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In this episode I talk with Adriana Oniță, poet, artist, educator, translator, and researcher with a PhD in arts-based language education about her new book, DESCÂNTEC FOR MY SPLIT TONGUE, a collection that gathers English-Romanian poems that travel across generations, homelands, and dreamscapes to ask: what do we lose when we lose a language? We also talk about the importance of multilingual writing and publishing and the reclaiming of heritage language.

In honour of National Poetry Month, in this episode, I speak with poet and scholar Anna Veprinska about her masterfully crafted poetry collection Wound Archive. We discuss the completeness of fragments and the resistance to closure, the use of white space and punctuation, and the editing process within compression. Anna Veprinska is the author of the poetry collections Wound Archive (Porcupine's Quill, 2026), Bonememory (University of Calgary Press, 2025), and Sew with Butterflies (Steel Bananas Press, 2014). She is also the author of the monograph Empathy in Contemporary Poetry after Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), which received Honourable Mention in the Memory Studies Association First Book Award. She was a finalist twice for the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest, has been shortlisted twice for the Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence, and was a winner of the ChinookPoetry Contest. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary. Wound Archive is a collection of minimalist poems that archives the wound left by the concurrent ending of a relationship and the beginning of a chronic invisible illness. These poems comprise a fragmented archive in which woundedness turns language—figuratively and at times formally—upside down. The symbol of the wound recurs throughout, punctuating the ways both heartbreak and illness are experienced in the body.

In this episode we speak with Scott Alexander Howard about his award winning book, The Other Valley. Scott Alexander Howard has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where his research focused on the relationship between emotion and memory. His debut novel, The Other Valley, was a Washington Post notable novel of 2024, a CBC best book of the year, a PBS Book Club pick, and the winner of the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. And now, is the 2026 MacEwan University book of the year.The Other Valley has been translated into five languages and is being developed as a television series by Working Title Films and Universal Studios. Howard lives in Vancouver, where he is working on his second novel. We discuss moral dilemmas, writing flawed and nuanced characters, navigating the rules of time and the philosophy of breaking rule.

In this episode I talk with author Carissa Halton about her debut novel Revolution Songs along with discussing research within place, how researching real people can help a writer with character development, the ways strategic planning can support a writer’s career, and writing historical fiction with authenticity, even when the truth of that authenticity is problematic. Carissa Halton is an awarding-winning writer whose fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in the Post-Media Newspapers, Today’s Parent, Alberta Views, The Tyee, CBC among others. Her book of essays, Little Yellow House Finding Community in a Changing Neighbourhood, was a finalist for the 2019 Edmonton Book Prize. Revolution Songs is her debut novel. In her work life, Carissa runs Halton Strategic, where she works with teams and boards to find common ground. She lives in Treaty 6, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. About the Book:Annie Jalmer stands uneasily between opposing allegiances inher 1930s Rocky Mountain town. As the radical politics of herfamily inflame tensions, Annie becomes an unwilling double agent until a violent strike forces her to take a stand. Revolution Songs is the electrifying debut novel by award-winning writer Carissa Halton, inspired by the little-known story of a Communist union, the rise of the Canadian Ku Klux Klan, andthe women who fought on both sides. Set against the charged backdrop of Depression-era politics, Halton weaves athrilling and timely story that echoes the rising polarization of our own era. Carissa Halton is an awarding-winning writer whose fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in the Post-Media Newspapers, Today’s Parent, Alberta Views, The Tyee, CBC among others. Her book of essays, Little Yellow House Finding Community in a Changing Neighbourhood, was a finalist for the 2019 Edmonton Book Prize. Revolution Songs is her debut novel. In her work life, Carissa runs Halton Strategic, where she works with teams and boards to find common ground. She lives in Treaty 6, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

In this episode of Crow Reads I talk with multi-genre author,podcaster and publicist, Hollay Ghadery about her multifaceted career, the pace of publishing and being in the public eye, the complexities and significance of being a literary citizen and the thing she wants every emerging writer to know.  Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario onAnishinaabe 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 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is due out with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, withGuernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, 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.

In this episode, I talk with Trina Moyles and Anna Kuelken about their experience writing and producing the film, Women Who Dig. Originally a book by Trina Moyles, the Women Who Dig film is produced by Anna Kuelken. We talk about creative collaboration, and what it meant to share the stories of women farmers, the weaving of multiple stories throughout the film and grandmother inspiration. Women Who Dig will be screened on October 23rd at the Metro Cinema in Edmonton, Alberta. Trina Moyles is an award-winning journalist and the author of three non-fiction books, including Women Who Dig, Lookout, and Black Bear, which will be published in January 2026. She grew up in the Peace Country of northern Alberta, though she currently lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, with her partner and their three dogs. Read more at: ⁠www.trinamoyles.com⁠ Instagram: ⁠@trinariannemoyles⁠ Anna Kuelken approaches documentary filmmaking through an ethnographic lens, investing time in cultivating relationships with her participants. She approaches storytelling not as an extractive process, but as one rooted in reciprocity, treating the story like an ecosystem that must be nurtured with care and respect.

After some time away to rethink, reinvigorate, and rebuild,Crow Reads is back with a new episode. This season I’m broadening our conversations into the literary world and interviewing, yes authors, as well as publishers, literary festival directors, editors, agents and more. For our firstinterview of the season, I’m delighted to interview the incomparable Dr. Lisa Martin, author and creative writing professor about developing a varied writing career, tension in story and character creation, sentence craft, and writingtraumatic grief. To close us off, Dr. Martin shares one favourite piece of writing advice.   Lisa Martin is the author of two full-length poetrycollections, One Crow Sorrow (Brindle & Glass, 2008)and Believing is not the Same as Being Saved (University ofAlberta Press, 2017). Her work has been shortlisted for the City of Edmonton Book Prize and has won a National Magazine Award for Personal Journalism. A scholarly monograph, Creative Writing in Post-Secondary Education:Practice, Pedagogy, and Research, appeared with Bloomsbury Academic in Spring 2025. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at MacEwan University in Edmonton, on Treaty 6 territory. Her first novel, A Story Can Be Told About Pain, published by NeWest Press and recorded by HighBridge Audio, is available now as a print book, e-book, and audiobook ashas been a regular on the Alberta Bestseller list.

In this episode of Crow Reads, Rayanne Haines speaks to poet, scholar, and translator Leilei Chen about her 2023 poetry collection, I Have Forsaken Heaven & Earth, But Never Forsaken You (Frontenac House). They discuss Chen’s history as a writer, translator and scholar, the act of betrayal in translation, the unknowingness and ambiguity of translation, publishing and editorial work, and the hopes for the future of translation in Canadian Publishing.

In this episode of Crow Reads, Rayanne speaks to author Astrid Blodgett about her 2023 short story collection, This is How we Disappear, (UofA Press). The collection explores the consequences of grief and denial and single moments that change perceptions, lives, and attachments forever. Crisp prose and unexpected plot twists move relatable characters through vivid outdoor settings and interior depths. Haines and Blodgett speak about storytelling techniques including ambiguity and expectation, the impact of writing setting and place, consciously focusing on creating relatable characters without deliberately considering empathy vs sympathy and writing retreats and their impact on creativity.

In this month’s podcast Rayanne Haines speaks with playwright and poet, Natalie Meisner about her book, It Begins in Salt, a masterful collection of poems that wander the halls of an ocean blue-collar life while rummaging the heart spaces of growing up, and evolves into mothering, labours, and loves. This is a poetry book for poets evidenced in the staccato of line details, the rhythms that echo the maritime waves, and the sounds shaped and formed by a studied writer. Among more, they talk about craft and obedience, how performance shapes writing, the choice to write as participant, Queer identity and finding safe spaces in discovery, and the grounding if mother labour.

In this month’s podcast Shima Robinson AKA Dwennimmen speaks to us, among other things, about finding your place in the poetry community, supporting the community while advocating for artist payment, self-publishing and self-creation, and finding the intent of the poem through performance. Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton - Treaty 6) born poet and spoken word artist Shima Robinson embodies, with every poem, the ancient meaning of her chosen pen name. Dwennimmen is the name of an ancient African Adinkra symbol, which means strength, humility, learning and wisdom. It is no surprise, then, that this veteran of the Alberta poetry community uses a searing intellect and dynamic precision-of-language to create poetry which ushers her readers and listeners toward greater understanding and poignant reflection. For Dwennimmen, poetry has long been a compass, a salve, an anchor and guiding light. She uses the potential and force of poetry to uncover the full range of her cerebral, linguistic and spiritual fortitude. This is why her every poem and performance testifies to an emerging power and wisdom, an authentic, deeply human potency which she hopes to pass on to listeners and poetry-lovers around the world.

For Ali Bryan, writing is an act of imagination performed as daily ritual. For this Calgary based author, character and plot speak as one device, and she rebels against labels that diminish the value of her writing and use of humour as a tool towards story development. This award-winning author writes family the way we live family, with no judgments or pre-conceived notions of what the characters will do in the moment. In our conversation we discuss character development both from re-visiting characters like in her new novel Coq, and the understanding of character as plot. We talk about the long-term profession of writing the value of the publishing relationship, and how one manifests success in a non-linear career.

In this episode, Rayanne speaks with Margaret Macpherson about her new book, Tracking the Caribou Queen: Memoir of a Settler Girlhood. The conversation looks at the ways the memoir touches on the racism deeply embedded in the North in the 60's and 70's and her understanding of it as a child and now in self-reflecting as an adult. Macpherson discuss, with a frankness, stepping outside of her fragility, to speak as a white women, who was clear about her culpability. We discuss the framing of the memoir, the authors fear of taking up space, the violence within the book, and in her words, how "the book is about white privilege. It's about entitlement. And it's about the dawning of the child's understanding of those things as she grows.”

In this month’s podcast Rayanne Haines speaks with Emily Riddle about her debut poetry collection, The Big Melt. The collection is rooted in nehiyaw thought and urban millennial life events. It examines what it means to repair kinship, contend with fraught history, go home and contemplate prairie ndn utopia in the era of late capitalism and climate change. Part memoir, part research project, this collection draws on Riddle’s experience working in Indigenous governance and her affection for confessional poetry in crafting feminist works that are firmly rooted in place. In their conversation Emily and Rayanne speak about kinship, land, joy, queer love, and intergenerational trauma in magpies.

In this episode, Rayanne Haines speaks with author Leslie Greentree about character vs plot driven stories, how short story and novel writing are shaped, writing flawed characters and controversial stories, and about career longevity in an increasingly competitive market. Leslie Greentree’s short story collection, Not The Apocalypse I was Hoping For, is a masterful collection that shapeshifts through her characters’ lives. It’s a not-so-subtle commentary on current politics, the pervasiveness of social media and our obsession with having or holding a platform, and the fallacy of human nature.