's podcast, host Tanis MacDonald talks with Pamela Mulloy about the genesis of her book "As Little as Nothing", why war is an interesting subject for her writing, and her next non-fiction project about train travel.

This episode features novelist Pamela Mulloy and the challenges of writing historical fiction about uncertain times, as well as Tanis MacDonald and Frances Roberts Reilly discussing the summer in book tours.

We talk with poet, scientist, and memoirist Madhur Anand about living by rivers, about blending art and science in writing, and about her recent Governor General’s Award for "This Red Line Goes Straight To Your Heart".

We talk with nonfiction writer Emily Urquhart about her new book, The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father, and Me, featuring her father, abstract expressionist painter and sculptor Tony Urquhart. Emily speaks about the delicate art of writing the family memoir, myths about aging and art, and the use of folklore and science as portals to understanding.

We talk with writer and editor Luke Hathaway about love and radical transformation, about the Waterloo Region roots and the international reach of his latest book, Years, Months, and Days, and about the importance of influences in maker culture.

We sit down with Tuscarora writer, performer, and publisher Janet Rogers to discuss what it has meant for her to come home to Six Nations of the Grand River after decades away, her dreams as a literary Auntie, and the personal and political power of her new book Ego of a Nation.