The University of Alberta Press Podcast

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Interviews with authors of University of Alberta Press books.

Episodes

  1. FEB 14

    Linda Quirk, "Forgers, Fakers, and Publisher-Pirates" (U Alberta Press, 2025)

    Whether print or digital, text or image, artistic or scientific, rare or common, historic or contemporary, most of the content we encounter contains accidental mistakes—ranging from typos to factual errors to errors arising from prejudicial assumptions—and a significant proportion of it also contains deliberate misinformation resulting from various forms of forgery, fakery, and piracy. In Forgers, Fakers, and Publisher-Pirates (U Alberta Press, 2025), Linda Quirk introduces the work of notorious and lesser-known forgers, reveals the various ways in which experts and authors have faked their own identities—ranging from carefully-selected pseudonyms to falsified ethnicities to fraudulent credentials—and explores a number of shady publishing practices. We can all become better readers and better at protecting ourselves from scammers by improving our understanding of the nature of the content before us. Linda Quirk is a librarian (Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta, Edmonton) whose research and publications focus on a group of women who, in the nineteenth century, did pioneering work in various fields and whose writings helped to break down the barriers then preventing women from full participation in Canadian society. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025).

    1h 13m

  2. 10/22/2025

    Arnab Roy and Paul Ugor eds., "The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions" (U Alberta Press, 2025)

    Offering a fresh comparative lens, The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions (U Alberta Press, 2025) demonstrates how postcolonial writers have transformed the Bildungsroman from an eighteenth-century European genre meant to express local concerns around childhood development into one of the most cosmopolitan literary mediums for communicating overlapping concerns about global modernity. If literature is the crucial site where people find the language to convey their social experiences, this book reveals how the Bildungsroman now functions in the global world of letters to capture and bear witness to young people's varied interactions and responses to both local and global forces enveloping and shaping their lives. Chapters explore identity, sexuality, human rights, the climate crisis, neoliberal globalization, and a host of other issues in work from a wide range of postcolonial locations across Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. Forging productive scholarly engagements between narratology and genre theory, the volume documents the aesthetic and thematic shifts that have accompanied the Bildungsroman in the past two centuries, particularly in the context of anticolonial, liberationist, and self-determination struggles from the mid-twentieth century onwards in the global south. With a very diverse array of essays from multiple continents, The Postcolonial Bildungsroman makes a crucial intervention to the existing scholarship on this influential genre and a unique contribution to the study of world literature. Contributors: David Babcock, Sarah Brouillette, Gregory Byala, Deena Dinat, Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, José-Santiago Fernández-Vázquez, Ericka A. Hoagland, Elizabeth Jackson, Feroza Jussawala, Andrew David King, Aruna Krishnamurthy, Simone Puleo, Peter Ribic, Arnab Dutta Roy, Craig Smith, Antonette Talaue-Arogo, Paul Ugor, Julieann, Veronica Ulin, Rachel Ann Walsh, Maria Su Wang, Bethany Williamson, Helena Wu, Julia Wurr. Arnab Dutta Roy is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida Gulf Coast University. His research lies at the intersection of postcolonialism, human rights theory, and modern South Asian literature, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, South Asian Review, Comparatist, Genre, New Literary History, and others. He is the co-editor of two books on the postcolonial Bildungsroman: The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions (University of Alberta Press, 2025) and The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place (forthcoming with University of Nebraska Press, January 2026). In addition, he has co-edited a special issue of the Journal of World Literature titled Constructing the Other: Narrative Empathy and the Ethics of Border-Crossing in World Literature. He is currently working on a monograph titled Universalisms in South Asian Literature that draws on interdisciplinary work in postcolonial theory and human rights to analyze literary responses to colonialism from South Asia. At FGCU, he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses on world literature and postcolonial theory. Gargi Binju is a PhD scholar at the University of Tuebingen.

    36 min

  3. 10/15/2025

    Patrick Grace, "Deviant" (U Alberta Press, 2024)

    In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with poet Patrick Grace about his stunning poetry collection, Deviant (U Alberta Press, 2024). Deviant traces a trajectory of queer self-discovery from childhood to adulthood, examining love, fear, grief, and the violence that men are capable of in intimate same-sex relationships. Richly engaged with the tangible and experiential, Patrick Grace’s confessional poetry captures profound, sharp emotions, tracking a journey impacted equally by beauty and by brutality. Coming-of-age identity struggles are recalled with wry wit, and dreamlike poems embrace adolescent queer love and connections as a way to cope with the fear and cruelty that can occur in gay relationships. Later poems in the collection recall vivid moments of psychological trauma and stalking and explore the bias of the justice system toward gay men. Collecting memories, dreams, and fears about sexual identity, Deviant makes important contributions to queer coming-of-age and intimate partner violence narratives. Patrick Grace is an author and teacher who divides his time between Vancouver and Victoria, BC. His poems have been published widely in Canadian literary magazines, including Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, Columba, EVENT, The Ex-Puritan, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire, and more. His work has been a finalist for literary contests with CV2 and PRISM international, and in 2020, his poem "A Violence" won The Malahat Review's Open Season Award for poetry. He has published two chapbooks: a blurred wind swirls back for you (2023), and Dastardly (2021), both of which explore aspects of love, fear, and trauma that represent a personal queer identity. Deviant, his first full-length poetry collection, continues to explore these themes and was shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award. Follow him on IG: @thepoetpatrick.

    39 min

  4. 03/26/2025

    rob mclennan, "On Beauty: Stories" (U Alberta Press, 2024)

    NBN host and CanLit fangirl extraordinaire Hollay Ghadery speaks with rob mclennan about his collection of stories, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press, 2024). This contains a provocative collection of moments, confessions, overheard conversations, and memories, both fleeting and crystalized, revolving around the small chasms and large craters of everyday life. Situated at the crossroads of prose and poetry, these 33 vignettes explore the rhythm, textures, and micro-moments of lives in motion. Composed with a poet’s eye for detail and ear for rhythm, rob mclennan’s brief stories play with form and language, capturing the act of record-keeping while in the process of living those records, creating a Polaroid-like effect. Throughout the collection, the worlds of literature and art infuse into intimate fragments of the everyday. A welcome chronicle of human connection and belonging, On Beauty will leave readers grappling with questions of how stories are produced and passed through generations. About rob mclennan: Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include the poetry collection Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025), A river runs through it: a writing diary , collaborating with Julie Carr (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025),On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). This fall, University of Calgary Press will be publishing his poetry collection the book of sentences, a follow-up to the book of smaller(2022). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. About Hollay Ghadery: Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is due out with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is the host of the 105.5 FM Bookclub, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Regional Chair of the League of Canadian Poets and a co-chair of the League’s BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.

    47 min

  5. 08/23/2024

    Claire Carter et al., "Contemporary Vulnerabilities: Reflections on Social Justice Methodologies" (U Alberta Press, 2024)

    Contemporary Vulnerabilities: Reflections on Social Justice Methodologies (U Alberta Press, 2024) centres on critical reflections about vulnerable moments in research committed to social change. Exploring the many vulnerabilities within social science research, this interdisciplinary collection gathers critical stories, reflections, and analyses about innovative methodologies that engage with unconventional and unexpected spaces of research that scholars inhabit and share. The authors encourage us to collaborate within, reflect on, and confront the frictions of inquiry around social change. Towards an aim of contesting the dominance of Eurocentric epistemologies, the collection includes modes of storytelling and examples of knowledge gathering that are often excluded from academic texts in general and methodological texts in particular - such as queer, crip, and indigenous ways of being and knowing. Scholars and students across all disciplines will find provocation and recognition in this volume. See the full Table of Contents here. Claire Carter is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender, Religion, and Critical Studies at the University of Regina Chelsea Temple Jones is Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University Caitlin Janzen is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at York University and also works at the Postdoc Office of the University of Calgary. Tatiana Klepikova is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Regensburg, where she leads a research group on queer literatures and cultures under socialism.

    1h 19m

  6. 01/25/2024

    Astrid Blodgett, "This Is How You Start to Disappear" (U Alberta Press, 2023)

    Astrid Blodgett is the author of the short story collections This Is How You Start to Disappear (U Alberta Press, 2023) and You Haven’t Changed a Bit (U Alberta Press, 2013). Her stories have appeared in many Canadian literary magazines, and in translation in Inostrannaya Literatura, a Russian journal that publishes foreign writers. One of her stories is part of the Danish Royal Ministry of Education’s English exams and now the educational textbook Connect (in the chapter on "Puzzle Plots"!). Her work has been short- or long-listed for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story, a ReLit Award*, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award*, and the High Plains Book Award* for Short Stories. She is also a co-author of Recipes for Roaming: Adventure Food for the Canadian Rockies. For many years she co-hosted a literary salon in her home. Astrid also loves multi-day river trips and very long walks. She lives in Edmonton / amiskwaciwâskahikan. Judith Tanen is an LP candidate at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy.

    40 min

  7. 11/13/2023

    Ernest R. Zimmermann, "The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R" (U Alberta Press, 2015)

    For eighteen months during the Second World War, the Canadian military interned 1,145 prisoners of war in Red Rock, Ontario (about 100 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay). Camp R interned friend and foe alike: Nazis, anti-Nazis, Jews, soldiers, merchant seamen, and refugees whom Britain feared might comprise Hitler's rumoured "fifth column" of alien enemies residing within the Commonwealth. For the first time and in riveting detail, the author illuminates the conditions in one of Canada's forgotten POW camps. Backed by interviews and meticulous archival research, Zimmermann fleshes out this rich history in an accessible, lively manner. Ernest R. Zimmermann's The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R (U Alberta Press, 2015) will captivate military and political historians as well as non-specialists interested in the history of POWs and internment in Canada. This is an interview with the book's editors, David Ratz and Michel Beaulieu.

    1h 33m

  8. 02/12/2021

    Juliane Okot Bitek, "100 Days" (U Alberta Press, 2016)

    Juliane Okot Bitek, of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, has written a terrific book of poetry on the 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda. Published in 2016 by the University of Alberta, and simply titled, 100 Days (University of Alberta Press, 2016), Okot Bitek’s poetry is a form of witnessing violence that records the senseless loss of life in a way that reminds us violence is human and universal. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of (white, foreign) producing academic knowledge about African places and people.

    32 min

  9. 10/09/2020

    Earle H. Waugh, “Al Rashid Mosque: Building Canadian Muslim Communities” (U Alberta Press, 2018)

    In the early 20th-century Muslims, primarily with roots in Lebanon, began to settle in Canada’s interior plains. In 1938, the small community in Edmonton opened the first mosque in the country, which would come to play a key role in shaping Islam's development in the Canada. Earle H. Waugh, Professor Emeritus at University of Alberta, narrates the history of this community and the place of this institution in Al Rashid Mosque: Building Canadian Muslim Communities (University of Alberta Press, 2018). The micro-history of Edmonton’s Muslim community opens up vistas on the broader Canadian history and the role of Muslims in forming national projects and identities. Waugh outlines shifts in Islamic educational programs and community leadership, as well as the political terrains Muslims needed to traverse. Overall, the book offers a readable and robust history that adds a unique story to the history of Canada. In our conversation we discuss the Muslim population in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the mosque’s original building and the funding efforts to build it, the role of women in the community, Islamic education, religious leadership, the new mosque building in 1982, the effects of local and global politics, the Palestinian question in Canada, and 9/11 and its aftermath on Canadian Muslims. We also discuss Waugh’s training in Religious and Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and 70s with scholars like Fazlur Rahman and Mircea Eliade. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu.

    1h 7m
  • 9 Episodes

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Interviews with authors of University of Alberta Press books.

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