Author Kevin Chong to speak about writing and teaching in a pandemic
What: Sharon Thesen Lecture
Who: UBCO Creative Writing Program
When: Thursday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
Where: Online via Zoom
UBC Okanagan’s Creative Writing Program is hosting its second annual Sharon Thesen Lecture with Creative Writing Professor and author Kevin Chong.
Writer Kevin Chong will host UBCO’s Sharon Thesen Lecture virtually on Thursday.
Chong will give a virtual lecture titled “In the Middle of it All: On Writing, Teaching, And Middles During A Pandemic.” Told as an auto-fictional story about the rivalry between two middle-aged, mid-career writers, this lecture looks at craft, ideological and technological issues faced by writers and writing teachers in the pandemic.
“We are excited to once again be honouring Sharon and all that she’s done to establish the Creative Writing Program at UBC Okanagan,” says Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS) Professor Nancy Holmes.
Sharon Thesen, a renowned Canadian poet and editor, was the first full professor in UBCO’s Department of Creative Studies and is now a UBC professor emerita.
Chong has written six books of fiction and nonfiction, and his most recent publication is his novel The Plague. His titles have been named books of the year by the Globe and Mail, National Post and Amazon.ca, and they’ve been listed for a CBC prize, a BC Book Prize, and a National Magazine Award. His writing has also been optioned for film and TV, as well as published in the United States, Europe and Australia.
“We are so pleased that while fairly new to our faculty, Kevin Chong is doing this year’s Sharon Thesen Lecture,” remarks Holmes. “Since he works in both fiction and non-fiction, we’re eager to see how he is going to combine all he knows about both of these genres in his lecture.”
“The event is a great opportunity for an accomplished writer to share a wealth of knowledge — it’ll be fascinating,” she adds.
The lecture is part of the FCCS Spring Festival of the Arts, and is free and open to the public. It will take place on Thursday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
To register or find out more, visit: fccs.ok.ubc.ca/authors
About UBC’s Okanagan campus
UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.
To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca
