UNB Reading Series presents Clark Blaise

The University of New Brunswick would like to invite you to a special reading by Clark Blaise. Presented by the UNB English Department, the University Bookstore, The Fiddlehead, and the Canada Council for the Arts, the reading will take place on Tuesday, March 12 at 8pm in the Alumni Memorial Lounge, University of New Brunswick.

Clark Blaise will read from his new book, The Meagre Tarmac. Blaise is the author of twenty books of fiction and non-fiction. Internationally renowned as a writer, he has received an Arts and Letters Award for Literature from the American Academy and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.

Of Blaise's work, Margaret Atwood has said: "Top work from a master storyteller and border-crosser . . . a gem of a book."

CWILA Critic-in-Residence Sue Sinclair Interviewed

Over at CWILA's website, they've posted an interview with their first critic-in-residence Sue Sinclair. Sinclair was Writer-in-Residence at UNB for 2011-12, and she's a frequent contributor of book reviews to The Fiddlehead.

The wide-ranging interview by Brecken Hancock covers beauty, editing, the political role of poetry, and much more. Here is part of her response to a question about the similarities between her previous roles as writer-in-residence and editor, and her current role with CWILA:

Both editing and criticism depend on being the most attentive reader you can be and on communicating that readerly experience as clearly as possible. In that way they’re twins. But in editing there’s a problem-solving approach that makes it different in spirit from criticism. I confess to feeling more comfortable as editor than critic; this year is partly an exercise in learning to practice criticism in a way that suits me. If a poem seems to be going awry, as editor I can offer that feedback while the author is still in a position to rework it. Pointing out a weakness after its publication seems a little like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted—there’s a way in which it doesn’t do the poem a lot of good (assuming that the poem isn’t reworked post-publication). On the other hand, what’s the point of a “published” work but to participate in “public” life, to invite readers, to ask them to respond somehow?

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

Also, be sure to check out her "On Beauty" series over at Lemon Hound.