The acclaimed novelist and writer Zoe Whittall discusses her new collection of poetry No Credit River (Book*hug Press, 2024), with Joseph Planta.

No Credit River by Zoe Whittall (Book*hug Press, 2024). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: No Credit River

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

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

Zoe Whittall joins me now. She’s just published a new collection, No Credit River. Through prose poetry, she looks back at abandoned love, trauma, the loss of a pregnancy, the complexity of queer relationships, and isolation. It’s a recent six-year period that she looks back on, that she’s come out of. I’ll ask her about the wisdom that she might have gleaned from the experience, and the understanding that she hopefully obtained having thoughtfully reflected on it all. There are pieces in the book that are personal, and it’s remarkable to see the insight she shares, as well as the growth of a person that comes with the passage of time. I’ll ask Zoe about the process of writing prose poetry, and how different it might be from other forms of writing that she does. I’ll ask her about the writing community in this country, which is something she discusses throughout the collection. Zoe Whittall is the author of the short story collection Wild Failure, and five bestselling novels including The Fake, The Spectacular, The Best Kind of People, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, and Bottle Rocket Hearts. Her previous poetry collections include Pre-cordial Thump, The Emily Valentine Poems, and The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life. Her work has won a Lambda Literary Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Award, and been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has worked as a TV writer on the Emmy-Award winning comedy show Schitt’s Creek and The Baroness Von Sketch Show for which she won a 2018 Canadian Screen Award. This new collection is published by Book*hug Press. She was born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and now lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she joined me from one week ago. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Zoe Whittall; Ms. Whittall, good morning.

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