URGENT SUBJECT MATTER: Now more than ever, conversation--the sincere, open exchange of thoughts and feelings--is essential if we are to restore civic and civil discourse. This book is an attempt to encourage a conversation about conversation. CONVERSATIONS AND THE 2024 U.S. ELECTION: The next U.S. election is on November 5, 2024. As American (and global) politics become more and more polarized, it feels harder than ever to have important conversations.

What I Mean to Say delves into why tough topics are often the most important, and how reactivity has caused people to back away from engaging in thoughtful discourse. The book publishes just before the 2024 U.S. election, on October 8 in the U.S. and Canada. BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND EXPERIENCED ACADEMIC: Ian Williams is the bestselling author of Reproduction for which he also won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He is also the author of Disorientation: Being Black in the World which was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Prize for Nonfiction.

He is a tenured English professor at the University of Toronto. CROSS COUNTRY TOUR AND RADIO BROADCAST: The five lectures will be delivered live and in person in Sidney NS, Iqaluit NV, Saskatoon SK, Victoria BC, and Toronto ON over several weeks in fall 2024 and then will be broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas series in November 2024.