Live at Open Word, It’s Sheila Heti!

If you haven’t been to an installment of  “Open Word: Readings and Ideas” series yet this season, you’ve got the perfect excuse this week—and appearance by acclaimed writer and cultural innovator Sheila Heti! Sheila will read at 7:30pm on Feb. 21 at Open Space (510 Fort, by donation) with a live interview by UVic fiction professor Lee Henderson to follow. She’ll also be appearing on campus at 3pm Wednesday in room D107 of the MacLaurin Building.

The Toronto-based author of five books (including the novel Ticknor and the book of “conversational philosophy” The Chairs Are Where the People Go), Heti also tapped into the American zeitgeist in 2008 by creating The Metaphysical Poll, a headline-making blog that collected actual sleeping dreams people were having about then-presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Heti also made her mark by creating Toronto’s popular Trampoline Hall lecture series, where people lecture on topics outside their areas of expertise—which has been running monthly since its 2001 inception, and has sold out every time. An editor, playwright and artistic collaborator, Heti is currently writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario.

Open Word is a partnership between UVic’s Department of Writing and Open Space, and has a long history of pairing the finest writers with fascinating live interviews. As award-winning local poet and author Steven Price put it, “I think the series is a godsend to the city’s writers and book lovers.”