PAPER CHASE: Winnipeg writer’s novella wins big

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2015 (4013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg writer J. H. (Holli) Moncrieff hopes to give readers an extra creepy Halloween.

Her novella The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave is one of four in an anthology released by Samhain Publishing entitled Childhood Fears. Hers is the story of a 10-year-old boy struggling with his father’s death; it was first published as an ebook and is now available as a trade paperback after Moncrieff won a competition held by the U.S.-based publisher.

Moncrieff, who blogs about the supernatural and unsolved mysteries, is a freelance and travel writer. She has a spooky trailer for the book on her website, jhmoncrieff.com.

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An all-male short list for a British award for innovative and original writing is raising eyebrows in the U.K.

Irish female writer Eimear McBride, who won the inaugural Goldsmith Prize last year and sat on this year’s judging jury, wrote in The Guardian that she was surprised by the low number of entries by women in the competition and hopes this year’s all-male list will prove to be “a blip.”

Writing in The Bookseller, books editor Cathy Rentzenbrink noted the week before the Goldsmith’s short list was announced, a long list for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction featured more people named Robert (two) than there were women (one).

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Canada’s first poet laureate, the Governor-General’s Award-winning George Bowering, is the featured guest at a symposium at the U of M’s Elizabeth Dafoe Library Thursday.

Bowering joins the U of M’s Warren Cariou, Dennis Cooley, Shelley Sweeney and Barbara Romanik, as well as Vancouver writer Jean Baird, in a session examining how poets’ private papers in library archives can illuminate their writing. The free event runs from 2 to 5 p.m. in the library’s third-floor special collections area.

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The Literary Press Group is celebrating 40 years in business and an awards season that saw LPG members Coach House and Biblioasis pick up three of five spots on the Giller Prize shortlist. The Winnipeg celebration includes readings by authors Rick Chafe, Rosanna Deerchild, Stella Leventoyannis Harvey and Josip Novakovich at McNally Robinson Friday at 7 p.m.

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Winnipeg poet Maurice Mierau delves into pop culture, delusions and anxiety and burrows into the minds of famous figures in his new collection, Autobiographical Fictions (see review on page D22).

Mierau, whose last book was Detachment: An Adoption Memoir, speaks through the voices of Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Alan Turing, Sitting Bull and poets Ovid and John Berryman in the new book, which launches at McNally Robinson Thursday, 7 p.m.

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Horror haikus and three-minute ghost stories are on the agenda for Manitoba’s most literary Halloween party Friday at the King’s Head Pub starting at 7 p.m.

The Manitoba Writers’ Guild is also planning a competition for literary-themed costumes and dancing to a Beatles cover band. Tickets ($10) are available from the Guild at events.mbwriter.mb.ca.

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Canadian Elan Mastai, a screenwriter best known for the Daniel Radcliffe rom-com The F Word (released timidly in the U.S. as What If?), has earned a US$1.25 million offer for the North American rights to his debut novel All Our Wrong Todays.

Mastai’s novel, to be published by Dutton, is the story of a time traveller from a utopian future stuck in 2015.

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