Author Lindsay Wong brings book club back from break

Author Lindsay Wong brings book club back from break

The Free Press Book Club returns from summer break on Monday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m., with author Lindsay Wong joining the virtual meeting to read from and discuss her memoir The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family.

Published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2018, The Woo-Woo chronicles Wong’s life from youth to young adulthood as a child of Chinese immigrants who believe heavily in the “woo-woo” — ghosts that take over the mind and body during times of turmoil. In actuality, many of Wong’s family members were dealing with severe mental health issues — her grandmother was a paranoid schizophrenic and her mother, aunties and other relatives also struggled heavily with similar symptoms that went mostly untreated as the “woo-woo” was predetermined to be the cause of all problems.

Wong begins to suffer from the “woo-woo” herself, which amplifies when she moves to New York City to pursue a MFA in literary nonfiction, forcing her to return home to Vancouver to seek treatment (for what was ultimately diagnosed as migraine-associated vertigo) before returning to her studies. (Her MFA now completed, Wong recently moved to Winnipeg to teach in the English department at the University of Winnipeg.)

In The Woo-Woo, Wong doesn’t pull any punches; the characterizations of her family, friends and even herself are raw and sometimes cutting, but can also be deeply, darkly funny and vulnerable.

Manitoba Book Awards

releases short list

The Manitoba Book Awards has unveiled the short lists for the literary prizes to be presented this year.

For the 2026 awards, jurors evaluated 42 submissions in both English and French, and will present six prizes in total for best first book as well as best fiction, non-fiction and poetry, plus the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and a prize for French literature.

Making a clear code of conduct for Winnipeg councillors

As Winnipeggers have recently been reminded in the case of Transcona city councillor Russ Wyatt, not all codes of conduct are created equal.

Thespian has lofty goals for province’s theatre scene

Daniela Smith-Fernandez has had an eventful summer.

Her debut play, the verbose sex comedy Jean-François: plus que parfait premièred at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival in July (earning 4/12 stars in the Free Press).

And just a week before, in early July, Smith-Fernandez joined the Manitoba Association of Playwrights as its new company manager.

“I don’t want inclusion to be tokenism anymore. I want people to be including Manitoba plays because they’re amazing, not because they feel like they should support local,” says the 41-year-old trilingual Chilean-Canadian artist. “(At MAP) I feel like I get to be myself in a way that definitely didn’t happen when I was working in insurance.”