2025
February 13, 2025
I introduced John Vaillant at the San Miguel Writers Conference. John is the author of Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, a searing account of the wildfire that forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray, a city of 90,000 in northern Alberta. In his keynote address, John called the current spate of uncontrolled wildfires a prime example of “discontinuity,” which is defined as “an event or situation wherein past experience ceases to be a useful guide to future problem-solving.”
My review of Fire Weather will appear in a future issue of the on-line journal Canadian Writers Abroad.
February 16, 2025
I interviewed Margaret Atwood at the San Miguel Writers Conference, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Margaret talked about the relationship between current events and her novels that are set in the future: post-apocalyptic novels may not be so post apocalyptic any more. In fact, she argues, both historical and futuristic novels “can’t help but be of their time.” Apocalypse Now?
Me in conversation with Margaret Atwood at the San Miguel Writers Conference, in Mexico.
February 18, 2025
My review of Anne Carson’s new book of short fiction and peoms, Wrong Norma, appears in the on-line journal Canadian Writers Abroad. I note that the theme running throughout the pieces in the book is a growing anguish for the millions of people on the planet for whom it is a daily struggle “to know beauty.”
To read the review, please go to Imaging the Unimaginable – https://canadianwritersabroad.com/2025/02/18/imagining-the-unimaginable-anne-carson/
February 18, 2025
I was interviewed on CBC New Brunswick about the work of Acadian writer Antonine Maillet, who died today at the age of 95. Asked why Maillet’s work became popular when it did, I suggested that her form of magic realism gave Canada a seat at the magic realism table established by such Latin American writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Juan Rulfo. I have translated three books by Antonine Maillet: La Sagouine, On the Eighth Day, and Christopher Cartier of Hazelnut, Also Known as Bear.