On the Night Table: Sally Ito

On the Night Table: Sally Ito

Sally Ito

Writer-in-residence at the University of Manitoba's Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture

"I recently returned from doing a poetry reading in Victoria, so I had a long plane ride and was able to read some of what was on my night table. I read Winnipegger Dora Dueck's recently published collection, What You Get at Home, and thoroughly enjoyed the stories. In Victoria, I picked up a used $3 copy of Thomas Merton's The New Seeds of Contemplation and found myself reading it obsessively on the way back to Winnipeg. Back at home, still on the nightstand, are Virginia Woolf's classic novel Mrs. Dalloway and Betsy Warland's Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, a wonderful book on the art of writing."

Theatre preview: pointy-eared actors to stage Shakespeare tragedy

Although they star in an upcoming local production of the Scottish Play, goblin thespians Wug, Kragva and Moog left it to director Rebecca Northan to handle publicity and interviews.

Were they also scared to utter the real title — saying “Macbeth” inside a theatre is believed to be bad luck — aloud?

“The goblins don’t know anything about our superstitions,” says Northan, an actor-writer-improv artist who last season performed and directed Murder-on-the-Lake, an immersive murder-mystery, for the Shaw Festival.

Northan, who co-created Goblin:Macbeth with Bruce Horak and Ellis Lalonde, can’t speak for her folkloric co-workers, but says the Halloweenish trio were inspired to mount the show after being impressed by Shakespeare’s firm grasp on the realm of fantasy.

Policy change gives Manitoba renters a break from proposed hikes

Aidan Wilson said he was reduced to tears after getting a call from Premier Wab Kinew’s office.

He’d just learned tenants of a West Broadway apartment, including himself, would no longer pay a hundreds-of-dollars monthly rent increase as of Nov. 1.

“It’s been a lot to deal with, it’s a lot to push for, and it’s a lot to speak up. All of these emotions just kind of came flooding out,” Wilson said Tuesday at a news conference alongside Kinew.

The premier announced that renters will not have to pay the increases until the provincial Residential Tenancies Branch hears landlords’ arguments and issues its decisions.

New blood in St. Vital

Candidates to fill the wide-open St. Vital city council seat are sharing their plans to ease traffic, tighten up development rules, protect trees and improve Winnipeg Transit.

Coun. Brian Mayes led the ward since 2011 but is not running for re-election, guaranteeing a new city councillor will be chosen.

Chris Sigurdson, a Louis Riel School Division trustee and criminal defence lawyer, is competing for the job with Mayes’ endorsement.

Sigurdson said his trustee work over the last 16 years provided a valuable education in local government that he could apply at city hall.

Disgraced ex-dean landed job at German university after fleeing Winnipeg

Before he was arrested in a posh Paris suburb, the disgraced dean of Manitoba’s only law school — who fled the country following a 2020 expense scandal — kept a low profile at a German university.