All Episodes
Bookends with Mattea Roach — 172 episodes
Why age-gap friendships are a risk worth taking
Why writing a novel is like riding a horse
A city just for adulterers
It’s tough being the new kid in town. The zombies don’t help
Can you justify killing bad men?
The dazzling, dangerous world of a 20th century spy
Why you shouldn’t go gentle into that good night
From Hamnet to Land, Maggie O'Farrell maps uncharted history
Can you make a family — and a country — great again?
Sci-fi, survival and the final frontier
Bookends highlights: Y’all know we’re Canada down
Marjane Satrapi: In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel
What does it mean to be a dad, anyway?
This time loop story digs deeper than Groundhog Day
A raunchy workplace satire ... about deradicalizing ISIS brides?
Here’s why Fran Lebowitz needs a cigarette
Dive into the dark underbelly of rural Ontario
Douglas Stuart was a fashion exec — now he designs stories
What’s the cost of the immigrant success story?
A forensic thriller writer autopsies her own life
Accepting the unknown … and a giant flock of crows
Literature, liberation and Lolita in Iran
Exploring the shady side of charity organizations
Can our friendships age with us?
Life of Pi author Yann Martel on the wars in your everyday
How to find hope in a funeral home
Should you be afraid of the wolf hour?
Would a tradwife influencer survive in 1855?
How do we restore our sense of wonder in media?
What does dystopia look like in the suburbs?
Is it magic … or is it Siri?
Why status and power are currency in Pakistan
The last book Julian Barnes will ever write
Is there a soundtrack to your life?
If at first you break up … try, try again?
How long could you lie about who you are?
Why Tayari Jones fights for her stories
Inside Toronto’s most notorious women’s prison
For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival
What is boyhood to a Palestinian teen?
Strip club … or culture hub?
Rage and love at the end of apartheid
The beauty and despair of Appalachia
Meth and murder in rural America
Meet hockey’s greatest (fictional) goon
What does “worldly” mean to a Jehovah’s Witness?
Justice for Murder Bimbo!
Need cash fast? Become a corpse bride today
Why an ADHD diagnosis had this author rethinking everything
Capitalism, dating apps and why we love Edmonton
For this author, losing an eye was “kind of enlightening”
This poem is straight out of a dream
1 marriage, 2 mid-life crises … and a guy named Gluten
How far would you go for your family?
Buffoon or genius? What makes a cult leader?
For Louise Penny, stories come from hurt
Revisiting Writers & Company: Happy 250th, Jane Austen!
So your whole family thinks you’re reincarnated — what now?
All I want for Christmas … is a fake boyfriend?
Video games are radical. Not in the way you think
Three writers on the monsters that made them
A priest and an artist walk into a bar
Anarchists have bigger hearts than you think
John Irving’s new novel returns to a familiar orphanage
This poem took 16 straight hours to write
Here’s what you have wrong about teen moms
Chris Hadfield — from astronaut to author
A fictional ad agency — and its very real ghosts
Kiran Desai’s novel is worth the 20-year wait
What is a stag dance?
Zadie Smith never thought she’d tell this story
Can your nail tech throw a mean right hook?
Ian McEwan has hope for humanity — here’s why
Why Mona Awad gave the Bunnies a say
Where do North Korean spies go for dinner?
Think Stonehenge rocks? So does Ken Follett
What is extreme caretaking?
R.F. Kuang raises a little hell
What would it take to become the first Cherokee astronaut?
What happens to fiction in times of war?
Why this comics legend is just getting started
Who was the woman Kafka loved?
Reliving the soundtrack of the 2000s
Why this Pulitzer Prize winner is done with writing books
Death, sex, money … and podcasting?
Bookends Highlights: Why we never shut up about our literary prizes
Bookends Bonus: What do you see in the mirror?
Bookends Bonus: Redefining what counts as a Canadian literary classic from Commotion
Bernardine Evaristo: In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel
Bookends Highlights: The language of comics with 5 masters of the craft
Bookends Bonus: Cartoonist and writer Gabrielle Drolet on Q with Tom Power
3 writers on finding their voices — and the power of personal stories
What makes Montreal a transgender city?
Weaving a story of family trauma and celebrating the beauty in survival
For Indigenous players, ice hockey is a ceremony of its own
Taylor Jenkins Reid is among the stars — on and off the page
Alison Bechdel on making money and seeing Fun Home in a new light
David A. Robertson puts stories at the heart of reconciliation
An opera singer gives voice to the Grenadian revolution
When young men murder, what can we learn?
Music, sex and finding the soundtrack to queer joy
Weightlifting made Casey Johnston stronger — in muscle and mind
Fans asked for another happy ending — Carley Fortune delivered
Bookends Introduces | Understood: Who Broke the Internet
Ocean Vuong finds beauty in a fast food shift
Writing about catastrophe gives Madeleine Thien courage
Fighting for an unlawful love in Uganda
NOT CLICKBAIT! She stole her dead twin sister’s identity!?
What if your dreams could land you in jail?
Meet the winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize
Why you can’t forget your first love
Why growing up is so hard — and why Canadians are so funny
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s triumphant return to fiction
Scaachi Koul calls herself a professional ex-wife
Yes, tuberculosis is still a thing — John Green tells us why
Mapping the stories of Uganda’s abducted children
Kate Bush spins a magical story on her album Hounds of Love
Curtis Sittenfeld is fascinated by fame
Emma Donoghue boards a train destined for disaster
Why Heather O’Neill believes in magic
Getting to know Canada’s king of suspense
How Frida Kahlo and Sylvia Plath inspired a novel about chronic pain
We can still avoid a tech dystopia — here’s how
In the Caribbean, secret lives come at a cost
Pitbull, Scarface and a whale walk into a book
Emily Austin: Would life be easier as a rat? And other ways to escape adulthood
Nnedi Okorafor: Bringing a writer to life in Death of the Author
Jack Wang: Reimagining the lost stories of Chinese Canadians during WWII
Helen Phillips: In a world run by AI, what makes us human?
Daniel Aleman: Loneliness inspired a novel about a Grindr date gone fatally wrong
Kate Gies: Reclaiming her body after years of medical trauma
Emma Knight: 'Bad' mothers make good stories — and are more true-to-life
Imani Perry: Tracing blue through Black American life
Chris Ware: Inside the sketchbooks of a comics master
Amy Lin: Widowed at 31, she looks for the beauty in grief
Rumaan Alam: How would you spend a billion dollars?
Rachel Robb: Exploring reconciliation and the natural world
Judith Butler: Breaking down why people fear gender
Zoe Whittall: Why heartbreak is a valid form of grief
Adrian Tomine: Answering his readers’ burning questions
Bookends: Highlights from 2024
Samantha Harvey: In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel
Bryan Lee O’Malley: 20 years of Scott Pilgrim
Nita Prose: The Maid series returns with a Christmas twist
Charles Burns: Why the comics icon keeps returning to teenage angst
Pasha Malla: Parodying a wellness resort with horror and humour
Sarah Leavitt: Illustrating grief too wide for words
Nalo Hopkinson: How Caribbean folktales inspired her fantastical novel, Blackheart Man
Leslie Jamison: Capturing Peggy Guggenheim in fiction and honouring a friend's dream
Teresa Wong: Illustrating her family's past — in all its ordinary and epic moments
Paula Hawkins: Exploring the dark side of the art world in new thriller The Blue Hour
Anne Fleming: Why her latest novel is a gender-bending tale of witchcraft and forbidden love
Eric Chacour: Exploring the power of familial expectations and forbidden love
Rachel Kushner: In Booker Prize finalist Creation Lake, an agent provocateur faces deep questions about how to live
Alan Hollinghurst: Coming of age in Britain and writing through the gay gaze
Fawn Parker: Blending her own grief with fiction in new novel Hi, It’s Me
Erica McKeen: Using horror and surrealism to explore grief, care and love in new novel Cicada Summer
Jeff VanderMeer: How his blockbuster Southern Reach series reflects our own fight against climate change
V.V. Ganeshananthan: Exploring the complexity of Sri Lanka's civil war in her prize-winning novel, Brotherless Night
Corinna Chong: Uncovering long buried truths against the backdrop of Alberta's Badlands
Jenny Heijun Wills: Sharing her journey of transracial adoption and self-discovery in her moving essay collection
Matt Haig: A surprise inheritance, a magical island and why he's embracing hope — in fiction and life
Aldona Dziedziejko: Poetic reflections on land and loss wins 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize
Casey McQuiston: Celebrating queer love and joy and navigating the future of romance
Tanya Talaga: Searching for her great-great grandmother — a story of family, truth and survival
Alison McCreesh: Exploring the magic and nuance of life in the North in her latest graphic novel
Aysegul Savas: Finding home in foreignness and capturing the uncertainty of early adulthood
Sloane Crosley: Losing her best friend and sharing her grief with the world
David Huebert: Exploring the complexity of our relationship with oil through fiction
Heather O'Neill: How motherhood and artistry intersect in the bestselling writer's life and work
Kaveh Akbar: Finding meaning in sobriety and writing his bestseller, Martyr!
Introducing Bookends with Mattea Roach