An Evening with Jamaica Kincaid

Join the Calgary Distinguished Writers Program for An Evening with Jamaica Kincaid.

MacEwan Ballroom | Thursday, February 9 | 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.)

The evening will be hosted by UCalgary Creative Writing Professor Suzette Mayr, winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Following the main event, a book signing will take place with Kincaid at 7:30 p.m.

This event is free, but registration is required - please reserve your spot! Masks are welcome but not required.

Can't attend in person? Watch the livestream.

Jamaica Kincaid

One of the most highly acclaimed writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Jamaica Kincaid is a writer with a clear, illuminating vision of humanity. Written in a deceptively simple and unadorned style, Kincaid’s books are informed by her status as an uprooted subject, born in the Caribbean Island of Antigua, but living in North America. Kincaid deals with such universal themes as coming-of-age and the necessity of separation from parents and establishing identity. Her books include Annie John (1985), A Small Place (1998), Lucy (1990), The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), Mr. Potter (2002), Among Flowers (2005), and See Now Then (2013).

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Kincaid is the 2022 recipient of the Hadada Award for lifetime achievement from The Paris Review. Her other accolades include the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dan David Prize for Literature, the Clifton Fadiman Medal, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and the Prix Femina Étranger award. She teaches in the English, African and African-American Studies departments at Harvard University and lives in Vermont.

Read more about Kincaid in UToday.

Suzette Mayr

Suzette Mayr is the author of six novels including her most recent, The Sleeping Car Porter, which won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Award. Her other novels have won the ReLit Award and City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, and been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the Canada-Caribbean Region, the Writers' Guild of Alberta's Best First Book and Best Novel Awards, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction. Mayr has also published articles in the peer-reviewed journals Horror Studies, Canadian Literature, Studies in Canadian Literature, The Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, and in Antipodes. She is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary.

The Calgary Distinguished Writers Program

The Calgary Distinguished Writers Program (CDWP) strives to advance the careers of Canadian writers, invigorate the Calgary writing community, and enhance the activities of the Faculty of Arts and the Department of English. The program achieves its objectives through two annual residency programs: one for an emerging Canadian writer, and one for a distinguished writer of international stature.

Since its inception in 1993, the program has brought to Calgary two Nobel Laureates—Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka—and such literary luminaries as Zadie Smith, Neil Gaiman, Oliver Sacks, Timothy Findley, Thomas King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Ondaatje, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and illustrator Art Spiegelman, among others.

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WAYFINDING

MacEwan Ballroom is on the third floor of the MacEwan Conference & Event Centre, on the University of Calgary’s Main Campus (2500 University Dr NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4).

ACCESSIBILITY

Washrooms: The MacEwan Conference & Event Centre offers wheelchair accessible and family-friendly washrooms, as well as all-gender washrooms (on the second floor).

Elevators: Elevators are located directly outside MacEwan Ballroom, and are wheelchair accessible.

CART & Captioning: Professional live CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) captioning will be be available on personal smart devices through StreamText URL service. Please note that the livestream will make use of Vimeo's auto-captions; the accuracy of these captions will be limited. We recommend accessing the StreamText on a smart device in tandem with the livestream.

Click for live CART transcription: https://www.streamtext.net/text.aspx?event=CDWP

Parking: All parking lots have wheelchair accessible parking.

PARKING

With over 3,000 parking spaces located within walking distance of MacEwan Conference & Event Centre, there are plenty of spaces available for you and your guests. Parking Lots 10 and 11, along Collegiate Boulevard, are available for visitor parking anytime. The University of Calgary also features covered and underground parking. The underground parking facility located under MacEwan Conference & Event Centre contains 140 parking stalls. For additional covered parking The Arts Parkade located a five minute from MacEwan Conference & Event Centre has 1260 parking stalls. Additional information can be found at ucalgary.ca/ancillary/parking.

PUBLIC TRANSIT

MacEwan Conference & Event Centre is conveniently located close to the University Station Light Rail Transit (LRT) stops on C Route 201 Tuscany/SomersetBridlewood (north/south).

WALKING DIRECTIONS FROM UNIVERSITY LRT (CTRAIN) STATION:

• Walk across platform over Crowchild Trail
• Follow path past Biology Building
• Follow path under walkway near Social Sciences Building
• Follow path past open area with large metal sculpture
• Enter MacEwan Student Centre
• You will enter the building on the 1st floor
• The event registration table will be in front of you; the Den will be on your left

For further Calgary Transit service and fares information, please go to calgarytransit.com.