Literary fest delivers busy home stretch

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The final days of Thin Air 2024, Winnipeg’s annual writers’ festival, offers plenty of literary treats for book lovers.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/09/2024 (735 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The final days of Thin Air 2024, Winnipeg’s annual writers’ festival, offers plenty of literary treats for book lovers.

Among events taking place today: Ariel Gordon and Kate J. Neville host the “Forest Walk & Talk” at 1:30 p.m., where they’ll lead folks through a walking tour of Assiniboine Forest. The event is free; to tag along meet at the muster point in the parking lot on Grant Avenue at Chalfont Street.

At McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, Thin Air’s Signature Series continues tonight at 7 p.m. with the launch of Rosanna Deerchild’s new poetry collection She Falls Again. Deerchild will be joined in converation by author and educator Tasha Spillett for the free event.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

On Sunday at 1:30 p.m., McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location will host Niizhotay Stories, an annual event commemorating late author and community builder Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine.

This year’s Niizhotay Stories, the final Signature series event of this year’s festival, sees Winnipeg-born, Victoria-based Métis author Andrea Currie celebrating the launch of her book Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves, in which she recalls growing up in a white adopted family after being swept up in the Sixties Scoop. Currie will be joined in conversation at the free event by katherena vermette.

(For more on Currie, see the 49.8 section of the Free Press for an invterview with Ariel Gordon, who will also host a workshop on writing craft at Artspace at 3 p.m. on Sunday as part of Thin Air 2024.)

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

The festival wraps up on Tuesday at the Rachel Browne Theatre (211 Bannatyne Ave.) with an event starting at 7 p.m. dubbed “AfterWords Meets Speaking Crow.” Featured readers for the Speaking Crow portion of the event will be poets Sue Sorensen, Steve Locke and Angeline Schellenberg before a range of locals square off for the festival’s annual Haiku Death Match event.

For a complete lineup of remaining festival events and to get tickets, see thinairfestival.ca.

● ● ●

Montreal’s Heather O’Neill returns to Winnipeg with her new novel The Capital of Dreams, which she’ll launch at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location on Thursday at 7 p.m., where she’ll be joined in conversation by David A. Robertson.

The Capital of Dreams is a dark fairytale-like novel which sees 14-year-old Sofia Bottom fleeing the Capital of the small (fictional) European country of Elysia as the storm clouds of war gather. Tasked with smuggling her mother’s manuscript out of the country in order to hopefully save Elysia from the Enemy, Sofia’s journey is chronicled as both she and the manuscript become lost in the country’s magical and mysterious landscape.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

● ● ●

HighWater Press launches a whopping six graphic novels on Friday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location as part the Prairie Comics Festival.

Among the authors, illustrators and other contributors who will be on hand: David A. Robertson and Scott B. Henderson (God Flare); Albert McLeod, Elaine Mordoch and Alice RL (Between the Pipes); Sonya Ballantyne and Rhael McGregor (Little By Little); Tasha Spillett (We Are the Medicine); Jen Storm and Ryan Howe (Little Moons); and Gitz Crazyboy and Toben Racicot (The Rez Doctor).

On Saturday at 7 p.m., the Prairie Comics Festival returns to McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location for a conversation between Stratford, Ont. writer/artist E.M. Carroll (Through the Woods) and Vancouver’s Faith Erin Hicks (Pumpkinheads). Both Friday and Saturday’s events are free.

● ● ●

The Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize finalists have been named, with five authors in contention for the $60,000 award.

The finalists for the award, named after Margaret Atwood and her late partner Graeme Gibson, are: What I Know About You, by Éric Chacour, (translated by Pablo Strauss); Prairie Edge, by Conor Kerr; Batshit Seven, by Sheung-King; Code Noir, by Canisia Lubrin; and Hi, It’s Me by Fawn Parker.

The winner of the prize, which was juried by a three-person panel including Winnipeg novelist Joan Thomas, will be announced on Nov. 19.

books@freepress.mb.ca

Ben Sigurdson

Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer

Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.

In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

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