What: UBC Anti-Racist Reading Book Club and Reading Series
Who: UBCO’s Kevin Chong with guest author Ian Williams
When: First book club meeting November 3rd, 7:00 pm; Public Reading with Ian Williams November. 17th, 7:00 pm.
Where: Live via Zoom
This book club and online reading series will feature high-profile writers of colour who have written recently about racism in society, and also in writing and publishing. Participants in the book club will get to discuss the books in a live, interactive setting facilitated by Creative Writing professor Kevin Chong, and will also receive a free copy of the books.
Ian Williams
The first book that will be discussed is Disorientation by Ian Williams. Kevin Chong will lead the book club meeting on November 3rd in advance of a public event with Ian Williams scheduled for November 17th. Williams is a distinguished author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and his latest work Disorientation examines the role that racism plays in the daily life of ordinary people.
To be a part of the book club, limited to 25 members and which will meet in November and again in March, please sign up here. The first 20 people to sign up will get free copies of the books for the club.
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 one 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. Williams is also a trustee for the Griffin Poetry Prize.. After several years teaching poetry in the School of Creative Writing at UBC, Williams returned to the University of Toronto as a tenured professor of English. In 2022, he will be the Visiting Fellow at the American Library in Paris.
This event is presented with support from UBC’s Anti-Racism Initiatives Fund.
“Readers, writers, and creative writing students on both campuses will discuss the ways writing and race intersect through the bookclub discussion and then get the opportunity to have an elevated discussion with the authors,” says organizer Kevin Chong, a Creative Writing professor at UBCO. Chong will host the Reading Series, and is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novel The Plague.