Two former voices from The Walrus—Tajja Isen, the former digital editor, now editor-in-chief at Catapult magazine, and digital director Angela Misri, who by the time this episode is available will have moved on to Toronto Metropolitan University as its newest assistant professor.

Misri talked to Isen about her new book, Some of my Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service. It’s an essay collection about race, justice, and the limits of good intentions.

Tajja Isen is also the co-editor of the essay anthology The World As We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate. Some of My Best Friends is her debut essay collection. Angela Misri is a novelist and digital journalist based in Toronto.

Isen describes why she wrote this book and the journey she marked through writing it.

Then Isen talks about the baggage people bring to the books they read and how she approached writing the nine essays in the collection.

Isen then describes the toughest and easiest chapters to write and why absolution is a theme that shows up throughout.

Isen also talks about the publishing industry and fighting the impulse to pigeonhole a book on a shelf or genre that is more than one thing.

Finally, Isen gives some advice for new writers.

• Why Success in Canada Means Moving to America

This episode of The Deep Dive was produced by Simran Singh, Yasmin Duale, and Angela Misri and edited by Angela Misri. Thanks so much toTajja Isen for joining us this week.

Music for this podcast is provided by Audio Jungle. Our theme song is “This Podcast Theme” by Inplus Music. Additional music includes “Ethereal Relaxation” by Kevin MacLeod.

Ethereal Relaxation by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/8719-ethereal-relaxation

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Credit scores are often the deciding factor for people’s most important financial milestones. Whether it’s getting approved for a mortgage, buying a car, or getting a loan, those three digits can make or break a person’s life. 

But what might surprise you is that finding errors in your credit score is extremely common, and trying to fix it brings a whole other set of issues.

We hear from award-winning journalist Emily Baron Cadloff, who wrote the cover story of the June issue of The Walrus.

She explains how credit scores have grown to hold so much power over our lives.

Baron Cadloff then debunks some popular misconceptions about credit scores and talks about how common credit-score errors are and how to avoid them. 

Finally, Baron Cadloff breaks down the main takeaways from her latest piece.

Links:

• How Credit Scores Can Run—and Ruin—Our Lives
• Canada’s Middle Class Is on the Brink of Ruin
• Owning Our Privilege

This week’s episode was produced and edited by Yasmin Duale and Simran Singh. Thanks so much to Emily Baron Cadloff for joining us.

Music Credits:

“Impact Prelude” by Kevin MacLeod

Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7565-impact-prelude

License: filmmusic.io/standard-license

“Inspired” by Kevin MacLeod

Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired

License: filmmusic.io/standard-license

Recently, we announced the authors shortlisted for this year’s Amazon First Novel Award. This is the forty-sixth time this prize is being given out, and The Walrus is thrilled to be part of it.

For The Deep Dive, we spoke to Emily Austin, Lisa Bird-Wilson, Pik-Shuen Fung, Brian Thomas Isaac, Conor Kerr, and Aimee Wall. We asked each shortlisted author the same five questions, and we’ve taken some of their answers and woven them into this episode.

We ask five questions of the shortlisted authors:

Why is this novel important now? (Answered by Connor Kerr, Emily Austin, and Aimee Wall.)

Who is your protagonist? (Answered by Pik Shuen Fung and Lisa Bird Wilson.)

Why are first novels special? (Answered by Aimee Wall, Brian Thomas Isaac, and Connor Kerr.)

What advice do you have for someone writing their first novel? (Answered by Lisa Bird Wilson and Brian Thomas Isaac.)

Finally, we asked what all of the shortlisted authors are reading right now.

• https://thewalrus.ca/partnerships/amazon-first-novel-award/

This episode of The Deep Dive was produced by Simran Singh and Angela Misri and edited by Angela Misri. Thanks so much to all the authors for joining us this week.

Music for this podcast is provided by Audio Jungle. Our theme song is “This Podcast Theme” by Inplus Music. Additional music includes “Stay Cool” by Loops Lab and“Limit 70” by Kevin MacLeod.

“Limit 70” by Kevin MacLeod

Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5710-limit-70

Licence: filmmusic.io/standard-license