Blue Metropolis Preview

On Thursday morning, I’ll be taking off to attend (and participate in) this year’s Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal.

In case you haven’t heard of it, the Blue Met is one of the (or maybe just the?) largest literary festivals in Quebec. It runs from April 18th through the 23rd, and features a ton of great events taking place in several different languages and featuring authors from Canada (Perrine Leblanc), the U.S. (Joyce Carol Oates), and the rest of the world (Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Teresa Solana).

The main reason I’m going to be there is to participate in this event:

Friday, April 20, 2:30pm (aka 14:30)
Godin Room, Hotel Opus

Cracking the U.S. Market

Two influential critics, writers and publishing insiders talk about how Canadian writers, editors and publishers can break into the U.S. publishing market and possible directions that the market will take in the next few years.

Scott Esposito, Chad Post, Katia Grubisic (moderator)

First off, it’s awesome to be referred to as “influential,” and also awesome to have a full panel to talk about all these issues with Scott. The three of us have exchanged a few emails about the event, and just based on these, I can guarantee the panel will be fun, funny, and informative.

If you’re going to be at the festival, here are a few other events I’d recommend:

• Friday, April 20, 8pm: Face to Face with Juan Gabriel Vasquez

• Saturday, April 21, 7pm: Writers in Peril: Egypt Today

• Sunday, April 22, 1pm: Translating David Foster Wallace

Hopefully I’ll meet up with some of you there!