Forward Thinking Speaker Series

Acclaimed best-selling Canadian author Louise Penny will be in conversation with writer and journalist Mellissa Fung about their new book The Last Mandarin (Minotaur, May 12, 2026), which follows a mother and daughter tasked with solving a global crime.   

About Louise Penny 
Louise Penny is the widely acclaimed author of the Chief Inspector Gamache novels set in her home province of Québec, Canada. Her books have sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, topped American, Canadian and international bestseller lists, and been translated into 35 languages. 

Penny’s The Black Wolf (Minotaur, October 28, 2025), is the 20th in the Inspector Gamache series. The novel debuted #1 in Canada, and in the United States on the New York Times and Washington Post lists. 

Penny’s first career was as a radio host and journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). She is the recipient of both the Order of Canada and l’Ordre national du Québec, her country’s highest civilian honors. Her husband Michael Whitehead, the former Head of Hematology at the Montreal Children's Hospital, died of dementia in 2016. Her Three Pines Foundation reaches out to those in crisis and offers financial and emotional support, with a special focus on literacy as well as dementia care. Penny lives with her beloved Golden Retrievers in a village south of Montréal. 

About Mellissa Fung
Mellissa Fung is a veteran journalist, best-selling author, and award-winning filmmaker. Her last book,Between Good and Evil, debuted on the Canadian best-seller list for non-fiction in April 2023.  Fung has traveled the world producing original award-winning documentaries for Al-Jazeera International, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and TV Ontario, among others.  She covered the war in Afghanistan as a field correspondent for the CBC, leading to her best-selling first book, Under an Afghan Sky, which chronicled her experience as a hostage after she was kidnapped while on assignment in Kabul in 2008. Since then, Fung has focused on human rights reporting, returning to Afghanistan again and again, to continue reporting on the challenges that continued to exist there, particularly for women and children. She is also a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail, and her work has appeared on The Huffington Post, The Toronto Star, TRT, CNN, and PBS.  She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York.  She was appointed as an officer to the Order of Canada in 2024.