Award-winning poet and novelist Ben Lerner. Image courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation
The event is part of Off the Page, a three-day literary festival that Writers Read is hosting in conjunction with the Université de Montréal and Librarie Drawn and Quarterly. It begins on Thursday, March 17.
A poet turns to prose
Lerner is the author of novels Leaving the Atocha Station (2011) and 10:04 (2014), as well as several full-length poetry collections, including Mean Free Path (2010) and Angle of Yaw (2006), which was a finalist for a National Book Award and a Northern California Book Award. His cycle of 52 sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), won the Hayden Carruth Award.
“Poets really haven’t gotten the news that the novel is also dead,” Lerner told The Guardian in January 2015, discussing the opinion among some poets that writing in prose is a capitulation to market forces.
Here’s an excerpt — the first 10 pages — from Lerner’s celebrated debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station.
The full schedule of Off the Page panel discussions and events is available on the Writers Read Facebook page. Intriguing topics include Cursing in Cursive, Writing Iconocide and Black Love.
Want to be a writer? Attend Write Nights
To encourage budding poets and authors, Concordia’s Student Association for Graduates in English (SAGE) has launched a student-driven initiative called Write Nights.
Concordia Write Nights is a weekly writing group open to all, running place-based write-ins around the city and workshops led by creative writing faculty, students and guest writers. It was part of a successful application from the Department of English to the Graduate Community Building Fund.
“We launched last January and held Write Nights on most Friday evenings during the school term,” says Caitlyn Spencer, a second-year master’s student in the Department of English and the vice-president, Internal, for SAGE. “Writing can be so solitary that it’s nice to make it more communal,” she says. “We have good turnouts — sometimes up to 20 people.”
Write Nights is held all over town, at intentionally unconventional spaces.
“We’ve held them at the Concordia Greenhouse, at the Biôdome and even on the metro,” says Spencer.
The next Write Nights event, a workshop on how to read prose and poetry in public, will be held on Tuesday March 22, at 6 p.m., on the sixth floor of the J.W. McConnell Library Building (LB).
Next, on Thursday, March 24 at 6 p.m., there will be a write-in at Hinnawi Bros Bagel & Café (2002 Mackay St.). The launch of their inaugural chapbook is on Friday April 1, 7 p.m. at Burritoville (2055 Rue Bishop).
To learn more about Concordia Write Nights, email concordiawritenights@gmail.com, or join the Facebook group. Upcoming Write Nights events are posted on the calendar.
An Evening with Ben Lerner begins at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 18, at the York Amphitheatre, EV-1.605 (1515 St. Catherine St. W.), Sir George Williams Campus. Admittance is free.
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