Power Q & A with Allister Thompson

Q: Why was it important to you to set your YA novel, Birch & Jay (Latitude 46 Publishing) in northern Ontario?

A: There were a few reasons for the setting being important. First, I live here. I know intimately the beauty of the northern wilderness and what it has to offer the imagination and the soul. Like a lot of people, when I moved here, I was amazed at the sheer scope of a sparsely populated landscape, as well as its natural beauty, and it really captivated me. It still does. I wanted to share that feeling. Second, given that fact, I felt that while there is a great body of literature about northern Ontario, there can always be room for more! And in this particular genre (speculative fiction/post-apocalyptic), I felt I could do something unique in this setting that no one has done before. Lastly, it was important to my process because my knowledge of this area, all the way down to Toronto, really enabled me to accurately describe and bring to life the settings in vivid ways.

Birch & Jay by Allister Thompson, published by Latitude 46, spring 2025.

More about Birch & Jay:

Decades after the world was levelled by the effects of human-made climate change, the scattered remnants of humanity have begun to pull themselves together. Birch and Jay are a young couple living in a small, idyllic community away from the ruins of one of Canada’s great cities.

As a newly graduated Knowledge Seeker, Jay must leave Birch and their community to collect remnants of old wisdom from the dead world. Along the way, he comes across a mysterious elderly woman who offers to travel with him. He will receive more than a travel companion — she offers revelations about their town’s founding as well as knowledge of how to survive in a lawless world.

Birch, seeking adventure, pursues Jay but finds more danger than she ever imagined. Will they find each other in the chaos and brutality of the city and get safely back home to tell the tale?

Author Allister Thompson

About Allister Thompson:

Allister Thompson was born in the UK and spent his childhood in Mississauga, Ontario, where he got his first part-time job in a small bookstore at the mall at age sixteen. He has spent the rest of his life working in the publishing and bookselling industries. He worked for small and mid-sized publishers in Toronto for fifteen years before striking out on his own as a freelance editor. This freedom eventually led him to North Bay, Ontario, where he has lived and worked with dozens of authors for the past ten years. 

Power Q & A with Wayne Ng

Crime Writers of Canada Award-winning author Wayne Ng’s highly-anticipated Toronto-based novel, Johnny Delivers, is being released this November 1st by Guernica Editions, and it has already been included in CBC's and the 49th Shelf's Most-Anticipated Fall Fiction lists.

Set in 1977, Johnny Delivers tells the absorbing story of 18-year-old Johnny Wong—the son of Chinese immigrants to Canada—who calls on the spirit of Bruce Lee to help him navigate the still relevant challenges of racism and how it permeates our interiority, our institutions, our relationships, and our livelihood.

This book is exciting and heart-wrenching and readers are loving it! A favourite element of the story is undoubtedly Johnny’s conversations with Bruce Lee, so we wanted to ask Wayne, “Why Bruce?:

We are happy to welcome Wayne to our Power Q & A series today to answer.

Q: Why did you choose Bruce Lee to serve as Johnny’s moral guide and confidant?

A: Most kids need a hero. In the standalone prequel, Letters From Johnny, 11-year-old Johnny worked through his problems by writing letters to hockey icon Dave Keon, just as I once did. Now, as an angst-filled teen on the cusp of manhood in Johnny Delivers, Johnny turns to Bruce Lee—a larger-than-life hero I also admired as an unstoppable fighter. What made Bruce especially significant was his defiance of the stereotypical portrayal of Asians in popular culture as humble, passive, and helpless.

With Johnny Delivers, I wanted to show that Bruce Lee was more than just a trailblazing martial arts film icon. He was also a philosopher, a writer, and family man. And, like any hero, he had his flaws—something Johnny struggles to accept. Since the novel is ultimately a coming-of-age and family story, Bruce is the glue that holds his relationship with his father. I wanted Johnny's evolving view of Bruce to reflect his journey—where their growth connects and separates them.

More about Johnny Delivers:

Eighteen-year-old Johnny Wong’s dead-end life consists of delivering Chinese food and holding his chaotic family together in Toronto. When his sweet but treacherous Auntie, the mahjong queen, calls in their family debt, he fears the family will lose the Red Pagoda restaurant and break apart. 

Invoking the spirit of Bruce Lee and in cahoots with his stoner friend Barry, Johnny tries to save his family by taking up a life of crime delivering weed with a side of egg rolls. He chases his first love, but his hands are already full with his emotionally distant mother, his dream-crushing father, and his reckless, sardonic little sister.

As he fights to stay ahead of his Auntie, sordid family secrets unfold. With lives on the line, the only way out is an epic mahjong battle. While Johnny is on a mission to figure out who he is and what he wants, he must learn that help can come from within and that our heroes are closer than we think.

Dripping with 1970s nostalgia, Johnny Delivers is a gritty and humorous standalone sequel to the much-loved and award-winning Letters From Johnny.

More about Wayne Ng:

Wayne Ng was born in downtown Toronto to Chinese immigrants who fed him a steady diet of bitter melon and kung fu movies. Ng is a social worker who lives to write, travel, eat, and play, preferably all at the same time. He is an award-winning author and traveler who continues to push his boundaries from the Arctic to the Antarctic. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and goldfish.

Ng is the author of The Family Code, shortlisted for the Guernica Prize; Letters From Johnny, winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Crime Novella and a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award and Johnny Delivers.