Friday Special Blend
Friday April 24th, 2026 with Susan Johnston. Tala Abuali.
Writersfest! Zeina Sleiman. Sean Wilson. Then Matt Gower and his guitar.

We'll start our morning in conversation with author Zeina Sleiman, who will be in Ottawa for a CBC All in a Day Book Club x Writersfest event on Tuesday. About Where the Jasmine Blooms (Fernwood Publishing, 2025): Two Palestinian cousins with very different lives meet in Lebanon and discover their family’s political secrets amid the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. Zeina Sleiman is a Palestinian Canadian writer who lives in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). She is a Tin House workshop alum and is the recipient of grants from the Silk Road Institute, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Edmonton Arts Council. Her Short Story My Father’s Soil was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2025. Where the Jasmine Blooms is her debut novel. Zeina will be in Ottawa for the CBC All in a Day Book Club, taking place at the Ottawa Public Library Greenboro branch • 363 Lorry Greenberg Drive, 6:30pm. Ticket details: In-person tickets -- eventbrite.ca/e/all-in-a-day-book-club-in-person-zeina-sleiman-tickets-1985979182195 Online tickets -- eventbrite.ca/e/all-in-a-day-book-club-virtual-zeina-sleimans-where-the-jasmine-blooms-tickets-1985980005658 Just after 08:05, Writersfest Artistic Director Sean Wilson joins us to set the scene for the festival, which starts this week. Writersfest details here: https://writersfestival.org/events/spring-2026 Then, at 08:30, Matt Gower is coming in, and will be performing live.