Credit Where Credit Is Due: Clark Blaise to Receive an Honorary Doctorate

Many, many years ago when I was just starting out writing and the CBC did such things on a regular basis, I heard Clark Blaise read a short story on the radio.  It was set in Montreal, but aside from that I remember nothing except that it was absolutely terrific, exactly what I'd been trying to do for some time and hadn't succeeded in doing.

He was teaching at Concordia University then, with already several books of short stories to his credit, and, gathering up all my courage in both hands, I sent him a fan letter.  He answered quickly, and, encouraged, I wrote again, asking for some advice about how what do with the novel I was working on then.

He called me this time, and asked if I'd published any stories, which I had (two), and how I was (30.)  I could hear him thinking on the other end of the line, and then he said, well, send me your stories and I'll see about the novel.  To make a long story short, by the end of the year he'd made a couple of interesting suggestions about my work and given me a path to follow.

And I'll be forever grateful for his encouragement at a point in my life when I didn't know where I was going.  The result was the publication of my first novel The Descent of Andrew McPherson in 1976.  It's now available only Abebooks, but maybe we'll get a digital version out one of these days.

This week I learned that Clark will receive an honorary doctorate from Concordia University next week, and rarely was such an honour more deserved.

Here's a list of his work: definitely worth looking for.

Short stories

    A North American Education – 1973
    Tribal Justice – 1974
    Resident Alien – 1986
    Man and His World – 1992
    Southern Stories – 2000
    Pittsburgh Stories – 2001
    Montreal Stories – 2003
    The Meagre Tarmac – 2011 (longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize)

Novels

    Lunar Attractions – 1979 (winner of the 1980 Books in Canada First Novel Award)
    Lusts – 1984
    If I Were Me – 1997

Memoirs

    Days and Nights in Calcutta – 1977 (with Bharati Mukherjee)
    I had a Father – 1992

Non-fiction

    The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy – 1987 (with Bharati Mukherjee)
    Time Lord – 2000