The award-winning journalist and author Emily Urquhart discusses her new collection of essays Ordinary Wonder Tales (Biblioasis, 2022), with Joseph Planta.

Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart (Biblioasis, 2022). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Ordinary Wonder Tales

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Emily Urquhart joins me again. She has a new book of essays, Ordinary Wonder Tales. It’s a highly readable, fascinating collection of pieces that touch on a number of subjects like death and dying, radioactivity, plague, grief, pregnancy, prenatal genetics, trauma, as well as family, her father’s dementia, as well as family history. The pieces are thoughtful and provoke thoughts from the reader, they’re also enriching. The book is captivating, and as one critic has said, spellbinding. I’ll ask Emily about some of the pieces in the book, when she wrote them, and whatever wisdom she’s gleaned from her experiences and the experience of writing about herself and those around her. Emily Urquhart is a journalist with a doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland in folklore. Her work has appeared in a number of publications including Longreads, Guernica, and The Walrus. She first appeared on the program in 2015 when her book Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family, and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes was published. That book was a finalist for the BC National Award for Canadian Nonfiction, and shortlisted for the Kobo First Book Prize. Her most recent book The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, my Father and Me was a top book of 2020 by the CBC, NOW Magazine, and Quill & Quire. She is a nonfiction editor for The New Quarterly, and joined me from her home in Kitchener, Ontario. The website for more is at www.emilyurquhart.ca. And this book is published by Biblioasis. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Emily Urquhart; Ms. Urquhart, good morning.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (23.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS