Personal conversations — with writer and poet Ian Williams (CBC Massey Lecture 3)

Bookstores are full of titles that are supposed to help us deal with difficult conversations — about emotions, misunderstandings and hurt feelings. The problem is that difficult conversations are almost always about something other than what they seem to be about. And what we're actually looking for in a conversation isn't always answers — it's communion.

The CBC Massey Lecture series What I mean to say — remaking conversation in our time was recorded live across Canada in November 2024. This third lecture was recorded in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Speakers

Ian WilliamsPoet and author, Reproduction (Scotiabank Giller Award winner), Disorientation. Being Black in the World, Word problems (Raymond Souster Award 2021), and moreProfessor of English and director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Toronto

Leisha GrebinskiLocal radio host, CBC Saskatoon

Pratyush DayalJournalist, CBC News

Further information:

Since 1961, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has produced the Massey Lectures featuring leading Canadian thinkers asking questions that make us better human beings. The lectures are a partnership between CBC, House of Anansi Press, and Massey College in the University of Toronto.