At 23, Pauline Dakin learned that her family had lived their lives as fugitives, running from a mob underworld. Her book, "Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood", is an account of that life, and her journey to understand it.

Sharon Bala's first novel, "The Boat People," was inspired by a group of Tamil refugees escaping war in Sri Lanka and landing in Canada in 2010. Bala talks to Nam Kiwanuka about how she turned this story into fiction and why it was important to document it.