Making Can’t Lit:
WHAT A PODCAST ABOUT CANADIAN LITERATURE HAS TO DO WITH BRITNEY SPEARS, HEMORRHOIDS, AND “WEIRD LITTLE JERKS”
A Conversation with Dina Del Bucchia and Jen Sookfong Lee
DINA DEL BUCCHIA
is the author of the short-story collection Don’t Tell Me What to Do and the poetry collections It’s a Big Deal!, Coping with Emotions and Otters, Blind Items, and Rom Com, the latter written with former Can’t Lit cohost Daniel Zomparelli.
JEN SOOKFONG LEE
is the author of the novels The End of East, The Better Mother, The Conjoined, and the young adult novel Shelter. She has written several children’s books, a collection of poems, The Shadow List, and Gentlemen of the Shade: My Own Private Idaho, a book about the Gus Van Sant film and ’90s alternative culture.
Together Del Bucchia and Lee host Can’t Lit, “a podcast on all things Canadian and Literature.” They met (virtually) with The Ampersand Review’s managing editor Fawn Parker for a conversation about their podcast in March 2022.
Fawn Parker: Maybe a good place to start would be if we could talk for a second about the “can’t” in the name of the podcast? I imagine it must be a joke about CanLit, but why “can’t”?
Jen Sookfong Lee: Go ahead, Dina.
Dina Del Bucchia: I guess that was me. Before Jen came on, I was hosting this podcast with Daniel Zomparelli, and we’d been talking about it for a few years before we even started the podcast, and when we were talking about names, I feel like this is really the only one that we had. I think part of it was, yes, the pun on CanLit, but also kind of a rejection of some of the staidness of what for many years kinda constituted what literary interviews looked like. And also, because we were going to do a podcast, as opposed to CBC, who are doing coverage all the time, but they can’t do things like we can do. They can’t talk about gross shit, or swear. They can’t say shit. So I think it is all kind of built around that word [can’t]. The can and the can’t of it, what we can and can’t do.
FP: Interesting.
DDB: And I don’t know, Jen might want to add something herself as well about what she thinks, after coming on board.
JSL: Yeah. I have a fractured, conflicted relationship with the concept of CanLit, partly because I have a very—well, we both do—classic literature education. Canadian literature courses were not new when I was in university, but they all sort of covered the same thing and they haven’t changed much. I was in university in the ’90s, so when I started publishing, you know, CanLit wasn’t really any different. I always think of our podcast as being the antithesis to what Robertson Davies might have said it is. Maybe he’s a poor example. What Margaret Atwood would say CanLit is maybe is a better example?
DDB: But also, I don’t think it’s a challenge. We’re still doing normal things like having conversations with writers about their work or with people who work in the publishing industry about what that work is like. I think tonally we’re at least trying to do something that is separating us from the old guard in some respect.
JSL: More playful and less self-conscious maybe.
FP: Right. I think it’s interesting, Dina, that you said “tonally” because I think my interpretation was always that it was a play on that phrase, “I can’t.” I feel like on the internet people are always saying that, and that seems in a way like your approach.
DDB: Yeah, and I think there’s also, a little bit of a class aspect to that as well. I was not raised in a house where we listened to CBC all the time; that was not a thing. We had a TV, and it was on, and I’m a TV child who was raised by television, even though I have amazing parents who also raised me amazingly—
FP: I’ll put that in [the interview]—
DDB: You can add it in or not. [My parents] are adorable and will probably find a way to get this literary magazine, because that’s how cute they are—
JSL: Yeah, that’s how cute they are.
DDB: That’s part of it for me too. I still have a lot of discomfort around these institutional spaces that CanLit really prizes. You know?
JSL: (Laughing) Oh, I know.
DDB: Jen and I have talked about this a lot on the podcast and off. I think we’re also hoping it comes across that we take it seriously—that the space that the podcast occupies and the people that are talking to us about their work. We have reverence for that work, but hopefully we can make it somewhat comfortable.
FP: That leads into my next question, which is about the humour aspect. I see it on Spotify—I don’t know if this is your choosing—but the podcast is listed as under “books” and “comedy.”
JSL: Really?!
DDB: I don’t think we have that choice.
FP: I wasn’t sure.
DDB: I love that.
FP: Obviously it’s funny, but it isn’t only funny. CanLit is, as people often say “a dumpster fire.” Do you have any difficulty balancing that aspect, like, you are two people who get along well and have good rapport. Are there areas where you don’t want to go because of the humour, or do you find you can use it no matter what?
JSL: I don’t think anything is off-limits. You can correct me if I’m wrong, Dina. As long as everybody who’s on the podcast at that particular time is okay with it. I mean, I think we can joke about almost anything; there are obviously things that we don’t joke about that are serious, really heavy issues. But I don’t think there’s any topic that is off-limits. I guess—I know that people who are involved with CanLit go through really traumatic things that are directly or indirectly the result of the system that CanLit is—and they may or may not wanna talk about that. That’s really up to them. Am I wrong, Dina?
DDB: No, I think you’re right. I think the podcast has a pretty strong punching-up policy, for the most part, but I also think we hopefully are reading cues from our guests and each other and allowing the conversation to go in directions toward humour if it feels like it’s right in that moment. A lot of times the stuff we joke about is not connected to the guest; it’s about something else that’s happening outside of the immediate conversation that we’re having. It might be about something happening on Twitter, or that someone wrote like a real piece-of-shit op-ed and we need to weigh in on it. Back in the day, before shit [in CanLit] got even more terrible, Daniel and I used to have a segment called CanLit Feuds where we would talk about fights people were having—
JSL: But those were minor feuds, before stuff really got horrible—
DDB: That’s what I mean! I mean half the time it was just like this poet and this poet are getting upset about some magazine, and I’m like, that is funny, like I do want to joke about that, I love that. But, of course, when things become more serious, painful, polarizing, it’s a lot harder to just be like, “Here’s this horrible thing this man did to a bunch of people!”
FP: Exactly. I think you occupy such an interesting position, because it is punching up. You’re talking about CanLit but you’re also talking to CanLit.
Do you two think that there is an audience for a CanLit podcast that isn’t writers and publishers, or do you think that we’re sort of an in- group, because the language is sort of niche and we all know the same people. Does it go beyond that?
JSL: I don’t know, does it? I mean I think that there are always aspiring writers and publishers, say, that listen to our podcast, but they’re still writers and publishers. They’re just at earlier stages of their careers. I always think that the only people who listen to us are the people who work in publishing or are writers.
DDB: It’s impossible to know exactly who’s listening to it, but I don’t know. Unfortunately, we don’t get cool demographic info. I think the only other info we get is with Spotify or Apple, where there might be suggested topics for people who are readers, and I think that’s maybe the only other category [of people who listen to us]. I don’t think those “regular old folks” are listening to us...
JSL: Sometimes other podcasters listen to us!
DDB: Definitely. I listen to 500 podcasts a day, but I love finding out about a podcast from another pod- cast. I think we’ve gotten listeners because Jen and I are guests on other podcasts that are not specifically about writing. So, I think that might be the only other way people find out about us. I’ve been on a few comedy podcasts, so I think that might be the only other way, like, “Oh, this person has a podcast, too.”
JSL: I’ve been on pop culture podcasts.
DDB: Me, too.
JSL: And we might have gotten a few listeners that way.
FP: Interesting. I think that’s something that’s really valuable. The feeling I get when I listen [to Can’t Lit], is you’re talking about people I know, not personally, but usually online, so it’s so exciting to me that finally someone is saying these names—
JSL: Ha!
FP: For example, I know about all of these sort of intimate fights and controversies and I just want to hear someone else talk about them. I wouldn’t want it to be too widely known, or an international thing, because I think the familiarity of CanLit is so perfect.
JSL: I mean, I wouldn’t mind it going international if it meant we’d get invited to a podcast festival somewhere cool...
DDB: Yeah, that’d be super nice. One time, I didn’t even tell you this, Jen, but we got invited to some festival in Chicago, and they weren’t going to pay us for anything, and I was like, hard pass. Goodbye.
JSL: I think you did tell me.
DDB: I was not into it. You want us to travel during the height of a pandemic to a place that has a super high rate of COVID and not pay for anything? Seems very cool.
JSL: Nope. No thank you. I mean, Asian women get pushed in front of subway trains in the United States; I don’t go down there anymore.
DDB: Yeah, no. I mean, I would be carrying Jen in a BabyBjörn, but for adults, and I would be punching people the whole time.
JSL: Well, I would travel like that if this is on offer.
FP: Naben [Ruthnum] was your most recent guest, and Jen, you self-described as a “craft” nerd in that one. You were talking about some of the craft aspects of Naben’s most recent book, and I was wondering what from your perspective CanLit has craft-wise—because I don’t think that’s talked about a lot—that’s different from everywhere else.
JSL: That’s a good question.
DDB: It is a really good question.
FP: Thank you, I tried to write one good one.
DDB: All your questions have been great so far! I’m loving this.
FP: I’ve never interviewed anybody before!
DDB: Well, you’re doing a great job.
FP: Thank you so much. I’m not fishing for compliments, either.
DDB: No, you’re doing great!
JSL: I think Canadians, what are they in to craft-wise.... What are they doing? God. I read a lot of manuscripts at my day job.
DDB: I feel like this is a good question for you! I think in terms of poetry, I feel like there really is a difference between what is happening here and what is happening in the U.S., for example. I don’t know! I feel like people here started to get way more formal, but in a subversive way. I don’t know if I’m correct about this, but from running a poetry magazine for years, that was something I saw quite a bit. For a long time, there was that trend of writing a poem that was this [very] tiny—
JSL: [Laughs]
DDB: Like, the one-inchers. Where your whole poem has to look like a needle.
JSL: In terms of being specific to Canada, in terms of prose, particularly with fiction, a lot of writers are doing this really flat dialogue, where nobody sounds excited.
DDB: Yes!
JSL: I called it “emotionless distancing” or “millennial distancing”—I called it that in an editorial meeting. There’s a move away from hit-you-over-the-head emotional trauma porn, which I think we were doing for quite a long time in Canada, particularly for writers of colour or other marginalized or under-represented groups.
And then, lately, it’s been more like, we’re going to undersell the emotion, and we’re going to make the reader fill in the blanks. Or maybe everyone’s just numb from the pandemic, this could also be true, but it’s this flatness. I have to get used to it. Obviously, it’s not going anywhere, it’s been a couple years that I’ve been noticing this; it’s not going anywhere, and, looking at it reminds me how people can be very flat online, on Twitter. There’s either a period, or no period, there’s never an exclamation point, if you use all caps, people get upset, because you don’t want to be like Kanye West.
FP: Especially now!
JSL: Yeah, especially now. So, I think the online world has contributed somewhat to the lack of punctuation, the lack of quotation marks, the lack of exclamation points. That flatness is really interesting. I don’t know if it’s just Canada. I feel like it probably isn’t.
Also in Canada, in prose in particular, in non-fiction, in memoir, and in fiction, people are very porous with their timelines. I feel like that’s a new thing. Chapters can be very short, and they’re very porous about past, present, memory, current experience.
DDB: You think there’s more of a lack of that traditional narrative form?
JSL: Yeah—
DDB: I’m not reading as many manuscripts as you are, so this is interesting.
JSL: It’s interesting to me that many people have been writing things that are hybrid genre forms. Mashing up speculative fiction and literary fiction, horror and whatever, that’s been happening for a number of years, but what I think is really interesting is that Canadian authors are playing with the idea of memory in those genre forms. It’s quite specific, because obviously the memory is not, like, slam-dunk. It’s not something that is always accurate, and I think that’s a running theme with the structure of the books, too, because that is something that can be reinforced structurally with the way timelines are a bit porous or the way that memory plays tricks on people, and it can also be a plot device. Often is.
I’m thinking of every sort of fiction-y thing I’ve read lately, and the fallibility of memory has been a plot device.
FP: Interesting.
DDB: Oh, Jen. So smart.
JSL: I’m not! You made me think of it. Fawn made me think of it. I just thought of it now.
DDB: Well, it’s good.
FP: It is. I think that is interesting also. I wonder if it’s also that there is never enough money in CanLit publishing. I know there never is anywhere, but I think in the U.S. there’s this push to make it big, especially the closer you get to New York, and we don’t have any room for that. I don’t think anyone is getting million-dollar deals, like, maybe one person a decade. I wonder if there are more people experimenting for that reason. We’re not going to get anywhere; we might as well try to create something genuine and real and artistic, and not just what’s going to sell.
JSL: I mean that could be true, I think when you’re looking at an average advance for an independent publisher, you’re looking at anywhere from two to six grand. It’s not a six-figure thing that we’re gambling. Not me, anyway.
FP: No, same! I’ve seen two-book offers that are one thousand dollars. It’s crazy.
JSL: Yeah, less! Especially for genres like poetry or even smaller presses.
DDB: I think that is especially true for poetry. I think people are able to do their weird work the way they want to because there’s no, you know, it doesn’t mean there are no stakes, but it’s not the same. You’re not playing in that. It’s still competitive, and there are still lots of people who deserve to be published who aren’t.
JSL: Right.
DDB: But I think there are some. I definitely think what Jen was talking about is happening in poetry too. If you’re only going to get a $200 advance, or not going to get one at all and you’re just going to get paid out in your first royalty statement or whatever—just go for it.
JSL: Yeah, I mean maybe we’re just saying Canadian writers are weird little jerks.
DDB: I absolutely agree with that statement!
JSL: We love them, those weird little jerks!
DDB: That would be a great anthology for CanLit.
JSL: Weird Little Jerks?
FP: I feel like this question is maybe overused with women and it’s also International Women’s Day, which is annoying, but I was thinking of the other lit podcast I know of, and they’re all run by men. I’m not a huge podcast listener, so I could be missing some big ones, but I like that the longest-running one that I know is still around is yours, and it’s run by two women. How do you think that affects the way that people receive you and your work?
JSL: Well, I think that if you’re taking about guests, and I think our guests feel comfortable with us, or safe, I don’t know if that has to do with us as women or that we’re also weird little jerks.
DDB: Hashtag “weirdlittlejerks.”
JSL: The podcast jokes a lot about topics that people might think are of specific interest to women. like we joke about Britney Spears a lot. We don’t even really joke. We’re earnest about Britney Spears.
FP: No, that’s a real cause!
DDB: Yeah, we’re just pro-Britney, we’re anti any type of conservatorship.
JSL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re also constantly talking about our uteri—uteruses? Uteri?
DDB: It’s not just that! Even if we’re talking about the literary community, we are joking about dark stuff and, you know, the bad men of CanLit and the jerk-offs of CanLit. Not the weird little jerks, the jerk-offs.
JSL: It’s funny because you know realistically the majority of people who work in CanLit—
DDB: Absolutely ...
JSL: It’s run almost entirely by women, and I wonder if we are the only literary podcast run by women. If we’re the only ones who offer some measure of representation for the thousands of women who work in publishing.
DDB: I know Jenna Lyn Albert and Rebecca Salazar Leon were cohosts of that podcast, but it was when Jenna was the poet laureate of Fredericton. So, I think that project ended. But that is the only other podcast I know of that wasn’t two dudes.
I think another thing that’s interesting is that we’ve been doing this for a long time—next year will be ten years—and this is only the second time that anyone has approached the podcast in terms of anything promotional or publicity-related.
FP: Hmm.
DDB: Or to talk to us, and the last time was the UBC radio station magazine [Discorder Magazine], which is an amazing publication, and they sent a photographer and took photos of Daniel [Zomparelli] and I, but this is the first time Jen and I have been approached to talk about this in a publication together. Maybe that says in a way that, I don’t know, maybe people don’t really like or respect us? I don’t know!
FP: I don’t think that’s true!
DDB: But you know what I mean?
JSL: We talk too much about hemorrhoids for them to respect us.
DDB: Listen, if they don’t wanna hear about hemorrhoids, they’ve got a lot of pain coming their way.
JSL: Don’t deny it! The hemorrhoid comes for everyone.
DDB: Comes for us all. Comes for you all. You think those bleeders don’t come for you? They’re coming for you!
When I say that people don’t like or respect us, I mean I think there is maybe something to that idea that, you know, it’s not that exciting for two women to be hosting a podcast about CanLit.
JSL: I think Dina and I are well-used to being underestimated, individually and together. It’s not a situation that is unusual for either of us, quite frankly.
DDB: We are very used to it.
JSL: Sometimes the glory arrives! And often it doesn’t.
DDB: You get a moment of glory.
FP: I’m glad Ampersand is the glory.
JSL: There you go!
FP: I think there is something to that. Jen, you said you talk about uteruses, and I think talking about things like that causes people to start to pigeonhole media a certain way. If someone talked about their dick on that podcast—that would just be a podcast. It’s neutral, and everyone would laugh. But as soon as you talk about breasts, and periods, you get framed in this pink, frilly way. I think that’s part of what you were talking about, Dina, about not getting that media attention, and when you do, which is why I didn’t want to ask you about being women, it’s all about that. Like, how does it feel to be such strong girlbosses, that sort of thing.
JSL: We are having conversations about that stuff, and you’re right, Joe Rogan talks about that stuff every single day. He is giving credence to TERFs, he is giving credence to Men’s Rights Activists.
FP: Exactly.
DDB: He is talking about his dick! He is injecting it with ivermectin, or whatever he does. And some things we say may be controversial, not to our listeners or our guests, but if anybody else actually listened they might say, “Is Mrs. Del Bucchia really telling people to steal from the rich?” And yes, that is what I’m saying.
JSL: Which, by the way, is nothing we think is controversial. No, our podcast is not designed to ruffle or start a revolution, and if it did what a happy accident that might be.
DDB: Congratulations, everyone!
JSL: The CanLit revolution is happening!
DDB: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JSL: One of the things that I think Dina and I do is we often have authors who have had a history with people asking them really uncomfortable questions, about things like their identity—whether that’s racial, sexual, gender-based, or whatever—and one of the things we try to do is keep it about their work.
How did you do this thing, this character is amazing, everybody wears nice clothes in your book, please tell us about how you did that. And then we also like to throw in a couple fun things. Everyone wants to talk about their teenage sad diaries, don’t they? Doesn’t everyone want to talk about Kermit the Frog, or Britney Spears?
So, I think there’s an understanding between us as women, because when you’re a female author promoting a book, you get asked those difficultquestions. In my case, as an Asian woman, I get asked horrible questions and know how that feels, so we don’t make the podcast like that. That’s why I think people might feel safe as guests and as listeners, too.
DDB: Yeah. Very good point.
FP: Unfortunately, I’m running out of time on this free Zoom call. I’ll ask you one last question: who are you just dying to have on the podcast?
JSL: Oh, wow.
DDB: Alice Munro.
JSL: Alice Munro ...
DDB: I mean, she’s really old! You know who else I want to have on the podcast? Fred Wah.
JSL: Oh ...
DDB: I love Fred Wah so much. The last party I went to before the pandemic was at that Christmas party, the East Van Publishers party, and I made Fred Wah take a selfie with me, and he was so happy, and I told him I was going to use it for my Christmas card, and I didn’t, and I regret it.
JSL: I mean I would love to have Ann-Marie MacDonald on the podcast. That’s a ’90s thing for me.
DDB: Are you kidding? She’d be AMAZING.
JSL: Also, putting it out there, Joshua Whitehead.
DDB: Joshua Whitehead, come on the podcast! And when we got Eden Robinson on, we were nerding out, because she’s just the best.
JSL: I mean Eden Robinson’s a superstar. We got very lucky that time.
DDB: That was incredible. She’s incredible. That was awesome. There’s so many people. Maybe Dionne Brand—
JSL: I would pass out, but sure.
DDB: I would just be like, I don’t know how to ask you any good questions, so maybe if you could just talk for an hour?
JSL: Please tell us about this beautiful pantsuit you’re wearing, because Dionne Brand is always wearing a beautiful pantsuit.
DDB: Yeah. Tell us about your cool style.
FP: Okay my real last question. You can answer in as much or as little depth as you want to, but I was wondering if the podcast style or the podcast experience has changed throughout COVID.
Are you finding people are responding to you differently because we’re all in our homes again, whereas before it was just an aspect of listening and entertainment, or are you finding it pretty steady since before the pandemic at this point?
JSL: Go ahead, Dina. You might know that better than I do.
DDB: Are you asking about the audience response to the podcast, or the guests?
FP: The audience response, the engagement on social media, etc.
DDB: One thing I’ll say is we’ve been able to do a few live episodes, where we’ve been able to talk to people and have a lot of people join us, and that’s been a really fun way to engage. I think engagement—especially at the beginning of the pandemic—really went up. I was super depressed, and I was like, I can’t make the podcast, I can’t learn new things. I do all the recording and editing, and I was just like, on a personal level, I can’t do this right now. Too many things. I had just bought this beautiful new piece of equipment and we got to use it one time. It really only works if you’re sitting in a room with mics together. But when we came back, we got way more followers on Twitter and for a while, too, our listenership did go up. So I think the pandemic defin- itely did contribute. Also, our live episodes have been incredible. I think we’re going to have another one in April.
FP: Oh, nice.
DDB: Special poetry month nerd-a-thon... verse-a-thon. But I think it’s also been that we’ve been able to do a little bit more outreach in a certain way.
JSL: It’s easier for me doing it all online, personally, because I’m at home with the kid and stuff.
DDB: Whereas for me it’s a lot more difficult because I have to go to work, and I have to leave my home and do all these things physically, so this has been way more tiring for me because I’m always doing stuff. But the engagement has been incredible.
FP: Okay, I’m out of Zoom time! I don’t want to get cut off without thanking you. Thank you so much.
DDB: And if you have any follow-up questions, just let us know. And amend everything about hemorrhoids. Everything else is great.
FP: I’ll keep everything else in. Thank you both!