Little Yellow House
Carissa Halton
978-1-77212-375-3
Waiting
Rona Altrows and Julie Sedivy
978-1-77212-383-8
Traditions, Traps and Trends
Jarich Oosten & Barbara Helen Miller, Editors
978-1-77212-372-2
Magnetic North
Jenna Butler
978-1-77212-382-1
Al Rashid Mosque
Earle H. Waugh
978-1-77212-339-5
Anarchists in the Academy
Dani Spinosa
978-1-77212-376-0
Keetsahnak / Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters
Kim Anderson, Maria Campbell and Christi Belcourt, Editors
978-1-77212-367-8
Margaret Laurence and Jack McClelland, Letters
Laura K. Davis and Linda M. Morra, Editors
978-1-77212-335-7
Rain Shadow
Nicholas Bradley
978-1-77212-370-8
Metis Pioneers
Doris Jeanne MacKinnon
978-1-77212-271-8
Welcome to the Anthropocene
Alice Major
978-1-77212-368-5
Songs for Dead Children
E.D. Blodgett
978-1-77212-369-2
Wisdom in Nonsense
Heather O’Neill
978-1-77212-377-7
The Evolving Feminine Ballet Body
Pirkko Markula & Marianne I. Clark, Editors
978-1-77212-334-0
Inhabiting Memory in Canadian Literature / Habiter la mémoire dans la littérature canadienne
Benjamin Authers, Maïté Snauwaert & Daniel Laforest, Editors
978-1-77212-299-2
The Larger Conversation
Tim Lilburn
978-1-77212-299-2
The Left-Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories
Myrl Coulter
978-1-77212-328-9
Searching for Mary Schäffer
Colleen Skidmore
978-1-77212-298-5
The Dragon Run
Tony Robinson-Smith
978-1-77212-300-5
Remembering Air India
Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean and Angela Failler, Editors
978-1-77212-259-6
Annie Muktuk and Other Stories
Norma Dunning
978-1-77212-297-8
Trudeau’s Tango
Darryl Raymaker
978-1-77212-265-7
Only Leave a Trace
Roger Epp
978-1-77212-266-4
Beyond “Understanding Canada”
Melissa Tanti, Jeremy Haynes, Daniel Coleman and Lorraine York, Editors
978-1-77212-269-5
Flora Annie Steel
Susmita Roye, Editor
978-1-77212-260-2
Listen. If
Douglas Barbour
978-1-77212-254-1
The Burgess Shale
Margaret Atwood
978-1-77212-301-2
Tar Wars
Geo Takach
978-1-77212-140-7
Believing is not the same as Being Saved
Lisa Martin
978-1-77212-187-2
Nuala
Kimmy Beach
978-1-77212-296-1
Little Wildheart
Micheline Maylor
978-1-77212-233-6
Farm Workers in Western Canada
Shirley A. McDonald & Bob Barnetson, Editors
978-1-77212-138-4
Surviving the Gulag
Ilse Johansen
978-1-77212-038-7
Imagining the Supernatural North
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Danielle Marie Cudmore & Stefan Donecker, Editors
978-1-77212-267-1
Seeking Order in Anarchy
Robert W. Murray, Editor
978-1-77212-139-1
Care, Cooperation and Activism in Canada’s Northern Social Economy
Frances Abele & Chris Southcott, Editors
978-1-77212-087-5
Crow Never Dies
Larry Frolick
978-1-77212-085-1
Rising Abruptly
Gisèle Villeneuve
978-1-77212-261-9
Ten Canadian Writers in Context
Marie Carrière, Curtis Gillespie & Jason Purcell, Editors
978-1-77212-141-4
The Woman Priest
Sylvain Maréchal |
Translation and Introduction by Sheila Delany
978-1-77212-123-0
Counterblasting Canada
Gregory Betts, Paul Hjartarson & Kristine Smitka, Editors
978-1-77212-037-0
One Child Reading
Margaret Mackey
978-1-77212-039-4
The Home Place
dennis cooley
978-1-77212-119-3
Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada
Lars K. Hallström, Mary A. Beckie, Glen T. Hvenegaard & Karsten Mündel, Editors
978-1-77212-040-0
Sleeping in Tall Grass
Richard Therrien
978-1-77212-122-3
Who Needs Books?
Lynn Coady
978-1-77212-124-7
Ghada Ageel, Editor
978-1-77212-082-0
100 Days
Juliane Okot Bitek
978-1-77212-121-6
Jon Gordon
978-1-77212-036-3
Nancy Taber, Editor
978-1-77212-084-4
A Canterbury Pilgrimage / An Italian Pilgrimage
Elizabeth Robins Pennell & Joseph Pennell | Dave Buchanan, Editor
978-1-77212-042-4
Idioms of Sámi Health and Healing
Barbara Helen Miller
978-1-77212-088-2
Howard Leeson
978-1-77212-125-4
Weaving a Malawi Sunrise
Roberta Laurie
978-1-77212-086-8
Cultural Mapping and the Digital Sphere
Ruth Panofsky & Kathleen Kellett, Editors
978-1-77212-049-3
The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior
Ernest Robert Zimmermann
Michel S. Beaulieu & David K. Ratz, Editors
978-0-88864-673-6
Standard candles
Alice Major
978-1-77212-091-2
Magazines, Travel, and Middlebrow Culture
Faye Hammill and Michelle Smith
978-1-77212-083-7
The Chinchaga Firestorm
Cordy Tymstra
978-1-77212-003-5
Why Grow Here
Kathryn Chase Merrett
978-1-77212-048-6
Prairie Bohemian
Trevor W. Harrison
978-1-77212-047-9
A Canadian Girl in South Africa
E. Maud Graham
Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney,
and Susanne M. Klausen, Editors
978-1-77212-046-2
Overcoming Conflicting Loyalties
Irene Sevcik, Michael Rothery, Nancy Nason-Clark and Robert Pynn
978-1-77212-050-9
Fundamentals of Public Relations and Marketing Communications in Canada
William Wray Carney & Leah-Ann Lymer, Editor
978-1-77212-048-8
War Paintings of the Tsuu T’ina Nation
Arni Brownstone
978-1-77212-052-3
Upgrading Oilsands Bitumen and Heavy Oil
Murray R. Gray
978-1-77212-035-6
From the Elephant’s Back
Lawrence Durrell
James Gifford, Editor
978-1-77212-043-1
Trying Again to Stop Time
Jalal Barzanji
978-1-77212-043-1
A Year of Days
Myrl Coulter
978-1-77212-045-5
A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance
Tomson Highway
978-1-77212-041-7
Street Sex Work and Canadian Cities
Shawna Ferris
978-1-77212-005-9
Theatre, Teens, Sex Ed
Jan Selman & Jane Heather
978-1-77212-006-6
Landscapes of War and Memory
Sherrill Grace
978-1-77212-000-4
Personal Modernisms
James Gifford
978-1-77212-001-1
Conrad Kain
Zac Robinson, Editor
978-1-77212-004-2
Regenerations / Régénérations
Marie Carrière & Patricia Demers, Editors
978-0-88864-627-9
small things left behind
Ella Zeltserman
978-1-77212-002-8
Climber’s Paradise
PearlAnn Reichwein
978-0-88864-674-3
Aboriginal Populations
Frank Trovato & Anatole Romaniuk
978-0-88864-625-5
Dreaming of Elsewhere
Esi Edugyan
978-0-88864-821-1
abecedarium
Dennis Cooley
978-0-88864-645-3
A Most Beautiful Deception
Melissa Morelli Lacroix
978-0-88864-662-0
as if
E.D. Blodgett
978-0-88864-727-6
Will not forget both laughter and tears
Tomoko Mitani
Yukari F. Meldrum, Translator
978-0-88864-544-9
Sanctioned Ignorance: The Politics of Knowledge Production and the Teaching of the Literatures of Canada
Paul Martin
978-0-88864-545-6
The Remarkable Chester Ronning: Proud Son of China
Brian L. Evans
978-0-88864-663-7
Just Getting Started: Edmonton Public Library’s First 100 Years, 1913-2013
Todd Babiak
978-0-88864-728-3
Shy: An Anthology
Naomi K. Lewis & Rona Altrows, Editors
978-0-88864-670-5
The Peace-Athabasca Delta: Portrait of a Dynamic Ecosystem
Kevin P. Timoney
978-0-88864-603-3
At the limit of breath: Poems on the films of Jean-Luc Godard
Stephen Scobie
978-0-88864-671-2
Boom and Bust Again: Policy Challenges for a Commodity-Based Economy
David L. Ryan, Editor
978-0-88864-628-6
Ethics for the Practice of Psychology in Canada, Revised and Expanded Edition
Derek Truscott & Kenneth H. Crook
978-0-88864-652-1
Métis in Canada: History, Identity, Law and Politics
Christopher Adams, Gregg Dahl & Ian Peach, Editors
978-0-88864-640-8
You Haven’t Changed a Bit, Stories
Astrid Blodgett
978-0-88864-644-6
Massacre Street
Paul Zits
978-0-88864-675-0
Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book
Lawrence Hill
978-0-88864-679-8
The Last Temptation of Bond
Kimmy Beach
978-0-88864-558-6
Recognition and Modes of Knowledge
Teresa G. Russo
978-0-88864-558-6
Healing Histories
Laurie Meijers Drees
978-0-88864-650-7
Travels and Tales of Miriam Green Ellis:
Pioneer Journalist of the Canadian West
Patricia Demers
978-0-88864-626-2
Disinherited Generations:
Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nation Women and their Descendants
Nellie Carlson & Kathleen Steinhauer
as told to Linda Goyette
978-0-88864-642-2
Canada’s Constitutional Revolution
Barry L. Strayer
978-0-88864-649-1
We Gambled Everything
The Life and Time of an Oilman
Arne Nielsen
978-0-88864-598-2
Canadian Folk Art to 1950
John A. Fleming & Michael J. Rowan
James A. Chambers, Photographer
978-0-88864-556-2 (paper)
978-0-88864-630-9 (cloth)
Game Plan: A Social History of Sport in Alberta
Karen Wall
978-0-88864-594-4
Dramatic Licence
Louise Ladouceur
Translator Richard Lebeau
978-0-88864-538-8
Countering Displacements
Daniel Coleman, Erin Goheen Glanville, Wafaa Hasan & Agnes Kramer-Hamstra, Editors
978-0-88864-605-7
Cross-Media Ownership and Democratic Practice in Canada
Walter C. Soderlund, Colette Brin, Lydia Miljan & Kai Hilderbrandt
978-0-88864-605-7
Civilizing the Wilderness
A. A. den Otter
978-0-88864-546-3
Anti-Saints: The New Golden Legend of Sylvain Maréchal
Sheila Delany
978-0-88864-604-0
Imagining Ancient Women
Annabel Lyon
978-0-88864-629-3
Continuations 2
Douglas Barbour, Sheila E. Murphy
978-0-88864-596-8
Baba’s Kitchen Medicines:
Michael Mucz
978-0-88864-514-2
Pursuing China:
Memoir of a Beaver Liaison Officer
Brian L. Evans
978-0-88864-600-2
The Grads Are Playing Tonight!:
The Story of the Edmonton Commercial Graduates Basketball Club
M. Ann Hall
978-0-88864-602-6
Alfalfa to Ivy:
Memoir of a Harvard Medical School Dean
Joseph B. Martin
978-1-55195-700-5
Not Drowning But Waving
Susan Brown, Jeanne Perreault, Jo-Ann Wallace & Heather Zwicker, Editors
978-0-88864-614-9
Narratives of Citizenship
Aloys N.M. Fleischmann, Nancy Van Styvendale & Cody McCarroll, Editors
978-0-88864-518-0
Winter in Fireland
Nicholas Coghlan
978-0-88864-547-0
The Sasquatch at Home
Traditional Protocols & Modern Storytelling
Eden Robinson
978-0-88864-559-3
At the Interface of Culture and Medicine
Earle H. Waugh, Olga Szafran & Rodney A. Crutcher, Editors
978-0-88864-532-6
Apostrophes VII: Sleep, You, a Tree
E. D. Blodgett
978-0-88864-554-8
Demeter Goes Skydiving
Susan McCaslin
978-0-88864-551-7
Kat Among the Tigers
Kath MacLean
978-0-88864-552-4
Retooling the Humanities
Daniel Coleman & Smaro Kamboureli, Editors
978-0-88864-541-8
Will the Real Alberta Please Stand Up?
Geo Takach
978-0-88864-543-2
Un art de vivre par temps de catastrophe
Dany Laferrière
978-0-88864-553-1
Rudy Wiebe: Collected Stories, 1955–2010
Rudy Wiebe
Introduction by Thomas Wharton
978-0-88864-540-1
Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium
Myrna Kostash
978-0-88864-534-0
The Contemporary Arab Reader on Political Islam
Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’, Editor
978-0-88864-557-9
Locating the Past / Discovering the Present: Perspectives on Religion, Culture, and Marginality
David Gay & Stephen R. Reimer, Editor
978-0-88864-499-2
“Collecting Stamps Would Have Been More Fun”: Canadian Publishing and the Correspondence of Sinclair Ross, 1933–1986
Jordan Stouck & David Stouck, Editors
978-0-88864-521-0
The Beginning of Print Culture in Athabasca Country
Patricia Demers, Naomi McIlwraith & Dorothy Thunder, Translators
Arok Wolvengrey, Foreword
Patricia Demers, Introduction
978-0-88864-515-9
The Measure of Paris
Stephen Scobie
978-0-88864-533-3
Emblems of Empire: Selections from the Mactaggart Art Collection
John E. Vollmer & Jacqueline Simcox
978-0-88864-486-2
Taking the Lead: Strategies and Solutions from Female Coaches
Sheila Robertson, Editor
Dru Marshall, Introduction
978-0-88864-542-5
Ukrainian Through its Living Culture: Advanced Level Language Textbook
Alla Nedashkivska
978-0-88864-517-3
Bosnia: In the Footsteps of Gavrilo Princip
Tony Fabijancic
978-0-88864-519-7
wild horses
rob mclennan
978-0-88864-535-7
Memory’s Daughter
Alice Major
978-0-88864-539-5
Too Bad: Sketches Toward a Self-Portrait
Robert Kroetsch
978-0-88864-537-1
J.B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks
E. J. (Ted) Hart
978-0-88864-512-8
People of the Lakes: Stories of Our Van Tat Gwich’in Elders/Googwandak Nakhwach’ànjòo Van Tat Gwich’in
Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation
Shirleen Smith
978-0-88864-505-0
The rose that grew from concrete: Teaching and Learning with Disenfranchised Youth
Diane Wishart
978-0-88864-516-6
The Meteorites of Alberta
Anthony J. Whyte / Chris Herd, Foreword
978-0-88864-475-6
When Edmonton Was Young
Tony Cashman / Leslie Latta-Guthrie, Foreword
978-0-88864-511-1
Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders: The Labour of Pioneer Children on the Canadian Prairies
Sandra Rollings-Magnusson
978-0-88864-509-8
Retiring the Crow Rate: A Narrative of Political Management
Arthur Kroeger / John Fraser, Afterword
978-0-88864-513-5
As part of our 50th anniversary celebrations, UAlberta Press has a new visual identity that includes a new look for our website and blog.
Our blog also has a new name—ALLCAPS—and a new location. Please visit us there!
As of January 2019, we won’t be publishing new posts on this blog. Instead, come see at ALLCAPS!
Filed under: news | Leave a comment »
All of us at University of Alberta Press are grieving the passing of E.D. (Ted) Blodgett—a creative and intellectual genius and a fine human being. We are so fortunate to have worked with Ted over many years.
We are grateful to have partnered with him in bringing his beautiful, moving, and technically brilliant poetry to an appreciative audience.
Ted will be deeply missed.
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When I moved into Alberta Avenue, an inner city neighbourhood in the heart of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, my acquaintances often asked, “Why would you live there?” In fact, not long after settling into our century-old house with sagging stucco skin, the city published a report that gave Alberta Avenue a zero quality of life rating. A ZERO. It only confirmed what our well-meaning acquaintances felt for us: our children would not be safe.
Three children and fourteen years later, my book Little Yellow House: Finding Community in a Changing Neighbourhood (2018) explores through many first-person stories what a contrast our experience was from those dire predictions. It is not a classical textbook on how to do community development, though it could be used as such. Nor is it a traditional personal memoir, though Ted Bishop, author of Ink, called it a “neighbourhood biography,” which is a kind of memoir-with-a-twist.
I wrote it with two purposes: first to document, like literary polaroids, a neighbourhood that was changing with an influx of revitalization funding and improving housing market conditions. Second, I wanted to explore the human connections that are integral to the quality of life all of us experience in our built environment.
Before the University of Alberta Press picked up Little Yellow House for publication, I spoke to a literary agent about the process of selling the book to a commercial publishing house and one of the first things she said was, “Who in Toronto wants to read stories set in Edmonton?”
Although it was intended as a rhetorical question, I tried to defend the universality of “local stories.” While local stories are helpful for recording and teaching in their specific locales, I argued that they are critical for finding shared learnings across regions and oceans. Is this not why many of us read? By reading one another’s local stories we better understand the “other” and—even better—discover our own stories in the other’s local stories. In fact, the wide circulation of “local stories” is, I believe, at the heart of empathy, ecumenicalism, and peace-building.
It is to expand and enable this curiosity that drives university presses and thank goodness for them! There are many “business cases” that limit books like mine from finding their way onto the lists of commercial publishers. University of Alberta Press, and editor Peter Midgley, had the flexibility to see the literary and theoretical merit of Little Yellow House and then took a chance on it. While the press does not have any mandate that urges them to pursue Alberta stories, as a small publisher connected to our city’s literary community, they are accessible to independent writers like me. It is these connections to local and regional communities where university presses offer a unique service to the literary arts community and readers—well, I think I have argued—everywhere!
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St. Albert, a few kilometres north of Edmonton, is one of the largest and most history-rich Métis settlements in Canada. To learn more of this history and culture, the University of Alberta Libraries’ Indigenous initiatives put on a staff training event on November 1, in partnership with the Michif Cultural Connections and the Musée Héritage Museum.
Highlights of the morning included a personal tour with Sharon Morin and Josh Morin of the Michif Cultural Connections building, library collection, and artifacts. Celina Loyer, an expert in traditional cultural knowledge of the Treaty 6, Métis Region 4 area, gave us a beginners’ workshop on finger weaving.
Afterwards, we took the Founder’s Walk through downtown St. Albert, crossing the bridge to view the Musée Héritage Museum. We warmed cold fingers and toes at the St. Albert historic grain elevators while lunching on beef barley vegetable soup and fresh bannock.
The final steps of the journey took us to River Lots 23 and 24 to view original family homes, new community gardens, and a burgeoning food forest.
Thanks go to Kayla Lar-Son [BA Honours Native Studies, MLIS, Indigenous Academic Resident UAL], for organizing such an informative and remarkable day.
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The University of Alberta Press celebrates 50 years of publishing in 2019. In anticipation of this milestone, we embarked on a project to re-imagine our visual identity. Our goal was to honour our legacy while reflecting our current publishing program, which is increasingly diverse, urban, and multidisciplinary.
We worked with Susan Colberg (Visual Communication Design at the University of Alberta) to create a logo and new visual identity that shows a Press that is critical, contemporary, and engaged. She chose an accompanying typeface that is uniquely Canadian: Cartier, created by the eminent graphic and type designer Carl Dair to mark Canada’s centenary in 1967.
Everyone at the Press looks forward to continuing our work with authors and scholars on behalf of our many communities of readers. We hope you enjoy the titles in this catalogue.
See you at the bookstore!
Douglas Hildebrand
Director and Publisher
University of Alberta Press
Filed under: Books, Catalogues, news | 1 Comment »
“A successful short story takes us to unfamiliar places, and the 16 stories in this collection certainly fill that bill. It’s a journey deep into Inuit life, with tales of Inuk of all shapes, genders and ages. The title story is at turns funny, violent and cunning: Jimmy tries to convince best friend Moses to stay away from the glorious Annie Muktuk, an arnaluk (naughty woman, according to the glossary) who will cause him grief. Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star [Full article]
“Inuk writer Norma Dunning’s debut collection passed under the radar of the big awards despite being the year’s best short fiction collection. The stories infuse Inuit myth with reality, explore the effects of colonialism, and delve into settler-writer portrayals of Inuit, all told with heart and humour that is infectious.” Michael Melgaard, National Post, on his No. 1 book of 2017
“Fiction solves the problem of other minds, by cutting readers directly in on the thought and being of other people. If it has a moral purpose it is this: to give us empathetic understanding of other people, many of them very different from ourselves, in gender, and culture, and race…. I liked this book very much, for its rich characterization, for its liveliness in dialogue, and most of all for the window it presents on another form of consciousness, one to which a unique world of spiritual beings is very near.” Susan Haley, Fiddlehead
“Norma Dunning’s debut short story collection is sensitive, intelligent and intense. Right from the first story, ‘Kabloona Red,’ in which an Inuit women knocks back cheap red wine whenever her white husband is away, Dunning writes about authentic experience. The narrators are first person or closely focused third, so the Inuit characters’ confusion and pain as they struggle to maintain individual and cultural identifies are felt directly…. Strong currents of anger and courage propel the Inuit characters. They are survivors…. I loved this book.” Candace Fertile, Alberta Views
“Annie Muktuk and Other Stories expounds on Inuit women empowerment. The collection comprises both happy and sad stories, a mixture of present day and the past, and has a touch of humour.”Shari Narine, Windspeaker [Full article]
INDIE Book of the Year Awards (Short Stories), United States
Winner
2018
Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story | Writers’ Guild of Alberta for “Elipsee”, Canada
Winner
2018
2017 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, Canada
Winner
2018
Filed under: awards, Books, Reviews | Leave a comment »
Held at the Hotel Arts in Calgary, this year’s annual conference had a lot to offer. The highlight was Minister of Culture and Tourism Ricardo Miranda’s announcement of new funding for the publishing industry: $300,000 for each of the next four years. This will be a lifesaver for some smaller publishers, while enabling established ones to take on new staff or tackle new projects. After years of struggle and a decreased levels of support, this is a significant step forward in creating a healthier, more vibrant industry in Alberta.
Friday’s professional development focussed on learning more about our industry, including a booksellers’ panel—Audreys Books and Shelf Life Books—and a presentation from United Library Services. The remarkable afternoon keynote from Chelsea Vowel spoke to our responsibilities to various communities, with her talk titled Publishers as Powerbrokers. She is the author of Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit issues in Canada. Saturday saw lively talk around the new funding, with creative ideas being discussed.
The annual conference is always an opportunity to meet with colleagues and share knowledge and brainstorm new ways of doing things. Conversations were started that will continue over the coming months, and we are sure that the collaborations will lead us in interesting directions.
The gala reception was very special. The keynote by Darrin Hagen was a mix of performance and talk. He told the story behind the publication of The Edmonton Queen: The Final Voyage. His voice is extraordinary and necessary.
The University of Alberta Press had authors and books shortlisted in five categories, which made for an exciting evening. While we did not take home an award this year, it was great to see the delight as each winner was announced. Our congratulations to all the authors and publishers whose work was recognized.
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“What’s that?”, you ask?
Poetry Reading Season is when the University of Alberta Press is accepting poetry manuscripts for consideration to be published in the Robert Kroetsch Series of Canadian creative writing.
Back in 2014, we started to streamline the submission process to make it more manageable to handle the increasing number of poetry manuscripts arriving in our mailbox.
The submission deadline is September 30, so hurry up and send us your manuscript!
Questions? Please contact Peter Midgley at (780) 492-7714 or pmidgley@ualberta.ca.
Filed under: news, poetry | Leave a comment »
How do you think up the title for a lecture—especially after you’ve given it? This is the challenge facing UAP author Alice Major, who was invited to give the prestigious Anne Szumigalski lecture in June, at the Canadian Writers Summit.
“The title can be the toughest line to write in a poem,” says Alice. “Or in a lecture. You’re trying to give a sense of what you’re writing about and what its context is, all in a few snappy words.”
“It’s like the whole challenge of poetry—squared!” she adds.
She gave her untitled talk to acclaim, but the challenge has not gone away. The lecture will be published in an upcoming issue of Prairie Fire, and as she prepares the print version, she’s still wondering what to call it.
The Szumigalski lecture is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets, in memory of the celebrated poet, a founder of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild. Over the years, the annual talks have had titles like “Every Exit is an Entrance (A Praise of Sleep)” by Anne Carson, or “Why Poetry?” by Margaret Atwood.
“Titles like that are intriguing or magisterial and they set the bar pretty high,” says Alice. “You feel you have to live up to them.”
Her talk concerns poetry and science—not surprising, given her long engagement with these activities as humans try to find meaning in the universe in books like Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science or her newest collection, Welcome to the Anthropocene.
However, as a label, “poetry and science is rather broad and blah,” she says.
“I’m talking about ideas like truth, and whether it matters that a poet gets the facts right, and where can a poet situate herself if she brings science into a poem. But just try boiling all that down to a catchy tag!”
Suggestions welcome!
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There's a Hole in the Bucket 