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This article was published 15/05/2025 (310 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An evening with Carley Fortune

• WAG-Qaumajuq, 300 Memorial Blvd.
• Tuesday, 7 p.m.
• Tickets $33 available online

Summer brings the need for lake reads, and Toronto bestselling author Carley Fortune’s got just the thing in the form of her newest novel One Golden Summer.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

Fortune is the author of breakout beach-read hits such as This Summer Will Be Different, Meet Me at the Lake and Every Summer After, which have sold more than two million copies and been translated into 30 languages.

In One Golden Summer, Alice is a photographer who recalls the summer she spent with her grandmother at a cottage as a teenager, and where she snapped the photo of a yellow speedboat that sent her down the path of her chosen profession.

When Alice’s grandmother breaks her hip, the pair decide to revisit Barry’s Bay and recreate that magical summer. And when Alice sees and hears that yellow speedboat once again, she’s brought face to face with its driver, Charlie, all grown up — and quite the handsome flirt.

Fortune will be in Winnipeg at the Muriel Richardson Auditorium at WAG-Qaumajuq on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in an event presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers; she’ll be joined in conversation by her BFF Meredith Marino.

Admission includes a copy of One Golden Summer.

— Ben Sigurdson

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dr.rift album release

• The Handsome Daughter, 61 Sherbrook St.
• Friday, 7 p.m.
• Tickets: $20 available online

Psych-rocker Kyle Halldorson (Dizzy Mystics, the Gerry Hatricks) is launching his first album as dr.rift, a sprawling collection that emerged from a flurry of grief and a series of sea changes.

“COVID lockdowns. A long-term relationship amicably ending. Uprooting from what home was and drifting in the unknown while I tried to seek who I truly was. The death of my father,” explains Halldorson, whose dad, Owen, was a skilled lead guitarist on the Prairie circuit. (Readers might also be familiar with his grandfather, Ron, a leading figure in Manitoba jazz and country music since the 1960s.)

All those emotions coincided in songs that feel like “expressions of strength and healing,” says Halldorson, who hired Drag City recording artist Cory Hanson of the band Wand to mix the record.

“I feel full of life and wonder when I think of these songs, regardless of some of the dark or heartbreaking inspirations,” says Halldorson, who was announced Tuesday as a performer for this summer’s Rainbow Trout Music Festival (Aug. 15-17).

Taking sonic and spiritual inspiration from Todd Rundgren and the Beach Boys, dr.rift will be joined on the bill by Goblin Pit Fighter — a five-piece specializing in “goblin punk,” a genre Halldorson pins as a mix of punk, post-punk, new wave and alt-metal — and Luana Moth, a brother-sister combo who recently impressed at Real Love Winnipeg’s David Lynch tribute shows.

— Ben Waldman

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Keycon 41 Convention

• Hilton Winnipeg Airport Suites, 1800 Wellington Ave.
• Friday to Sunday, various times
• Admission $25-$40 daily; weekend pass $75

Manitoba’s longest-running mixed-media convention featuring authors, musicians, personalities and creators from across the science fiction and fantasy genres returns this weekend.

The event, which kicks off on Friday evening, features appearances from Jim Butcher, author of Dresden Files, the Codex Alera and steampunk series the Cinder Spires; Jeremy Pillipow, the mastermind behind YouTube channel Black Magic Craft; and Jennifer Blackstream, author of urban fantasy and paranormal romance series the Blood Prince, the Blood Realm and the Blood Trail.

Also appearing are Winnipeg’s Evan Quiring of Psyclone Comics and physicist Wolfgang Klassen, who creates and performs filk music, a genre connected to science fiction, fantasy and horror fandom.

Activities on offer include a costume/cosplay contest, an art show and auction, tabletop gaming, panels, larping and a masquerade. There is also a marketplace showcasing a variety of vendors selling everything from out-of-print books and graphic novels to jewelry, handcrafted headpieces and themed crafts.

— AV Kitching

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Attack of the Bloodsuckers!

• Children’s Museum, 45 Forks Market Rd
• Saturday to Sept. 1
• Admission $13.75

Mosquitoes, leeches and ticks, oh my…

Dive into the creepy-crawly world of nature’s parasites in this hands-on exhibition that shares the science of “what’s biting” and these creatures’ surprising ecological importance.

Highlights include exhibits with titles such as Mosquito Cockpit and Tool Time, where children can see things through mosquitos’ (compound) eyes and fly a mile in their tarsi.

There are also escape-proof tanks filled with a variety of live bloodsuckers to inspect from a safe remove, and watch out for the inflatable tick!

Opening day activities includes a live leech feeding at 11 a.m.

— Conrad Sweatman

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Manitoba Museum oddities on display

• Manitoba Museum, 190 Rupert Ave.
• Until May 2026
• Tickets $18-$24 available online

A giant 11-pound puffball mushroom, a gaudy chair made from bison horns and an ancient wine pitcher — these are just a few of the weird, wondrous objects held in the Manitoba Museum vault and currently on display in the temporary exhibition, Museum Collection Illuminated.

“This exhibition explores how and why we have museum collections, what we do with them and how we preserve them,” Amelia Fay, the museum’s curator of anthropology, said in a media release.

Located in the museum’s Discovery Room, the exhibition includes artifacts and multimedia installations highlighting behind-the-scenes conservation, research and preservation work undertaken throughout the institution’s 55-year history.

The Rupert Avenue entrance of the Manitoba Museum is under construction, so access to the building is via Main Street near the Centennial Concert Hall.

— Eva Wasney