Arjun Basu is a Canadian author and podcaster, whose novel Waiting for the Man was longlisted for the 2014 Giller prize. His latest book, The Reeds, is set in 2017, around Western Montreal, and follows the changing fortunes of a close-knit, middle-class family, across a single summer.

By turns wry and poignant, the novel explores questions of work/life balance, identity, nostalgia and compulsive consumerism, against the backdrop of our brave new online world. It’s a wise, and ultimately optimistic story that weighs want against need, and finds solace in art and food!

Join Arjun and Red as they discuss identity, branding, consumerism and the regeneration of Montreal.

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AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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An Astonishment of Stars is Kirti Bhadresa’s debut volume of short stories. Many of the fourteen tales in the collection chart the lives of women of colour living in Canada, as they navigate relationships, aspirations, and cultural expectations.

Like all good authors of short fiction, Kirti takes everyday situations and looks at them from unfamiliar angles, while also examining the emotional lives of a population whose contribution to society all too often goes unseen in mainstream culture.

Join Kirti and Red as they explore the ups and downs of trying to fit in while remaining true to oneself, and the joy of cooking.

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AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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As a child, K.J. Aiello found hope and escape in magical stories of dragons, wizards, and fantasy. These tales provided a safe space where K.J. could reframe their battle with mental illness and trauma, and envisage the vanquishing of the darkness that haunted them.

In The Monster and the Mirror: Mental Illness, Magic, and the Stories We Tell, K.J. blends memoir, research, and cultural criticism, to examine their own mental illness. Exploring The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and other tales, they show how the darker realms of the human psyche have been portrayed and often stigmatised in popular culture; and suggest how the fantasy genre might also have therapeutic benefits.

Join K.J. and Red as they discuss K.J.’s quest for the ‘what if’ and explore the regenerative power of creative imagination.

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AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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Rachel Stark’s debut, Perris California, is a beautiful and heart-rending novel.

Set in the 1990s in what one character calls ‘the land of momma’s boys’, it’s a story of violence, broken dreams, tenderness, and longing that shines a light on the resilience of women living in a mostly unseen America.

In a style reminiscent of John Steinbeck and Annie Proulx, Rachel contrasts the vastness and beauty of the landscape with the claustrophobia and grittiness of the lives of its inhabitants, while also insisting that hope exists in our capacity to mend each other.

Join Rachel and Red as they discuss the harsh realities and strong bonds binding those scraping a living in the ‘golden’ state.

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AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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Tara Moss has much in common with the heroines of her internationally best-selling crime novels. The Canadian Australian former model is glamourous, tenacious, quick-witted, and committed to fighting for justice. She also relishes a challenge, has a Private Investigator license, and as we’ll hear, isn’t afraid of putting herself in the way of danger to learn what she needs to know.

Her latest series features Billie Walker, a Second World War correspondent turned private investigator based in Sydney, who evokes the charisma of Lee Miller in the film noir style of Raymond Chandler.

Following the publication of the second book in the series, we felt it was high time to get Ms Moss in for questioning.

Join Tara and Red as they discuss femme fatales, fact-checking, fast cars, and feminism.

About AMI

AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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Alis Hawkins is a Welsh crime novelist with a keen eye for historical detail.

Her latest series, The Oxford Mysteries, is set in the city of dreaming spires during the 1880s, at a time when the first women were being permitted to study there, albeit not on an equal footing. Her protagonist, Rhiannon Vaughan, is one of them, and is named after a fearless and put upon heroine from Welsh folklore.

In the latest story, The Skeleton Army, she needs all her wits about her when the Salvation Army arrives in town with its message of temperance sparking murder and mayhem in a city almost as famous for its breweries as its university!

Join Alis and Red as they reveal the untold history of The Skeleton Army, and the under-reported lives of a pair of pioneering female academics.

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AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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For many of us, the coming of a new year is the time when we resolve to try and quit our bad habits and make a clean start. For most, overindulgence in the things we crave is relatively benign, but for some it is an addiction that causes untold harm to themselves and those around them.

Sebastian Wocker is a journalist, musician and recovering addict. In his memoir The Joy of Addiction: Confessions of a Teenage Wastrel, he gives an unflinching account of his descent into the abyss of drug and alcohol dependency.

As the highly ironic title suggests, the book is a tragicomedy, offering both an insight into the mind-set of an addict and an invaluable message of recovery.

Join Sebastian and Red as they explore some of the causes and effects of drink and drug dependency, and how to find a road to recovery.

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AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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Manda Scott is a novelist, podcaster and shamanist practitioner. After building a reputation as one of Britain’s leading crime writers, she achieved international recognition with her highly acclaimed series of historical novels about the warrior Queen Boudica, and a quartet of spy thrillers set in ancient Rome.

More recently she had been devoting her time to her podcast Accidental Gods and believed that she had done with writing novels.

But then she realised that it was providing her with the material she needed to weave a tale that modelled her hopes for a better future. The result is Any Human Power, a thriller that Manda describes as a Thrutopia, and which blends mythology, technology and compassion to offer a pathway for positive social change.

Join Manda and Red as they explore shamanism, sustainability, and an author’s duty to address global crises.

About AMI

AMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.

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