York University Libraries is thrilled to host Let’s Talk About It: A Conversation with Author Suzette Mayr, an exciting opportunity for students, faculty, and library patrons to engage with one of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary writers.

Suzette Mayr is the award-winning author of six novels, including the widely acclaimed The Sleeping Car Porter — winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. The novel has garnered international attention, earning a place on the 2024 Dublin Literary Award shortlist, and was a finalist for the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, and the Republic of Consciousness Prize (U.S. and Canada).

The Sleeping Car Porter masterfully blends historical research with a compelling narrative to tell the story of a Black queer railway porter in 1920s Canada, shedding light on often-overlooked aspects of Canadian history through a deeply human lens.

Beyond her work as a novelist, Mayr’s creative contributions span disciplines. She has collaborated with Calgary’s Theatre Junction and visual artists Lisa Brawn and Geoff Hunter, and her academic work has been published in journals such as Horror Studies, Studies in Canadian Literature, and The Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.

Mayr is also a dedicated educator, teaching Creative Writing at the University of Calgary. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Killam Laureate.

PANELIST: Tiana Reid is an assistant professor in the Department of English at York University. Her research and teaching interests include black literature, gender, and labor. Her writing has appeared in Aperture,Bookforum, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and The Yale Review,among other places. She also co-edits the magazine Pinko. In 2021, she received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.