Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/03/2016 (2621 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Would you like a dactyl with your delicates, some pentameter with your permapress, a few spondees during the spin cycle?

Klean-All Laundry and Dry Kleaning in Gimli will host its first poet-in-residence from March 30 to May 18 in a joint project with the Lake Winnipeg Writers’ Group and the Envoi Literary Foundation. Victor Enns (The Afghanistan Confessions) will talk poetry and dispense writing advice on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. while he does his laundry (or at other times by appointment).

“Poetry is for people, everyday people, and I hope to dispel the notion that it’s difficult to read or understand,” said Enns. “Klean-All seems the perfect place to have those discussions with anyone willing to give a poet the time of day.”

The venture is one of many projects intended to take poetry out of library and into the community during April, National Poetry Month. This year’s poetry month theme is The Road, and Enns will read works that illustrate the theme April 20 at a poetry slam at Gimli’s Ship and Plough pub.

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Novelist Dave Williamson returns to romance and social satire in his new novel Visiting Fellow, which he launches Thursday at McNally Robinson Booksellers at 7 p.m.

Williamson, the author of five previous novels and founder of Red River College’s Creative Communications program, tells the story of a recently divorced history professor who struggles to come to terms with contemporary romantic rules and his ex-wife before taking his new significant other on a sabbatical to Tasmania.

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One of Canada’s most popular mystery writers will discuss her university professor sleuth, Joanne Kilbourn, April 7 with Winnipeg poet and mystery writer Catherine Hunter.

The Regina-based Gail Bowen, whose mysteries have also been turned into a highly rated series of made-for-TV movies, is launching the 15th novel in the series, What’s Left Behind, at the event at McNally Robinson. The conversation starts at 7 p.m.

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Despite making a failed casino mogul-turned-reality television star into a leading candidate for its highest office, the U.S. outperforms its northern neighbour in a recently published comparative study of literacy.

The study World Literacy: How Countries Rank and Why it Matters measures literacy by examining both the ability to read and the practice of reading. Undertaken by researchers at Central Connecticut State University, the study combines data on educational resources and test scores with measures of reading, including newspaper circulation, access to libraries and computer ownership.

Though Canada ranks six points ahead of the U.S. on test scores, when all factors are combined the U.S. ranks seventh in the world and Canada 11th. The top five spots are a Nordic sweep (Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Sweden).

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John Ibbitson’s eponymous biography of Stephen Harper is the only subtitle-free book in the running for this year’s Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

Other titles on the short list for the prize, to be announced April 20, are Andrew Nikiforuk’s Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry; Sheila Watt-Cloutier’s The Right to be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet; Greg Donaghy’s Grit: The Life and Politics of Paul Martin Sr.; and Norman Hillmer’s O.D. Skelton: A Portrait of Canadian Ambition.

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