Q: The Podcast From Cbc Radio

Comedian Robby Hoffman’s career keeps growing, with her memorable roles in hit shows like Rooster and Hacks. When Tom Power spoke to Robby in 2025, she was just nominated for an Emmy for her role in Hacks, and her Just For Laughs show in Montreal had sold out. But Robby hasn’t had a conventional path into comedy. From leaving an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community in Brooklyn as a kid to living in Montreal with her nine siblings, Robby tells Tom Power about how she forged her own path.

Sheng Wang is a comedian and writer from Houston who has spent 20 years quietly refining his craft at comedy clubs in San Francisco. His second Netflix special, Purple (directed by longtime friend Ali Wong), is a collection of jokes about the small, mundane parts of life that most people don't give a second thought. He talks to Tom Power about his comedic inspiration, the process of writing a good joke and his love of a botanical garden.

Boots Riley is a writer, director, rapper and the frontman of the legendary Oakland hip-hop group The Coup. His new film I Love Boosters follows a crew of retail thieves, a.k.a. Boosters, trying to take down a fashion mogul. He talks to guest host Garvia Bailey about why he doesn’t just make art to entertain, but to inspire a revolution.

Devin Cuddy is a Toronto-based singer-songwriter and the son of Blue Rodeo front man Jim Cuddy. His roots-driven sound draws from country, blues, jazz and classic North American songwriting traditions. He recently released his fifth project, Livin’ Hard Ain’t Easy. He talks to Tom Power about his new project, why he wants more songs about Winnipeg and how he grew to love the piano.

Antoni Cimolino is beginning his final season as the artistic director of Ontario’s Stratford Festival, the largest repertory theatre company in North America. Antoni started working at Stratford as an actor in 1988, eventually becoming a director at the festival, and then moving up to the role of artistic director in 2012. He joins Tom to talk about his life in theatre, the challenges he’s faced along the way, and why he’s chosen The Tempest as his Shakespearean swan song. 

Louisa Levy had never even been to a hockey game when she was offered the job to showrun Off Campus, a steamy hockey romance TV show. Before that, she had been a writer and producer on other critically acclaimed shows like The Flight Attendant, Stumptown, and Death and Other Details. Louisa tells guest host Gill Deacon how she developed a love of hockey and why she thinks the hockey romance genre — made popular by Heated Rivalry — has suddenly exploded. 

Canadian content creator Jasmeet Raina is back with the third season of Late Bloomer, a half-hour comedy series inspired by his own life as a turban-wearing Punjabi Canadian millennial. He talks to Tom Power about learning the world of television, how he’s evolved from feeling like an “imposter” in the industry, and what it’s like to receive over a dozen Canadian Screen Award nominations for a show he fought to make happen.

Arizona O’Neill is a Montreal-based writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and outlets. In her debut graphic novel Opioids and Organs, she takes a deep dive into the history and ethics of organ donation and transplantation. Arizona tells Tom Power about how her father’s death and subsequent organ donation a decade ago led her down the path to making this book. She also discusses the creative influence of both her parents and how the process of creating Opioids and Organs helped her process her grief and anger.

Since the 1960s, Bruce Allen has been one of the key architects of this nation’s music industry. His management roster reads like a history of Canadian popular music: Bryan Adams, Anne Murray, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Michael Bublé. As he receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at Toronto’s Departure Festival this month, Allen tells Tom Power about his journey from Vancouver club booker to industry titan, as well as his reputation as an outspoken agitator that’s generated his share of controversies.

Chloe Tang began her music journey as a classically trained pianist and vocalist. But the Canadian musician yearned to be the next Avril Lavigne. When she moved to L.A. to pursue her pop music dreams, her parents weren’t supportive. But the risk paid off: Dua Lipa asked Tang to open for her. Now, Tang is a fully independent artist with over 10 million streams of her music. She joins Tom Power to talk about opening for Dua Lipa, embracing who she really is in her music, and being highlighted by the Departure Festival as one of their 2026 Rising Sound Artists.

Machel Montano is known as the King of Soca, and is widely credited with bringing Soca music to the global stage. In 2025, the Trinidadian singer, songwriter and producer became the first Soca artist to perform on NPR’s Tiny Desk, garnering over a million views. But he also took time off from his music career to get a master's degree in Carnival Studies from the University of Trinidad and Tobago, and has a wealth of knowledge on the history of Soca. His new documentary, Like Ah Boss: Journey of a Soca King, follows his illustrious 40-year career from child star in Trinidad to global icon. Machel joins Tom Power to discuss the history of Carnival and what’s next for his career, as well as settle some Caribbean food debates.

Ebril is an Iraqi Canadian artist who blends a range of influences into her music. Her debut album, In Copula, took six years to complete because she taught herself to produce, sing and write songs by watching YouTube tutorials. But it paid off: the opening track, Stranger in You, has taken on a life of its own, surpassing one billion views on TikTok. Ebril talks to Tom Power about her personal growth journey, learning how to play several instruments and her song’s viral moment.

Mac Barnett did something he said he never would: he wrote a book for adults. Make Believe is the award-winning children’s author’s newest book about how kids' books deserve a grown-up conversation. Mac joins guest host Gill Deacon to talk about writing for adults, why children’s fiction deserves more respect, and why he has such a problem with didacticism in kids’ books. 

When the Nova Scotian writer Graeme Bezanson sat down to write his new collection of poetry about boyhood and toxic masculinity, he drew inspiration from two unlikely sources: the changing positions of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites and an interview transcript between manosphere influencers Tucker Carlson and Andrew Tate. Graeme sat down with Tom Power to discuss his debut poetry collection Ultra Blue, how he examines the emotional lives of boys and men, and raising a son in a culture of toxic masculinity.

For three decades, crime writer and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs has been writing novels that bring the science behind solving crimes to the fore. She’s the bestselling author of the Temperance Brennan series, which are the inspiration for the TV show Bones. Now, Kathy is about to release the 24th novel in the series, Evil Bones. She joins Tom Power to tell us about the book and the surprising reason she started writing in the first place.

Sandy Pandya is a music industry veteran who has managed musicians like Serena Ryder and Jully Black. At this year’s Junos, she was honoured with the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award for shaping the Canadian music industry. She joins Tom Power to talk about growing up in Regina, running a café which became a hub for artists in the city, and founding ArtHaus, a multi-purpose live-work space and record label where artist mental health and career longevity is the goal.

Arlo Parks is a Grammy-nominated artist from London, whose career launched after she submitted her demos to the BBC. Since then, she’s opened for artists like Billie Eilish and Harry Styles, and even co-wrote a song for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter record. Life has been busy for Arlo thanks to all the success, but she knew she needed to take a step back to enjoy being a 20-something. So she did, and her latest album was inspired by the experiences she had during that time. Arlo Parks joins Tom Power in the Q studio to talk about how diving into the world of dance music and club culture helped her create her new album, Ambiguous Desire.

In just four years since Aysanabee left his day job to pursue music, he has played over 400 shows, toured all over the world and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. He also made history as the first Indigenous artist to win the Juno awards for both alternative album of the year and songwriter of the year. Aysanabee joins Tom Power in the Q studio to talk about his new EP Timelines, his recent Juno wins and the moment that made him quit his day job and pursue a career in music.

Acclaimed Canadian stage actor Peter Fernandes is making his directorial debut at this year’s Shaw Festival, with a remount of the play Sleuth. This Tony Award-winning show, and later Oscar-nominated film, is a work that both has a lot of love for the mystery genre, and picks apart many of its tropes. Peter joins Tom in the Q studio to talk about why he wanted to take on this project, and how it feels to wear the director’s hat.

Country musician Owen Riegling went from playing the local pub in his hometown of Mildmay, Ont. for his buddies, to hitting the stage at iconic venues like the Grand Ole Opry and Massey Hall in just a couple years. His new album contends with that feeling of hitting the stratosphere, while also missing home — and the people who make it home — at the same time. He sits down with Tom Power to talk about what his own small town means to him and his music.