Virtual fest for young readers extended

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/04/2021 (1935 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’re looking to share your love of books with your kids, the Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival has you covered for another week.

The festival is extending its Thin Air Kids website until Friday, April 23, featuring readings by writers of early years, middle years and teen/young adult books.

Writers from across Canada, as well as locals Anita Daher, David A. Robertson, GMB Chomichuk, Christopher Ducharme, Michael Hutchinson and Lisa Mendis, read from new work in videos on the website. To watch the videos, visit thinairkids.ca/writers.

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A case of mistaken identity led St. John’s, N.L., writer Eva Crocker to write a novel that won the $12,500 prize for the best book of any genre from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Her debut novel, All I Ask, begins with police at a young woman’s door searching for “illegal digital materials.” Crocker told the CBC recently the inspiration for the novel came when police forced entry into her home and arrested her for child pornography in a case of mistaken identity.

The novel won the BMO Winterset Award.

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Winnipeg pediatrician Tamar Rubin landed on the long list for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Award for her debut poetry collection Tablet Fragments (Signature Editions).

Her poems draw on language with Biblical and medical echoes to explore relationships, identities, family, migration and displacement.

Toronto-born Rubin moved to Winnipeg in 2017 and is a faculty member at the U of M’s Faculty of Medicine and a physician at the Children’s Hospital. Her book, unfortunately, did not make the short list, which was announced April 15.

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Winnipeg poet Louella Lester takes readers into the world of work in her prose collection, Glass Bricks (At Bay Press).

She tells stories of traditional and non-traditional jobs, some humorous and others not, and explores the challenge to find meaningful, full-time employment. Lester is also an amateur photographer known for her images of Winnipeg’s built environment.

She launches the book online April 27. To join in, register at wfp.to/lester.

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Canadian poet Anne Carson added to her long list of prizes — including a MacArthur Genius Grant, England’s T.S. Eliot Prize and Canada’s Griffin Prize — with this year’s PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

The prize, worth US$50,000, is for a body of work. Carson, who trained as a classicist, is known for challenging works that are often inspired by ancient Greek poets and dramatists. Her books include Men in the Off Hours, The Beauty of the Husband and The Autobiography of Red.

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Richard Van Camp won the English-language category of the CODE Burt Awards for Indigenous Young People’s Literature for his short-fiction collection Moccasin Square Garden.

Van Camp’s stories, set in a fictionalized village in the territory of the Dene, in the Northwest Territories, combine pop culture elements such as professional wrestling and extraterrestrials with legends such as the cannibalistic Wheetago.

The award in the Indigenous language category went to the Cree translation, by Solomon Ratt, of Shane Koyczan’s poetry book Inconvenient Skin. Koyczan is a spoken word performer who shot to fame following his performance in the closing ceremony for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Michael Hutchinson’s middle-grade book, The Case of Windy Lake, part of his Mighty Muskrats series, was named an Honour book. Hutchinson, a member of Misipawistik Cree Nation at Grand Rapids on Lake Winnipeg, has written three books featuring a group of mystery-solving cousins known as the Mighty Muskrats.

Each award comes with a $6,000 prize.

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Mike Pence? More like Mike Four Hundred Million Pence.

Donald Trump’s vice president has parlayed his role in the famously dysfunctional administration into a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster, in which the first book has been reported to be worth US$3-$4 million.

The first book, a memoir scheduled for 2023, will have company. Other Trump insiders said to be working on books, according to CNN, include former spokesperson Kellyanne Conway and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

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