A Publishing Speakers' Series Spring 2024: Two Events
There are two upcoming spring virtual events in A Publishing Speakers’ Series. The PSS thanks the UWinnipeg Research Office for their generous support.
Our first speaker will be acclaimed author Doretta Lau, who will be speaking about making a living as a freelance writer, optioning creative work for television and breaking into Hollywood. Lau’s event will be held on Tuesday, April 9 at2:30 PM CT.
BIO: Doretta Lau started watching horror movies at age nine and sketch comedy at eleven, which was probably why she ended up completing an MFA in Writing at Columbia University.
She spent her days in New York working in children’s publishing and her nights watching musicians work out their inner demons at downtown venues and Brooklyn lofts. As a journalist in Hong Kong, she drank cheap wine at art openings, laughed her way through films of every genre–even ones not meant to be humorous– and discovered while on assignment in Guam that she’s afraid to shoot guns and fly planes. And, she’d do it all again just for the stories.
In her fiction, her characters receive text messages from their future selves, go on dates with ghosts, recover from childhood stardom, and yearn to be competitive eating superstars. The Atlantic named her short story collection, How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?,as a best book of 2014. The title story, about a group of kids determined to pull off a heist, was shortlisted for the 2013 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.
For the sake of the craft, she once lived in a haunted house for two months to write her novel We Are Underlings, about a dysfunctional workplace struggling to open a theme park that celebrates death. In that same vein, she is learning how to bake in order to achieve verisimilitude for her next book, a crime comedy set in the pandemic bubble of a reality baking show. Visit dorettalau.com.
Please register in advance and submit your questions here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrceiqpjMqG9fQAsK5A0S-Vcw8BTTq9nIH#/registration
Our second guest is award-winning CBC producerand reporter Tanara McLean on Friday, April 12 at 12:30PM CT. I’ve had the privilege of working with Tanara on two CBC radio shows (The DocProject and Now or Never). McLean will be discussing media interviews and book promotion. She will answer questions on media training and being an engaging interviewee on radio/television.
BIO: Tanara McLean is an RTDNA and CAJ award-winning producer and journalist based at CBC Edmonton. Her career spans 17 years in print, radio and television.
In her short career, Tanara has worn many hats in media and communications, from news anchoring, hosting a morning tv current affairs show, as communications director for Alberta's official opposition and as Legislature and City Hall bureau reporter.
Tanara currently produces and presents radio documentaries for CBC Radio.
Tanara has spent the past several years developing progressive language and new ways of telling the stories of marginalized groups.
Most recently Tanara has taken on a new role as Instructor of Journalism at Grant MacEwan University, preparing the next generation of journalists.
The foundation of her instruction is based on the need for better understanding of how implicit bias — positive and negative — affect all aspects of decision making in newsroom.
Please register in advance and submit your questions here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qdu6hqzIuHt1W0rPzJ5-pGoPMWSYOe8Sq#/registration
The events are free and open to the university and general public. Please share with your students and anyone who might be interested. We hope to see you there!