If you love meeting talented writers and hearing them read from their published work, or just want to soak up a unique cultural experience, don’t miss the Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series, which continues Jan. 18 with a reading from Thomas King’s latest novel, Sufferance (HarperCollins Canada, 2021).
The series gives attendees an opportunity to get up close and personal with 11 authors who will present their work and answer questions. Canadian Writers in Person is a for-credit course for students and a free-admission event for members of the public. All readings take place at 7 p.m. on select Tuesday evenings via Zoom. Links for each reading can be found here.
King is an award-winning writer whose fiction includes Indians on Vacation, which won the Leacock Award for Humour; Green Grass, Running Water; Truth and Bright Water; and The Back of the Turtle, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award. The Truth About Stories won the Trillium Book Award, and The Inconvenient Indian won the RBC Taylor Prize as well as the BC National Book Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. A companion of the Order of Canada and the recipient of a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, King taught at the University of Lethbridge and was Chair of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Following this, he taught at the University of Guelph until he retired. King lives in Guelph with his partner, Helen Hoy.
Jeremiah Camp, a.k.a. the Forecaster, can look into the heart of humanity and see the patterns that create opportunities and profits for the rich and powerful. Problem is, Camp has looked one too many times, has seen what he hadn’t expected to see and has come away from the abyss with no hope for himself or for the future. So Jeremiah does what any intelligent, sensitive person would do. He runs away. Goes into hiding in a small town, at an old residential school on an even smaller Indian reserve, with no phone, no Internet, no television. And then his past comes calling. A sly and satirical look at the fractures in modern existence, Sufferance is a bold and provocative novel about the social and political consequences of the inequality created by privilege and power – and what we might do about it.
This year’s Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series lineup consists of a unique selection of emerging and established Canadian writers whose writing explores a broad range of topics and geographical and cultural landscapes. Featuring seasoned and emerging poets and fiction writers, the series highlights Canada’s ever-growing pool of literary talent.
Other readings scheduled in this series are:
- Feb. 1: Zsuzsi Gartner, The Beguiling (Penguin Random House Canada)
- Feb. 22: Rebecca Salazar, sulphurtongue (Penguin Random House Canada)
- March 8: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic (Penguin Random House)
- March 22: Louise B. Halfe/Sky Dancer, Burning in This Midnight Dream (Brick Books)
Canadian Writers in Person is a course offered in the Culture & Expression program in the Department of Humanities in York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. For more information on the series, visit yorku.ca/laps/canwrite, or email Professor Gail Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca or Professor Leslie Sanders at leslie@yorku.ca.