Tag: Saskatchewan authors | The Worldshapers

October 12, 2025November 10, 2025

Episode 202: Alan Bradley – The Flavia de Luce Mystery Series

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A long chat with internationally bestselling author Alan Bradley about his Flavia de Luce mystery series, which is now up to Book 11: What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust.

Websites
Penguin Random House
alanbradleyauthor.com

About What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

One of the best mystery novels of 2024, The Washington Post

Amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce, along with her pestilent younger cousin, investigates the murder of a former public hangman and uncovers secrets that bring the greatest shock of her life.

Flavia de Luce has taken on the mentorship of her odious, moon-faced cousin Undine who has come to live at Buckshaw following the death of her mother. Undine’s main talent, aside from cultivating disgusting habits, seems to be raising Flavia’s hackles, although in her best moments she shows potential for trespassing, trickery, and other assorted mayhem.

When Major Greyleigh, a local recluse and former hangman, is found dead after a breakfast of poisonous mushrooms, suspicion falls on the de Luce family’s longtime cook, Mrs. Mullet. After all, wasn’t it she who’d picked the mushrooms, cooked the omlette, and served it to Greyleigh in the moments before his death? “I have to admit,” says Flavia, an expert in the chemical nature of poisons, “that I’d been praying to God for a jolly good old-fashioned mushroom poisoning. Not that I wanted anyone to die, but why give a girl a gift such as mine without giving her the opportunity to use it?”

But Flavia knows the beloved Mrs. Mullet is innocent. Together with Dogger, estate gardener and partner-in-crime, and the obnoxious Undine, Flavia sets out to find the real killer and clear Mrs. Mullet’s good name. Little does she know that following the case’s twists and turns will lead her to a most surprising discovery—one with the power to upend her entire life.

Praise for What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust

“Anyone who’s read Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series knows that the author’s superpowers are creating the pitch-perfect emotional vulnerability and mental prowess of his prococious pre-teen heroine, as well as depicting the sometimes-silly antics and logical deductions of this amazing girl. We’re ecstatic that Flavia has returned.” —Canadian Living

“I love the Flavia de Luce novels! I identify, though I unfortunately didn’t have an Uncle Tarquin and was forced to make do with a Christmas chemistry set from the Sears catalog. Flavia is the best female detective I’ve ever read, full of realism, self-confidence and emotion (in roughly equal parts), and her tales are hilarious, engaging and occasionally heart-breaking.” —Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series

“To say I am overjoyed by the return of the magnificent Flavia is a massive understatement. It is a great day when we have her back in our lives with a new, and riveting, crime to solve. Brava Flavia. Bravo Alan!” —Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Gamache series

“Cozy mystery fans will love this latest installment featuring Flavia de Luce, Alan Bradley’s plucky and spirited protagonist. Delightful!” —Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid

“The enchanting 12th installment of Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series. . . . Flavia’s characteristic quirky humor and unorthodox thinking are on full display, and the ending finds her taking a well-earned step forward in her maturity. This series is as fresh as ever.” —Publishers Weekly

“Flavia De Luce is in top form. . . . Bradley gives his loyal readers a story that will more than satisfy their expectations while also inviting new readers to discover an endlessly entertaining amateur young sleuth who has much to teach her elders.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Bradley’s intrepid amateur sleuth is witty and whip smart as ever, and Bishop’s Lacey remains both a colourful backdrop and a microcosm of a nation in transition, paralleling Flavia’s own trepidation at entering adulthood. A layered plot rife with dastardly deeds and shocking revelations makes for an intriguing and entertaining read, and nicely tees up the (one hopes) next installment in the irresistible Flavia de Luce series.” —BookPage

“Rejoice, fans of fiction’s youngest franchise detective: Flavia de Luce is back after a five-year hiatus, and she hasn’t aged a bit. . . . Nobody could possibly unite intelligence work, mythological monsters and village gossip as adroitly as Bradley’s heroine.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A lively and welcome 11th instalment [to the series].” —Toronto Star

“Watching Flavia grow emotionally is one of the keener pleasures of Mr. Bradley’s inimitable series. Her ego remains undimmed (“It is not always easy being blessed with a superior brain”), but she keeps getting better at working with (and for) others to ensure that justice is delivered.” —Wall Street Journal

About Alan Bradley

Alan Bradley is the Globe and Mail and New York Times bestselling author of eleven Flavia de Luce mystery novels and the memoir The Shoebox Bible. His first Flavia novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, the Dilys Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Agatha Award, the Macavity Award, and the Barry Award, and was nominated for the Anthony Award. His other Flavia de Luce novels are The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, A Red Herring Without Mustard, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Speaking from Among the Bones, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d, The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place, and The Golden Tresses of the Dead, as well as the ebook short story “The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse.”

Alan was born in Toronto, Ont. and grew up in the pleasant lakeside town of Cobourg, Ont. After a long career in television broadcasting, he took early retirement from the University of Saskatchewan to write full-time. He has published many children’s stories as well as lifestyle and arts columns in Canadian newspapers. His adult stories have been broadcast on CBC radio and published in various literary journals. He has also written several screenplays and taught university-level courses in screenwriting. He was the recipient of the first Saskatchewan Writers Guild Award for Children’s Literature.

After writing for several years on the Maltese island of Gozo, Alan Bradley now lives on an island in the middle of the Irish Sea.

November 17, 2024November 17, 2024

Episode 185: James Bow – The Sun Runners and Tales from the Silence

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A chat with Aurora Award-winning YA author James Bow about his new science fiction novel, The Sun Runners, and its companion anthology, Tales from the Silence.

Website
bowjamesbow.ca

Facebook
@james.bow

Shadowpaw Press links
The Sun Runners
Tales from the Silence

About The Sun Runners

“Hello, people of Mercury. This is planet Earth. Are you receiving this? Please respond.”

Lieutenant Adelheid Koning was only twenty-three when the Earth’s long fight against its environment ended in collapse and nuclear war. Earth’s sudden silence leaves the colonies of the inner solar system without lifelines, in various stages of self-sufficiency.

Or, in Mercury’s case, not.

To help her fellow stranded colonists of Mercury survive starvation and a breakdown of order, Adelheid fights some cold equations and makes some hard choices, ending up wearing an iron crown as queen of one of the rail cities of Mercury, constantly moving to stay ahead of the Sun.

Fifty years later, Adelheid’s granddaughter, Frieda, is a seventeen-year-old princess who would rather be an engineer. Frieda’s life is shattered when a suspicious accident takes one of her arms—and is then turned upside-down when her mother dies from that accident. Frieda is left a young and vulnerable queen, locking horns with her grandmother, who is now regent and dowager.

When the Earth makes contact again, after fifty years of silence, Frieda is eager to end Mercury’s isolation, but Adelheid is suspicious of the Earth’s sudden return, and wary of the other latitude towns’ desires to accept all that the Earth is offering, without question.

With thousands of lives on the line, is it wise to hope for healing? Or are we forever defined by what we do in the dark?

About Tales from the Silence

On August 4, 2151, the world will end.

It’s been a long time coming: climate disasters brewing conflict, conflict breeding chaos. But on that fateful day, someone will set off the nukes. On August 4, 2151, human civilization on Earth will fall silent.

There are survivors, of course—and not just on Earth. There are scientists on the Jovian moons. Miners in the asteroid belt. Thriving colonies on the surface of Mars and above the clouds of Venus. Far more precarious ones on Mercury. When the silence falls across human space, one thing is clear: Earth’s space-born children are on their own. No more supplies are coming. No more orders. No more meddling. No more help.

Set in the universe of James Bow’s new novel, The Sun Runners, Tales from the Silence is a gathering of award-winning science fiction, fantasy, and YA authors who explore the worlds the Earth left behind, as well as the Earth itself, as they struggle through Earth’s new dark age.

Join James Bow, Phoebe Barton, Kate Blair, Cameron Dixon, Mark Richard Francis, Jo Karaplis, Kari Maaren, Fiona Moore, Ira Nayman, Kate Orman, and Jeff Szpirglas as they tell the stories of what happens after the end of the world.

About James Bow

James Bow writes science fiction and fantasy for both kids and adults. He’s been a fan of science fiction since his family introduced him to Doctor Who on TV Ontario in 1978, and his mother read him classic sci-fi and fantasy from such authors as Clifford Simak and J.R.R. Tolkien. James won the 2017 Prix Aurora Award for best YA Novel in Canada for Icarus Down.

By day, James is a communications officer for a charitable land trust protecting lands from development in Waterloo Region and Wellington County. He also loves trains and streetcars. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario, with his two kids, and his spouse/fellow writer/partner-in-crime, Erin Bow.

November 10, 2024November 10, 2024

Episode 184: Arthur Slade – I, Brax: 1. A Battle Divine (A Dragon Assassin Adventure)

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A chat with award-winning author Arthur Slade about his latest middle-grade/YA fantasy adventure, I, Brax: 1. A Battle Divine (A Dragon Assassin Adventure)

Website
arthurslade.com

Facebook
@arthursladefan

Twitter
@arthurslade

Instagram
@arthurslade

YouTube

Shadowpaw Press link for I, Brax: A Battle Divine
The Glass Lodge: 20th Anniversary Edition

About I, Brax: A Battle Divine

Brax, hero of several Dragon Assassin tales, finally gets to tell his own story . . .

On a diplomatic mission from Drachia, the country of dragons, Brax and his rider, Carmen, encounter a ghostly vision of the Nameless Goddess, who warns them she is coming to conquer their world.

When the duo arrives at the Akkad empire, they discover that the emperor has been killed by what looks to be a servant of that goddess, and his young nephew ascends to become the emperor. Both Brax and Carmen swear to protect the young man from the Nameless Goddess, which involves fighting creatures in the real and netherworld.

But once they discover the true name of the Nameless Goddess, the hunt is on. Will they be able to destroy her name before she rises to take over their world?

Praise for I, Brax: A Battle Divine

“There is so much fun in this book, even with the big battles, fires, destruction, and evil creatures being unleashed throughout the story. . . . It is a great story from the masterful and ever-entertaining pen of Arthur Slade. A great read in the Dragon Assassin universe!” – Steven R. McEvoy, Book Reviews and More

About Arthur Slade

Arthur Slade was raised on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan. He is the author of twenty five novels for young readers including The Hunchback Assignments, which won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and Dust, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. His lifetime of work has also received the prestigious Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence. All of these awards mean that when he drinks tea he has to raise his pinky. It’s very fancy. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.

P.S. He does all of his writing on a treadmill desk. And he listens to heavy metal. At the same time.

August 26, 2024August 26, 2024

Episode 183: John Brady McDonald – The Glass Lodge: 20th Anniversary Edition

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A chat with noted Indigenous poet and artist John Brady McDonald about the new twentieth-anniversary hardcover edition of his acclaimed debut poetry collection, The Glass Lodge.

Website
artbyjohnmcdonald.weebly.com

Facebook

Shadowpaw Press link for The Glass Lodge
The Glass Lodge: 20th Anniversary Edition

About The Glass Lodge

John Brady McDonald, MBSFA, a Nêhiyawak-Métis multidisciplinary artist and writer from Treaty Six Territory in Saskatchewan, Canada, is an award-winning author of multiple books who has presented at literary festivals around the world.

Before all this, however, he was a young, urban Indigenous youth, struggling with addictions, the streets, and the pain and turmoil of intergenerational trauma as a residential school survivor and the child of residential school survivors.

While his struggle was not uncommon, what made it unique was that he documented it through free-verse poetry, filling countless notebooks and paper boxes with hundreds of poems over a ten-year period, providing a glimpse into the life of young man who had to overcome so much and grow up way too fast.

These raw, lyrical poems are a glimpse of the birth of a poet, recklessly using language and words with abandon and without restraint. It is the poetry of an individual experimenting with the language, mixing the influences of Shakespeare and Jim Morrison with the teenage-Goth writing style of youth—the base metals from which a lifetime of words was forged.

Originally published by Kegedonce Press in 2004, The Glass Lodge was presented across Canada and the United States at esteemed festivals. Chosen for the First Nations Communities Read program, it was also nominated for the Anskohk Aboriginal Book of the Year in 2005.

Now, here is that seminal work in a brand-new edition, re-edited and restored, illustrated with images of many of the original, handwritten poems, and with author’s notes providing frank, fascinating insight into what gave rise to each of these verses: the outpouring of language that marked the birth of a remarkable writer.

Praise for The Glass Lodge

“The Glass Lodge transcends all the cliches of the angst-ridden Urban Indian. McDonald’s verse is a brilliant fusion of the brutality and hope that is inherent in the Aboriginal experience. I have never read poetry that so closely resembles my own experience as a First Nations man.” – Darrell Dennis, Writer, Tales of an Urban Indian, Moccasin Flats

About John Brady McDonald

John Brady McDonald is a Nehiyawak-Metis writer, artist, historian, musician, playwright, actor and activist born and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He is from the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation and the Mistawasis Nehiyawak. The great-great-great grandson of Chief Mistawasis of the Plains Cree, as well as the grandson of famed Metis leader Jim Brady, John’s writings and artwork have been displayed in various publications, private and permanent collections and galleries around the world, including the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

John is one of the founding members of the P.A. Lowbrow art movement, and served as Vice President of the Indigenous Peoples Artists Collective for nearly a decade. John also served a term as vice-chair of the Board of Directors for Spark Theatre, and as a Senator with the Indigenous Council Committee of CUPE Saskatchewan.

The author of several books, John studied at England’s prestigious Cambridge University, where in July 2000 he made international headlines by symbolically “discovering” and “claiming” England for the First Peoples of the Americas. John is also an acclaimed public speaker, who has presented in venues across the globe, such as the Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival, the Black Hills Seminars on Reclaiming Youth, The Appalachian Mountain Seminars, the Edmonton and Fort McMurray Literary Festival, the Eden Mills Writers Festival and at the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

His artwork and writing have been nominated for several awards, including the 2022 Saskatchewan Book of the Year Awards, the 2022 High Plains Book Awards, and the 2023 Lambda Literary Awards. John was awarded the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal (Saskatchewan).

August 20, 2024August 20, 2024

Episode 182: Lynda Monahan – The Door at the End of Everything

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A chat with poet Lynda Monahan about her new collection, The Door at the End of Everything, which features poems focused on those who struggle with mental health.

Facebook
@lynda.monahan.92

Lynda Monahan’s Amazon Page

Amazon Links for The Door at the End of Everything
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com

About The Door at the End of Everything

Written while Lynda Monahan was hospital writer-in-residence at the Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert, working often on the adult and youth mental health wards, the tight, pared poems in The Door at the End of Everything give voice to and honour those living with mental illness, speaking to not only the suffering but also the courage and hope that is so clearly there as well.

Several of the poems and poetry sequences have seen publication in various literary journals, including Grain, The Society, The New Quarterly, Transition, Bareback, and Dalhousie Review, and in the poetry anthologies Writing Menopause (Inanna Publications), Lummox Anthology of Canadian Poetry, Worth More Standing (Caitlin Press), the Apart pandemic anthology (Saskatchewan Writers Guild), and Line Dance (Burton House Books), and in various tanka publications such as Atlas Poetica, A Hundred Gourds, and Gusts.

Praise for The Door at the End of Everything

“a generous and mature poetry” — gillian harding-russell

“This is a terrific poetry collection . . . with a light, lyrical touch . . . the poems explore mental illness, not in a clinical way, but from the inside, as well as aging, grief, loneliness, and loss. The poems are infused with lovely imagery and a sense of hope.” — Dave Margoshes

About Lynda Monahan

Lynda Monahan is also the author of four other collections of poetry, A Slow Dance in the Flames (Coteau Books, 1998), What My Body Knows (Coteau Books, 2003), Verge (Guernica Editions, 2015), and a cowritten collection, A Beautiful Stone: poems and ululations (Radiant Press 2019). She facilitates a number of creative writing workshops and has been writer-in-residence at a St. Peter’s College facilitated retreat, Balfour Collegiate in Regina, and the Prince Albert Public Library, and writer-on-the-wards at Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert.

She is editor of several books, including Second Chances: stories of brain injury survivors, Skating in the Exit Light, a poetry anthology, and With Just One Reach of Hands, an anthology of the writing of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Writing For Your Life group, which she also facilitates.

She has served on the council for the League of Canadian Poets, the Sage Hill Writing Experience, and the Saskatchewan Writers Guild. She recently completed a year as lead artist for an Artists in Communities project through the Sask Arts Board, mentoring local artists to develop long-term community arts programming.