Winnipeg comic Rae in the hack

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Rae is working on a 300-page curling book that will be published next fall. (POSTMEDIA / MONTREAL GAZETTE)

Winnipeg comedian Al Rae is up to his hog line in curling facts as he works on a 300-page book on Canada's other great winter sport, to be published next fall by Random House.

"It's not a purely humorous book," says Rae, former writer for TV's Little Mosque on the Prairie and artistic director of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival. He promises that the book, which Random House commissioned in the spring, will cover some of curling's darker moments, including the anti-Semitism of clubs that banned Jews and the disaster that was the Men With Brooms television sitcom.

While working on his own research, Rae is inviting curlers and curling fans to send him stories at curlingbook@gmail.com

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Literacy Partners of Manitoba will celebrate International Literacy Day this Friday at the Free Press Café.

The literacy organization will present its 2012 "reader-in-residence," Nereo Eugenio, a spoken-word artist, painter, photographer and arts educator. Eugenio will perform at adult learning centres and literacy events to inspire and encourage adults to learn.

At the Friday event, starting at 2 p.m., Literacy Partners staff will also talk about their work and the importance of literacy and other essential skills to all Manitobans.

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Four Manitoba books will be discussed and debated at this year's Manitoba Reads event as part of the Thin Air Winnipeg International Writers' Festival.

The four titles, selected this summer from a long list of 12, are Twelve Drummers Drumming, by C.C. Benison; Automatic World, by Struan Sinclair; The Knife Sharpener's Bell, by Rhea Tregebov; and Autumn, One Spring, by Patti Grayson. Manitoba Reads is patterned after CBC Radio's Canada Reads panel discussion, in which celebrity guests each champion one particular Canadian book.

After the panel debate on stage on Sept. 21, the winning book will be announced on CBC Radio on the Weekend Morning Show on Sept. 23.

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Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 1, 2012 J8