So, your most recent novel, The Best Kind of People, is being released in paperback in the US, and being developed for a feature film. It would have been 96 or so-over 20 years?! But I kept the zines I got from that tour for a long time. It’s humbling to think how long ago that was now. I do remember seeing you with Sister Spit a long time ago and I bought one of your zines. We do have lots of folks in common but I don’t think we have ever met. I feel like we should have already met because we have so many excellent people in common. Hello, Zoe! I’m excited to chat with you. In this interview, Zoe and Cooper take a deep dive into the culture around sexual assault that her new book tackles, her writing practice, and cross-border literary life in contemporary North America.

Zoe Whittall took time out of her busy writing life (she’s a TV writer on The Baroness Von Sketch Show and several other television shows and is at work on her fourth novel and she is the author of several volumes of poetry) to discuss the new book with writer Cooper Lee Bombardier. In the fervent wake of the #MeToo movement and the ongoing UBC Accountable controversy in CanLit, the topic of The Best Kind of People couldn’t be more timely. Her second novel, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, won the 2009 Lambda Literary award for trans fiction. The book will be published in paperback in the US this summer, and is currently being adapted for a feature film by director Sarah Polley.

The award-winning Canadian author Zoe Whittall’s third novel, The Best Kind of People, was shortlisted for The Giller Prize, named Indigo’s #1 Book of 2016, and a best book of the year by Walrus Magazine, The Globe & Mail, Toronto Life, and The National Post. Zoe Whittall: On Writing for TV, Loving Fiction, and Literary Life in Canada

The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall