Lesson Hear
Monday April 27th, 2026 with Susan Johnston and Tala Abuali
Books! Deep dives featuring conversations with Natalie Southworth and Zeina Sleiman

Natalie Southworth Susan Johnston sits down with Natalie Southworth to talk about There's Always More to Say (Linda Leith Publishing), Southworth's debut short story collection, a warmly praised, razor-sharp gathering of stories about ambition, longing, and the quiet chaos of modern life. Southworth's fiction, which has won The Brighton Prize and appeared in literary journals across Canada, the UK, and the US, explores characters caught between who they are and who they thought they'd be: a puppeteer reinventing himself as a realtor, a working mother undone by her own success, sisters slipping out into the world to find something real. Natalie Southworth is reading in Ottawa at The Spaniel's Tale on Wednesday, April 29th, alongside poets David O'Meara and Christina Shah: https://thespanielstale.ca/events/4877520260429 Zeina Sleiman joins Susan and Tala to talk about her debut novel, Where the Jasmine Blooms (Fernwood Publishing), a story set in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, just as war breaks out. The novel follows two Palestinian cousins: Yasmine, a Canadian-Palestinian escaping a crumbling life in Toronto, and Reem, who has spent her whole life in a refugee camp in Trablous dreaming of a way out. When a package of mysterious letters arrives hinting that Yasmine's father may still be alive, the two women are pulled into a web of family secrets and political history that no one wanted them to uncover. Part political thriller, part Muslim feminist love story, Where the Jasmine Blooms is an ode to Arab women, their quiet strength, their grief, and their capacity to heal. Zeina speaks with us about diaspora and belonging, the tensions between those who left and those who stayed, and what it means to write home into existence. Where the Jasmine Blooms is available via fernwoodpublishing.ca and at independent bookstores across Canada. Details on the CBC All in a Day Book Club are here: https://writersfestival.org/events/spring-2026/cbc-radios-all-in-a-day-book-club Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky at @CKCU931 for more.