Romantasy tome to kick off fall literary launches

After a quiet summer, book events are heating up again in earnest as fall creeps ever closer.

First up is bestselling local fantasy author Nisha J. Tuli, who launches Storm Caller on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location. The book is the follow-up to Tuli’s Storm Breaker in the romantasy series of the same name, described as “Divergent meets The Cruel Prince.”

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

Tuli will be joined in conversation by Vancouver Island author Demi Winters (The Ashen series).

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Winnipeg children’s author Carol Matas has landed on the five-book short list for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People at the 2026 Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) awards.

Matas’ book A Storm Unleashed, published in September 2025 by Scholastic Canada, details the life of a half-Jewish girl in Berlin during Hitler’s ascent.

Buy on mcnallyrobinson.com

The $3,000 prize is one of six that will be awarded by the CCBC at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Oct. 26. For a complete list of awards and finalists, see wfp.to/ccbcawards.

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The finalists for the 2026 Kirkus Prize have been revealed, with six shortlisted titles in contention in each of the fiction, non-fiction and young readers’ literature categories.

Among the fiction finalists are Tayari Jones for Kin, Julie Orringer for Luna, Phoenix, Queen, Douglas Stuart for John of John and Colson Whitehead for Cool Machine.

Non-fiction finalists include Pamela Colloff for Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast (see the review on page G4 of the books section), Patrick Radden Keefe for London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth, Gisèle Pelicot with Judith Perrignon for A Hymn to Life: Shame Has To Change Sides (translated by Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver) and Michael Pollan for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness.

The winners will be announced on Oct. 7; each will receive US$50,000.

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Speaking Crow, Winnipeg’s long-running open-mic poetry series, returns on Tuesday to the St. Boniface Library (131 Provencher Blvd.) for an in-person event which will feature a Free Press scribe as the featured reader.

Anucyia Victor Kitching (also known as Free Press arts and life writer AV Kitching) will headline the free event, which gets underway at 6:30 p.m. Sign-up for folks who want to read gets started at 6:10 p.m.

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Fans of local comics might find themselves, ahem, drawn to the Manitoba Museum (190 Rupert Ave.) next weekend, as the Prairie Comics Festival returns.

The two-day festival takes place Saturday, Sept. 5 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 6 from noon to 5 p.m. and will feature artist booths, panel discussions and more.

The event is free to attend; check out participants and panel topics at prairiecomics.com or, for exhibitor spotlights, check out the fest’s social media (@prairiecomicsfestival on Instagram).

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The long list for the 2026 Giller Prize won’t be revealed until Sept. 8, but organizers behind the annual Canadian fiction award recently revealed the jury — which, for the first time, was comprised entirely of independent Canadian booksellers.

The nine-person jury includes McNally Robinson Booksellers co-owner Chris Hall along with his peers from across the country. Jurors read nearly 150 books for this year’s $100,000 prize. The short list will be unveiled on Oct. 5, and the winner revealed on Nov. 16.

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The Manitoba Writers’ Guild (MWG) is hosting a workshop for those aspiring writers curious about going the route of self-publishing.

The workshop will be presented by Winnipeg author Den Valdron, author of numerous self-published books, and will take place Saturday, Sept. 5 from 2-4:30 p.m. in the Artspace boardroom (100 Arthur St.). Registration is $20 for MWG members and $30 for non-members — those interested can sign up at wfp.to/iRg.

books@winnipegfreepress.com