Since her breakout novel A Complicated Kindness, internationally acclaimed author Miriam Toews has captured our hearts with unforgettable characters and heartbreaking stories. Most of her 10 books have been works of fiction, shot through with threads of her real life experience. In her latest book, A Truce That Is Not Peace, Miriam lays it all bare in memoir form: not just the deaths by suicide of both her father and her sister, but the all-but-unbearable struggle it has been for her to make sen...
Feb 03, 2026•45 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Having mega-hit songs and international fame in your early 20s is a tough act to follow, but Steven Page has done the work to figure it out. He has navigated the ups and downs and wild uncertainties of fame for decades— as the former frontman of Barenaked Ladies, and now as a successful solo artist. A much-scrutinized breakup with longtime best friends and bandmates, a headline-grabbing drug arrest, and a candid struggle with mental health, Steven Page is a very public example of courageously na...
Jan 20, 2026•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 1
The host of the wildly successful TED podcast How To Be A Better Human , comedian Chris Duffy infuses every conversation with thoughtful curiosity, wit and enthusiasm—including this one! Chris and Gill talk about his determination to help us all bring more laughter into our lives; why humour is such a potent stabilizer in the midst of uncertainty and change; the wisdom he learned from his students when he taught fifth grade; and why we should all take ourselves less seriously, especially now. Pl...
Jan 06, 2026•45 min•Season 2Ep. 10
After an unreasonable number of cancer diagnoses and a nearly two-year battle with long Covid, Gill has learned a lot about navigating uncertainty, yes. She’s also become a model of resilience, something the team at the terrific Psyched Up podcast wanted to celebrate. This week’s episode finds Gill on the other side of the interview microphone. Psyched Up host Dr Diane McIntosh is a psychiatrist and a trusted expert in the field of mental health. She’s a best-selling author, researcher, and prac...
Dec 23, 2025•33 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Imagine taking over the absolute top job in your field, at a time of unprecedented national and international scrutiny on your team. Oh, and you’re the first woman EVER to hold the position. That is the challenge General Jennie Carignan wakes up to each morning, as Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff, the highest ranking military command in the land. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty about Canada’s sovereignty, and on the heels of historic defence spending in the most recent federal budget ...
Dec 09, 2025•44 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Serena Ryder is incredibly comfortable belting her glorious voice into a microphone. A multiple Juno award winner, she sells out concert halls wherever she goes. Songs like “What I Wouldn’t Do”, “Stompa” and more have scored TV soundtracks, and become iconic rallying cries for celebration. But Serena is incredibly courageous about sharing her vulnerable side as well, using her voice to speak up for those who struggle with mental health issues. Serena’s own history with depression and anxiety has...
Nov 25, 2025•39 min•Season 2Ep. 7
A long-time productivity and self-help writer for The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman catapulted to international renown with his 2021 book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals . In that book, as well as his 2025 follow up Meditations for Mortals , Burkeman jolts our productivity-obsessed culture awake with the reminder that we can’t possibly get everything under control in the short time we have here on earth. It’s a realization that seems terrifying and slightly depressing at first blush...
Nov 11, 2025•43 min•Season 2Ep. 6
How do you go from a corporate job you don’t actually like to living your creative and professional dream? For Anar Ali the path involved a lot of leaps into the unknown. Anar is creator and producer of Allegiance, the top-rated show on CBC Television. Before that she was a respected author with a multi-book deal at a major publisher. But none of it would have happened without listening to her instincts and trusting in the possibility of uncertainty. Wise, reflective and bracingly candid, Anar s...
Oct 28, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Waking up each morning to a relentless news cycle of fear and despair, sometimes being hopeful can seem naive. How can we possibly have hope for a future that often feels grim? As award-winning author Andrea Curtis shares in her newest book, hope and struggle actually go hand in hand. The Story and Science of Hope is written for middle-grade readers but the neuroscience behind it offers comfort to us all. In her warm and upbeat style, Andrea explains how hope differs from optimism, and lays out ...
Oct 14, 2025•38 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Living in a post-truth world is wildly destabilizing. With so much conflicting information, how can we trust what is real? Timothy Caulfield is Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy as well as a popular author. In his latest book The Certainty Illusion: What You Don’t Know and Why It Matters , Caulfield cuts through simplistic misinformation and reminds us why science, in all its complexity, is our best shot at navigating the way forward. As he discusses in this week’s thought-provoking...
Sep 30, 2025•39 min•Season 2Ep. 3
New York Times bestselling author Alex Hutchinson wants us to try new things. A science journalist with a focus on human performance, his new book The Explorer’s Gene is a fascinating dive into why humans are actually wired to not just handle uncertainty but to evolve and thrive because of it. Betting on the path we don’t know about will yield more rewarding results—even if it doesn’t work out the way we had hoped. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. This is a conversation that will buoy the spiri...
Sep 16, 2025•45 min•Season 2Ep. 2
As Dragon’s Den kicks off its 20th season, how exciting to launch our second season with Arlene Dickinson—arguably the most iconic dragon of all. You know Arlene as a titan of business and venture capital, but as she reveals with remarkable warmth and candour as she talks with Gill, her secret weapon is her honesty about doubts, vulnerabilities and uncertainty. It’s what makes her YouTube show Arlene is Alone so popular. In this conversation she talks about the freedom she finds in being on her ...
Sep 02, 2025•44 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Gill is loving her summer break! Launching this podcast was itself a bit of a leap into the unknown, so it has been wonderfully rewarding to hear good things from so many of our listeners. Your stories, your responses and your appreciation of our guests this season have been great encouragement—just the fuel we needed to drive us forward to season 2. We wanted to share some highlights from listener letters. (We do read all your submissions, but we couldn’t read them all on the air…) Keep ‘em com...
Aug 26, 2025•7 min
The future can feel shaky, especially for young people starting out right now. Psychology professor and author Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Ph.D. changed society's understanding of human development when he coined the term “emerging adulthood.” When adult children are living at home—as many are in this economy— future uncertainty can feel oppressive for everyone in the house. Dr. Arnett gives reassuring context for anxious parents of older children, explaining the social and cultural forces that have ...
Aug 19, 2025•37 min
When our health feels uncertain, we turn to our physicians—doctors have all the answers, right? But what about when they don’t? Dr. Kieran Quinn has devoted much of his busy clinical and research time since 2020 to understanding post-Covid syndromes. Though he is considered a top long Covid specialist, it is a condition riddled with unknowns, for which he can offer no remedy, no treatment and very few answers. He talks candidly with Gill—his former patient—about navigating the unstable ground of...
Aug 12, 2025•30 min
If you’ve ever had a secret dream but been too afraid of failure to dare attempt it, Sue Hincenbergs would like a word. Her debut novel—a dark, funny crime story called “The Retirement Plan”—sparked a publishing bidding war and the film adaptation is already in development. (She’s got her fingers crossed for Brad Pitt in a lead role!) Sue makes the case for staying hopeful and working hard, even in the face of failure and uncertainty. Subscribe to our newsletter aloveaffairwiththeunknown.substac...
Aug 05, 2025•26 min
Super successful urban blogger Jen McNeely made a name for herself when she created the popular Toronto site “She Does the City”. But the toll that lifestyle took on her personal life became untenable and eventually led her to rehab. In sobriety, Jen has made one massive change after another, leaving her career and the city behind; rewriting her life in midlife. Jen is honest and inspiring as she explains the courage it took to lean into so much uncertainty, and the rewards that could only have ...
Jul 30, 2025•45 min•Season 1Ep. 11
If you’ve been paying even a little bit of attention to Canadian politics, you know that change and uncertainty have been dominant themes for several months now. Trump‘s tariffs and talk of annexation are fueling a lot of fear about what lies ahead. Author, journalist and cultural commentator Stephen Marche explores it all in his new podcast "Gloves Off ". But really, adapting to change and facing up to huge challenges are familiar themes for Marche, as he explains to Gill in this wide-ranging c...
Jul 22, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Retirement ain’t what those ‘Freedom 55’ ad campaigns promised. Bestselling author and award-winning journalist Cathrin Bradbury talks openly about her new book This Way Up and the enormous change of this under-discussed life stage: the wild, unexpected and wonderful chapter that opened up in her life when she finally stepped away from the daily grind. Cathrin shares her own reckoning with all the unknowns inherent in retirement, as she leans into the uncertainty of mapping what lies ahead. Subs...
Jul 15, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Improvisational sketch comedy offers a master class in how to not just handle uncertainty but lean into it. Superstar improv comedians Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus make walking the high wire of unscripted performance look easy. A couple both onstage and off, they have navigated huge life changes together, usually with laughs. When both sets of parents died, they set about processing grief—and a lot of inherited possessions— through their work. The result is Big Stuff , a critically acclaimed st...
Jul 08, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Bestselling author Claire Cameron usually writes fiction, including the award-winning The Last Neanderthal , and The Bear . Her latest book, an instant bestseller, tells a different kind of tale— How To Survive A Bear Attack is a memoir of Claire’s rare genetic condition and cancer diagnosis. Weaving her own experience with the haunting story of a rare, fatal bear attack in Ontario’s Algonquin Park, Claire investigates how to thrive in the face of fear and deadly odds. In this deeply felt conver...
Jul 01, 2025•47 min•Season 1Ep. 7
As a researcher and author, Dr. Britt Wray has a front row seat to the terrifying unknowns of our planet’s future; as a young mother, she has developed very specific coping strategies for staying sane through the eco-anxiety. Britt’s choice to have a child was a central thread in her bestselling and critically-acclaimed book Generation Dread . Her thought-leading work at the intersection of mental health and climate change makes her the best person to listen to in the midst of another scorching,...
Jun 24, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 6
The host of the wildly successful TED podcast How To Be A Better Human , comedian Chris Duffy infuses every conversation with thoughtful curiosity, wit and enthusiasm—including this one! Chris and Gill talk about his determination to help us all bring more laughter into our lives; why humour is such a potent stabilizer in the midst of uncertainty and change; the wisdom he learned from his students when he taught fifth grade; and why we should all take ourselves less seriously, especially now. Pl...
Jun 17, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Outspoken, passionate and endlessly creative, Jann Arden is a model of courage in the face of unknowns. As she was finishing work on her latest book and preparing to tour her new album, Mixtape , Gill & Jann caught up about her unexpected viral hit of Canadian pride; how she’s staying grounded in the face of political turbulence; how she developed the confidence to face down whatever challenge she encounters, and what her late mother’s battle with Alzheimers’ taught Jann about handling uncer...
Jun 10, 2025•49 min•Season 1Ep. 4
As a federal cabinet minister, Lisa Raitt walked the corridors of power. All that was snatched away when her partner got a diagnosis of young-onset Alzheimer's. With extraordinary candour, Lisa shares with Gill what it’s been like to watch her beloved slip away before her eyes; how she managed the out-of-left-field change to her personal and professional life; what she has learned about what strength and power really looks like; and how sometimes painful experiences can bring us closer to feelin...
Jun 03, 2025•48 min•Season 1Ep. 3
For decades, Ian Brown has written his way through the unknowns of life. His international bestseller The Boy in the Moon was his way of trying to understand the rare genetic condition his son was born with; his decades of Globe & Mail newspaper columns make sense (and good fun) of the world around us. As he enters some of his final decades, Brown’s powers of observation and wonder are sharper than ever (a point he might dispute). His critically-acclaimed book Sixty examined the unknowns of ...
May 27, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 2
An iconic legend of Canadian television comedy, a published author, a high-profile spokesperson for mental health advocacy and a loyal Newfoundlander to the end—from the outside, Mary Walsh appears to have it all together. But in this wide-ranging conversation, the deeply intelligent and relentlessly funny Walsh is candid about the sea of unknowns she faces as a mother, a recovering addict, and an independent artist; and about the hard-won wisdom that helps keep her feeling positive in the face ...
May 20, 2025•50 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Saying Yes to uncertainty. Finding humour, courage and community as we navigate the wild ride of modern life. This could be a love affair. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 25, 2025•3 min
