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We’re very pleased to have Carolyn Smart, the new co-editor of MQUP’s Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series, as today’s guest blogger.
As a poet and professor of Creative Writing at Queen’s, it’s a natural fit for me to be working with poets through the MacLennan Poetry Series at McGill-Queen’s Press.
But the story doesn’t feel quite so simple for me, for several reasons. I was part of the original MacLennan Series committee that worked out the parameters in the early days, and I had the great pleasure of editing one of the first volumes from the series: Rachel Rose’s award-winning Giving My Body to Science, a book I have often gone back to over the years, and one I share with my students at Queen’s whenever possible.
My history with Hugh MacLennan goes back farther than that, however. One of my very earliest jobs after graduation from Trinity College at the University of Toronto was in the dual role of poetry editor and publicist for specific titles. In 1974 I found myself accompanying Professor MacLennan to radio and television interviews, and driving him around Toronto for different speaking engagements and appearances, much of the time wondering what luck had brought me to this point in my life.
In 1989 I was hired to teach Creative Writing at Queen’s and shortly thereafter I founded the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, featuring and encouraging the work of younger, unknown writers across the country.
And now, at a different point in time entirely, I am pleased to return to the MacLennan Series, acting as co-editor alongside Allan Hepburn. I hope to bring to the position my awareness of and admiration for established Canadian poets, and my excitement around emerging writers from coast to coast. It is my aim to showcase excellent poetry from writers at any stage of their career.
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Carolyn Smart is Director of Creative Writing at Queen’s University and the new co-editor of the MacLennan Poetry Series.
For more information on the Poetry Series, click here.
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