5 'transformative' books that shaped Zoe Whittall's life and work

The power of a book is immense — it can entertain, comfort and help guide the course of a person's life.

For Canadian author, poet and screenwriter Zoe Whittall, the books she has read have done just that. 

She spoke to The Next Chapter's Antonio Michael Downing about the literary works that first inspired her to become a writer, pushed her to explore different forms of writing and informed her sense of self as a queer femme. 

Whittall is the author of several books, including the memoir No Credit River, novels The Fake, The Best Kind of People and Bottle Rocket Hearts, short story collection Wild Failure and poetry collections The Emily Valentine Poems and The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life. She has received the Writers' Trust Dayne Ogilvie Award, a Lambda Literary Award and been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.  

Whittall is also a juror for the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize alongside Danny Ramadan and Helen Knott.

Here are the books that have shaped Zoe Whittall's personal and professional life. 

The Passion by Jeannette Winterson

The Passion follows Henri, a humble French soldier who leaves his quiet rural life to fight for Napoleon, and his fateful encounter with the enigmatic Villanelle, who was born web-footed and disguises herself as a man to work in the casino. There, she pursues an affair with a married woman. When Henri and Villanelle's paths cross, they become entangled in tremendous love and loss. 

Jeannette Winterson is a writer from Manchester, England. She is the author of more than a dozen books, including Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and Why be happy when you could be normal? She has won several awards for her fiction and film adaptations, including the Whitbread Prize, UK and the Prix d'argent, Cannes Film Festival. 

Zoe Whittall says: "The reason that I think the book spoke to me, at the time, was because it was very butch femme coded, like the woman who is dressed as a man for work ends up falling for a married woman. When they finally get together, she confesses that she's just been dressing as a man, and the woman somehow intuitively knows.

"This kind of romance was really hard to find in literature at that time." 

Heroine by Gail Scott

Set in the 1980s, Heroine follows a woman as she seeks to create a new life after being in an affair with a man while also falling in love with another woman. Amidst the turmoil of Quebec's seventies, she finds a sense of purpose through her deep involvement in far-left politics.

Gail Scott is a Montreal-based writer and translator. Her previous works include The Obituary, which was a 2011 finalist for Le Grand Prix du Livre de la Ville de Montréal and  My Paris. Scott's translation of Michael Delisle's Le Déasarroi du matelot was shortlisted for the Governor General's award. She is also co-founder of the French-language journal Spirale. 

Zoe Whittall says: "I was a poet at the time. I had never considered writing a novel. When I was introduced to her experimental — it was like a long poem — 200 pages of a crazy, weird poem, and I could not understand it, it was very challenging. But it made me rethink how narrative works.

"It also made me think about, 'How do we write as feminists?' Like 'How do we write about politics?' 'How do we write about love in a certain political context?'" 

Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman

Rat Bohemia is written from the epicenter of the AIDS crisis, telling the story of Rita Mae Weems and her friends who gather in a part of New York City known as the "rat bohemia." In this space, gay men and lesbians forge deep bonds as they cope with the profound loss of their friends and the enduring pain caused by their parents' lack of acceptance.

Sarah Schulman is a writer living in New York City. She is the author of 20 books, including the novels Maggie Terry and The Cosmopolitans and nonfiction works A Political History of ACT UP New York 1987-1993 and Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. She has won many awards, including the 2009 Kessler Award for "Sustained Contribution to LGBT Studies" from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. 

Zoe Whittall says: "It sort of felt like a primer for what queer life had been. For my peers who came out five, ten years before I did — I came out in 1995 — it was right as all the new drugs for HIV were starting to work, and were coming on the market.

"But everybody just a few years older than me, who were teaching me what it was to be queer, had all just lost dozens of their friends, and they were living in this reality of grief. They were in this 'live for today' moment." 

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

In her memoir The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson reflects on her love for the gender fluid artist Harry Dodge and shares the story of their relationship as they navigate the complexities and joys of creating a queer family.

Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic and nonfiction author living in Los Angeles. Her previous works include The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Bluets and Jane: A Murder. She teaches in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts. 

Zoe Whittall says: "I happened to come across it as I was falling in love with a trans guy and I was also utterly obsessed with trying to have a baby in my late 30s.

"There were thematic links to the memoir, but I was also transformed by the fearlessness of her writing and her lack of concern for form, while also being formal in a scholarly sense, like having footnotes and such." 

Two eyes are you sleeping by Heather O'Neill 

Packed with personal and political lyrics, Two Eyes Are You Sleeping is a collection of poems that capture the rawness of urban life. From poems of drug addicts to con-men, they reflect the journey of growing up human amid the gritty beauty of the city.

Heather O'Neill is a Montreal-based author. She won Canada Reads 2024, championing The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou. Her debut novel Lullabies for Little Criminals won Canada Reads 2007. Her other books include The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, Daydreams of Angels, When We Lost our Heads and The Lonely Hearts Hotel.

Zoe Whittall says: "There were just lines in it that I had to underline and copy down in my journals  — just the way she plays with language and the way she plays with imagery, every sentence is sort of a juicy puzzle, and it can be so funny and whimsical." 

Zoe Whittall's comments have been edited for length and clarity.