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Please join us as CMU Press presents the launch of two new books: New & Selected Poems (Lyrik Poetry Series 1) by Sarah Klassen and On Mennonite/s Writing: Selected Essays by Hildi Froese Tiessen. Hosted by Sue Sorensen and John Weier.https://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781987986136/sarah-klassen/new-selected-poems
https://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781987986129/hildi-froese-tiessen/on-mennonite-s-writing
The event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream: https://youtube.com/live/H4AGsGmZS-E
In this inaugural volume of the Lyrik Poetry Series, honouring Canada’s foremost Mennonite poets, CMU Press presents the finest work, past and present, of Manitoba’s wonderful Sarah Klassen, who has been publishing poetry since her award-winning first collection in 1988, Journey to Yalta. Including an introduction by editor Nathan Dueck and an afterword by the poet, this volume presents new and uncollected poems as well as a generous selection from Sarah Klassen’s eight books of poetry.
Sarah Klassen was born in Manitoba in 1932. A Winnipeg English teacher for many years, she also taught in Lithuania and Ukraine. Her first book, Journey to Yalta, received the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award in 1989. In the years since, her poetry has received acclaim and multiple awards. In 2023 she collaborated with Joanne Epp and Sally Ito on the poetic translations in Wonder-Work: Selected Sonnets of Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, which has been awarded the silver medal for poetry in the 2024 Illumination Book Awards. In addition, Klassen has published two novels and two books of short stories. Her fiction has won the Margaret McWilliams Award from the Manitoba Historical Society as well as the High Plains Book Award.
In 1973 Hildi Froese Tiessen published one of the earliest essays about Rudy Wiebe’s “Mennonite novels.” Over the next fifty years, Dr. Froese Tiessen would go on to author some eighty additional contributions to the field of Mennonite/s writing, including over sixty essays and book chapters, more than a dozen edited collections and special issues of journals, and a host of scholarly introductions, reviews, and encyclopedia articles. On Mennonite/s Writing is the first collection of Dr. Froese Tiessen’s work, gathering eighteen essays that reflect a half-century of critical engagement.
Raised in Winnipeg, Hildi Froese Tiessen earned her BA at University of Winnipeg and an MA and PhD at University of Alberta. She taught English and Peace & Conflict Studies (1987-2012) at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, where she also served as academic dean. She is the editor of Liars and Rascals, an anthology of short fiction by Mennonite authors, and also 11 Encounters with Mennonite Fiction. With Paul Tiessen, she is the editor of After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery's Letters to Ephraim Weber. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
Host Sue Sorensen is a Winnipeg poet, novelist, professor, and director of CMU Press.
Host John Weier, a past president of the League of Canadian Poets, is an author of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; he is also a therapist, enthusiastic birder, and retired luthier.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
McNally Robinson Booksellers, Source, 1120 Grant Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3M, Canada,Winnipeg, Manitoba