The journalist and critic Jeet Heer discusses his new collection, Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essay and Profiles (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2014), his writing and process, and more, with Joseph Planta.

Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essay and Profiles by Jeet Heer (Porcupine’s Quill, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Sweet Lechery

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Jeet Heer is a cultural journalist and academic, and one of Canada’s leading public intellectuals. If you follow him on Twitter—his handle is @heerjeet—you are often treated to his thoughts and observations, and sometimes his conversations with others on fascinating aspects of our culture. He is credited with the Twitter essay, numbered tweets on a subject that engage his followers and others on a topic that refuses to be confined to a mere 140 characters. He may not have invented the Twitter essay, but he’s helped make it ubiquitous in our discourse. A new collection of essays has just been published, Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essay and Profiles, taken from Mr. Heer’s prolific work that’s appeared in sundry publications including the National Post, the Globe and Mail, Canadian Notes and Queries, The Walrus, the Boston Globe, The Comics Journal, and the New Republic, where he recently had a cover story on the magazine and its history on race. Which incidentally, I saw discussed on the Charlie Rose program last week, when the magazine’s controversial proprietor made an appearance. I’ll ask Mr. Heer, who joins me now, about the themes to which he’s categorised the essays in this collection, his interests, his writing, and how he views the role of the public intellectual in our discourse. He is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, and he received degrees from the University of Toronto and York University. The website for more is at www.jeetheer.com. The book is published by The Porcupine’s Quill, and is a terribly engaging collection that looks at the work of influential writers here in Canada and beyond, as well as science fiction, and comics, as well as right-wing politics. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, from Regina, Saskatchewan today, Jeet Heer; Mr. Heer, good morning.

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