Women sweep non-fiction short list

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This article was published 05/10/2019 (2535 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

University of Winnipeg English professor Jenny Heijun Wills is one of five women shortlisted for this year’s Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction.

In addition to Heijun Wills and Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related, her memoir of family and adoption, other writers shortlisted for the $60,000 prize are Alicia Elliot, for her book on colonialism, mental illness and Indigenous life, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground; Anna Mehler Paperny, for her memoir, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person; journalist Tanya Talaga, for her book on Indigenous suicide, All Our Relations; and Ayelet Tsabari, for The Art of Leaving, about her conflicted relationship with her Israeli-Yemeni identity.

Heijun Wills launches her book Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, in conversation with Winnipeg poet Sally Ito.

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The Winnipeg Public Library’s writer in residence for 2019-20, playwright Carolyn Gray, starts her term Tuesday.

Gray, whose writings include the play The Elmwood Visitation, about Winnipeg séances that attracted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Dean Gunnarson: The Making of an Escape Artist, will be available for consultations with writers in the community until spring. A longtime Winnipeg performer and playwright, Gray recently earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Saskatchewan.

To book a consultation, contact Gray at wpl.writerinres@gmail.com.

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Crown prosecutor-turned-author Harold R. Johnson chronicles Canada’s failure to deliver justice to Indigenous communities in his new book Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice.

In his new book Johnson, who was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People and Yours, draws on his own experience as a lawyer and prosecutor. He’ll discuss the new book with author David McLeod on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location.

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Winnipeg novelist Sharon Hamilton and a cast from Shoestring Players perform a scripted version of a chapter from her new novel Manitoba MAID on Thursday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location.

Actors Andrea Marantz, Katherine McLennan, Peter Spencer and Maureen Taggert join Hamilton for the performance, with wine and cookies capping off the book launch/celebration. Hamilton will also make a free copy of the script available to book clubs interested in discussing the novel, which details a woman’s search to find long-lost family and arrange for medical assistance in dying (MAID).

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Maintaining a thriving literary culture in a country with less than half the population of Winnipeg means many people wear two hats or more.

Case in point: Sigrún Pálsdóttir, historian of ideas, ex-editor of a literary journal on Icelandic history, author of biographies and now of a satirical novel, entitled History. A Mess.

Pálsdóttir visits McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location to promote her new novel, the tale of a historian who thinks she’s found archival evidence of the world’s first female professional artist, only to realize she’s made a simple error. She reads from the novel’s English translation on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at an event co-sponsored by the Icelandic consulate, newspaper Lögberg-Heimskringla and the Icelandic Canadian Frón.

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Former Manitoban Dora Dueck returns to her longtime home province Saturday, Oct. 5, to launch her latest novel, All That Belongs.

Dueck, who won the 2010 McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award for her novel This Hidden Thing, writes of personal histories and family ties in her new novel, about an archivist who discovers hidden truths about her own family. She launches the novel at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location.

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