Scotiabank Giller prize-winner Ian Williams will join UBCO’s Kevin Chong to discuss how reading and creative writing are affected by racism.
What: Public Reading with Ian Williams
Who: UBCO’s Kevin Chong with guest author Ian Williams
When: November 17 at 7 pm PST
Venue: Live via Zoom
UBC Okanagan is hosting Scotiabank Giller prize winner Ian Williams in an evening of open discussion and a reading from his latest work.
The distinguished author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry is hosted by UBCO’s Anti-Racist Reading Book Club and Kevin Chong, assistant professor of creative writing. Earlier this month, members of the club read Williams’ latest work Disorientation and met to discuss the book prior to this public event.
“An important part of antiracist action is education,” says Chong. “A book like Disorientation allows us to step into the mind of a racialized writer as he grapples, brilliantly, with politics, identity and Blackness.”
The public is welcome to join readers, writers and creative writing students from both UBC campuses to discuss the ways writing and race intersect. Participants will have the opportunity to have an elevated discussion with both Williams and Chong.
This event is partially funded by the UBC Anti-Racism Initiatives Fund and UBCO’s Creative Studies department. Participants will hear Williams’ perspective on how reading and creative writing are affected by racism.
Disorientation examines the role that racism plays in the daily life of ordinary people. Williams’ earlier novel, Reproduction, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and has received international acclaim.
His collection of poetry, Word Problems, uses the language of mathematics and grammar problems to discuss prevalent ethical and political issues. The collection won the Raymond Souster Award, and his previous collection Personals was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. Not Anyone’s Anything, a short story collection published in 2011, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada.
Chong, the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novel The Plague, will host the reading series.
Register for the Zoom Webinar event at: ubc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5ItfuGorT8oGtBTcwbZ8IWzrw5yrIbSlFg9
This event is presented with support from UBC’s Anti-Racism Initiatives Fund, and the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.
