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PODCAST

Lean Out with Tara Henley

Tara Henley is a Canadian journalist and bestselling author. On the Lean Out podcast, she interviews heterodox writers and thinkers from around the world, in an attempt to widen the Overton window of acceptable thought in society. You can learn more about her work at tarahenley.substack.com

society & culture books

All Episodes

24:20

EP 237: Ryan Zickgraf on the Politicization of Charity

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/02/25

One of the problems with increased polarization is that everything gets politicized, including simple acts of charity. Our guest on the program this week is an American journalist who’s been tracking this trend in liberal and leftist circles and he’s published an essay making the argument that helping your neighbour is an affirmation of our shared humanity — not a “radical act of resistance.” Ryan Zickgraf is an American journalist and a columnist at UnHerd. His Substack newsletter is The Thi...

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42:02

EP 236: Amanda Ripley on the Media's Trump Fixation

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/02/20

If you follow the news in this country, you know that Canada is currently grappling with a number of crises, from housing to mental health. And yet much of our attention is focused on the United States and on Donald Trump. Our guest on the podcast this week has just published an essay about this. She argues that, much like in a dysfunctional family, the media’s fixation on Trump is a distraction from looking at deeper issues. Amanda Ripley is an American journalist and a New York Times bestse...

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36:20

EP 235: Richard Stursberg: Who Killed CanLit?

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/02/11

Canadians who write books, or cover books, or read books will know that something is wrong with our literary industry. But a new book documents just how far off the rails publishing has gone. Our guest on the program this week is the author of that book, and he says our fundamental problem is an erosion of national identity. Richard Stursberg is a Canadian author and media executive, and the former head of English services for the CBC. His new book is Lament for a Literature: The Collapse of ...

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28:17

EP 234: Harrison Lowman on James Bennet, The New York...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/02/04

This week on the Lean Out podcast we are taking a look at the chaotic summer of 2020, and the impact of that unrest on mainstream journalism. Our guest on the program this week has a new interview with the former opinion editor at The New York Times, James Bennet, who was famously ousted by a staff revolt. My guest says that now is a good time to think through how that historical moment — and its activists — has shaped our journalism. Harrison Lowman is a Canadian journalist. He’s the managin...

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35:13

EP 233: Steven Scherer: The Road From Foreign...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/01/28

We live in an age of economic precarity and journalists are not exempt from this. Our guest on the program this week has written a powerful Substack essay about his path from foreign correspondent to Uber driver, and how his troubles have helped him to forge a sense of solidarity with the people he drives to work. Steven Scherer is an American journalist and a former Canadian bureau chief for Reuters. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.subs...

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31:56

EP 232: Larissa Phillips on the Rift Between Men and...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/01/21

Men and women don’t seem very happy these days. They are dissatisfied with dating, polarized politically, trash talking each other online, and both marriage and fertility are on the decline. What is responsible for this rift between men and women? Our guest on the program this week has been mulling this question over, and she says we might want to reconsider some of the assumptions of feminism — starting with the idea that marriage and family are “a trap.” Larissa Phillips is an American essa...

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25:21

EP 231: 'Enough White Guys Already': Jacob Savage on...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/01/14

The popularity of identity politics, and the subsequent fallout from this ideology, is something that we’ve tried to unpack and understand on the Lean Out podcast. Our guest on the program this week has published a viral essay on the impacts of this moment on Millennial white men. He argues that an entire generation was shut out of certain professions and found themselves in a society that was “deliberately rooting against” them. Jacob Savage is an American writer. His latest essay, for Compa...

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40:04

EP 230: Elizabeth Grace Matthew: We Need to Move On...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/01/07

With the new year now upon us, we are going to continue our conversation about the state of feminism, and how we might begin to think and talk about women’s lives in ways that are more productive. Our guest on the program this week is a frequent commentator on modern feminism, and she says the central archetypes of our current moment — the girl boss on the left and the trad wife on the right — are both reductive and untenable in today’s world. Elizabeth Grace Matthew is an American writer, an...

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25:31

EP 229: Valerie Stivers on the Joys of Home Cooking

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2026/01/01

It’s New Year’s Day and many of us will be at home, contemplating the year ahead. For New Year’s every year, Lean Out brings you an episode that is lighter and more hopeful. This year, we set our sights on food and its ability to bring us together. Our guest on the program today has published a wonderful book about famous writers and their recipes, exploring the restorative power of home cooking. Valerie Stivers is an American writer and a senior editor at UnHerd. Her new book is The Writer’s...

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24:19

EP 228: Merry Christmas from Lean Out: Father Gregory...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/12/25

It’s Christmas Day and we at Lean Out wanted to bring you a special bonus episode — to celebrate the occasion and to meditate on the meaning of the holiday. Our guest on the program today is the founder of one of the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry programs in the world, and he’s here to share its driving ethos of cherished belonging, and how that might serve as a model for the wider world. Father Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy In...

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40:49

EP 227: Mike Pesca on Media Insanity

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/12/17

On the Lean Out podcast, one of the topics that we often return to is the media, and the insanity of the media. For the last show of 2025, our guest is a veteran journalist and a savvy media critic, and he has some thoughts on where we are, how we got here — and where we should go from here. Mike Pesca is an award-winning American journalist. He is the creator and host of the long-running daily news podcast, The Gist. He’s also the author of Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sport...

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44:19

EP 226: Cory Clark on the 'Great Feminization' Theory

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/12/10

With 2025 winding down, we at Lean Out wanted to take a look back at one of the most controversial stories of the year — and to see if we could have a calm, reasonable conversation about a divisive issue. We're talking about the feminization theory, or the idea that the shifting sex ratios in influential institutions comes with both positive and negative consequences. Our guest on the program today is a scholar who is studying that phenomenon. Her recent paper, for the Journal of Controversia...

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39:04

EP 225: Amanda Fortini on Jan Kerouac and the legacy...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/12/03

One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is the Sexual Revolution — and weighing its benefits and drawbacks, both for women and for men. Today on the show, we are going back to the period that led into that historical moment, to a bohemian movement of art and travel and sexual experimentation, but also of destruction and dysfunction and family tragedies. We're talking about the Beat Generation. Our guest on today’s program has written the introduction to a reissue of an astonishingly good bo...

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43:31

EP 224: Zac Seidler: We Need to Talk About Men's...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/11/26

In Toronto, where I live, you cannot walk a block without seeing a young man in distress — sleeping on the street, or slumped over from drug use, or shouting and screaming. It feels like something has gone very wrong for men in this country and that nobody is talking about it. Our guest on the program today has dedicated his career to men’s health, and he has some important insights to share, both from his professional life and from his personal life. Zac Seidler is the Global Director of Men...

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54:44

EP 223: Susan Swan on Modern Feminism

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/11/19

In the wake of the #MeToo firing of the University of British Columbia creative writing professor Steven Galloway — which is once again in the news this week — our guest on the program today sat down to write a book of advice for young feminists. But her good friend Margaret Atwood convinced her that nobody likes unsolicited advice, and that she should instead frame her memoir around her unusual height and how it shaped her life. The result is a riveting narrative that also offers up plenty o...

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25:55

EP 222: Molly Jong-Fast on Gen X Overwhelm

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/11/12

Many women in Generation X are now finding themselves overwhelmed. The world is increasingly stressful. But our private lives are not much calmer, as we care for children and aging parents and spouses, stare down middle age, and mull over the legacy of previous generations of women. Our guest on the program today knows something about this — she grappled with all of these things, all at once, during one truly terrible year. Molly Jong-Fast is an American writer and political commentator. She’...

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40:54

EP 221: Daniel Debow: It's Time for 'Bold Adventurism'

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/11/04

It’s budget day here in Canada. As Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government tables its first federal budget, we will get reaction and hear a lot of different visions for the country. On today’s episode we wanted to bring you one. Our guest on the program says that Canada is in crisis — and that it is now time for "bold adventurism." Daniel Debow is a Canadian executive, investor, and educator. He is the chair of the board for Build Canada. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, a...

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36:18

EP 220: Darrell Bricker on Canada's Breaking Point

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/10/29

One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is the many crises that Canada is facing —and where we go from here. Our guest on the program today warns that we are at a breaking point, and in desperate need of a national reckoning. As we face threats from without, he says, we are divided from within, along the lines of gender, class, region, and, crucially, generation. Darrell Bricker is the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs and a previous director of public opinion research in the Prime Minister’s Off...

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36:25

EP 219: Jason Guriel on Fandom

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/10/22

Before the Internet, before the literary world was overrun by online politics, before everything you read — and wrote — had to advance an agenda, there was the solitary person, in a room, losing themselves in the words on the page. There was the fan. Our guest on the program today has written a book of essays on fandom and his own obsessions. In the process, he confronts the big cultural forces of our age. Jason Guriel is a Toronto writer. His latest book is Fan Mail: A Guide to What We Love,...

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45:55

EP 218: Adam Szetela on the Publishing Industry's...

Lean Out with Tara Henley ·

2025/10/15

Many of us that are big readers have been scratching our heads for years, trying to figure out why so many books are now so tedious and moralistic. What’s happened to North American literary culture — and why hasn’t it bounced back? Our guest on the program today has some answers. He’s written a book about the decline of literary freedom in publishing, and a dynamic that he describes as “a circular firing squad.” Adam Szetela is an American author. His new outing is That Book is Dangerous! Ho...

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237 results

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