London-area author makes Canada Reads 2026 longlist with historical queer romance novel

It’s a story of Celtic magic and a love triangle that tears families apart.

The Cure for Drowning is a Canadian historical novel centred on queer and non-binary characters, and it made this year’s Canada Reads longlist.

It’s a debut novel for author Loghan Paylor, who grew up on a hobby farm north of London, and now lives in Chilliwack, B.C.

Every year, CBC Books reveals a Canada Reads longlist before the final contenders are announced, chosen by five Canadian celebrities. They debate their choices and the last book standing is the winner.

This year’s edition of Canada Reads will air on April 13.

Paylor joined CBC’s Afternoon Drive radio show, airing across southwestern Ontario, and spoke with host Matt Allen.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Matt Allen: Congratulations. First of all, making these lists is a thing of honour, isn’t it? How do you feel about being on this longlist for Canada Reads?

Loghan Paylor: Absolutely stunned. It was a wonderful surprise to wake up to yesterday. It’s just such an honour to see my name on that list alongside so many other writers that I deeply admire.

(Random House Canada)

MA: We speak to a lot of veteran writers, but here you are with your first novel. What’s going through your mind, thinking your debut novel has been picked up?

LP: I’m just stunned. I’ve been so thrilled by the response I’ve received from readers and from book clubs all over Canada. It’s been so touching to know that something I worked on for so long, kind of in isolation, just on my own, chugging along … to know that something I wrote really is speaking to people and connecting with them. It’s amazing.

MA: Could you describe what happens in The Cure for Drowning?

LP: It’s a story of two main characters. So there’s Kit, who grew up on a farm. They’re the middle sibling of an Irish-Canadian farming family in the 1930s. And when the new doctor moves to town, his daughter Rebekah meets Kit and the rest of the McNair family — and sparks start to fly, and relationships get complicated.

But of course, the Second World War is right around the corner. Everyone’s lives changed very abruptly in 1939. And so we follow each of the characters as their lives are changed by war, and we follow them throughout as they try to find each other again

MA: So, where did you get the inspiration for this story, some of the characters, and the setting?

LP: It came from two places. So first was an ancestor of mine who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War, and he was lucky enough to survive the war. When he came back to Canada, he wrote a book of poetry about his experience. And when I inherited that book and read the poetry, I found it very moving in a way that no lecture or documentary about World War Two had really hit me before. So I became very fascinated trying to learn more about his life and his experiences.

So that certainly led me down a rabbit hole into what life was like for the average Canadian in the 1940s.

And then, as well, I grew up really interested in folklore and fairy tales. And so my love of kind of Scots-Irish folklore really informed the magic realism and some of the more fantastical elements that went into this novel.

Fifteen books have made the longlist for Canada Reads 2026. (CBC Books)

MA: It takes place in a farming community as well, which is part of your upbringing. How did that factor into some of the storytelling here?

LP: So I was raised on a hobby farm in Southwestern Ontario. So I was lucky enough that my family didn’t rely exclusively on farming for our livelihood. But when I was writing the family of the McNairs in my novel, they are subsistence farmers in the 1930s. And so in addition to a lot of the other research I did, I felt like I could take some of my childhood experiences of getting up early and feeding animals and weeding gardens and so on to be empathetic — to really sympathize with having to get up at 4:00 a.m. to do whatever it is that needed to be done.

MA: The story centres around queer and nonbinary characters. How important was it for you to bring these individuals and give them a platform?

LP: It was very important to me. I knew from the beginning that one of my protagonists, Kit, was going to be a nonbinary character. And I think that Canada does have a rich history of queer and transgender people stretching back thousands of years, depending on how far back you want to go. A lot of that history hasn’t always been accessible in mainstream sources.

It was very important to me to kind of show a window into the past of what ordinary relationships would have been like, and how people would have seen themselves and felt throughout their lives. My hope is that it will promote more empathy and understanding towards my community.

MA: What’s next for you? You’ve had this sparkling debut here, and you have an opportunity to take part in the competition. Do you have your next idea ready to go?

LP: I’ve been working on my next novel, yes. I will say it feels like a lot more pressure than the first time around, when no one had ever heard of me or read anything I’d written. But for the moment, I’m chipping away at that novel, and I’m teaching. My life is great.