U of M Press launching trio of new titles

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This article was published 16/10/2021 (1812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In-person events at McNally Robinson Booksellers continue this week with three new releases from the University of Manitoba Press, including a new book of poetry from prolific Winnipeg poet and teacher Dennis Cooley.

On Tuesday, University of Winnipeg professor Chantal Fiola launches her new book Returning to Ceremony: Spirituality in Manitoba Métis Communities. She’ll discuss the book with the U of W’s Laura Forsythe. Fiola’s previous book was Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality.

On Wednesday, Cooley launches Gibbous Moon, which matches his words with images by photographer/composer Michael Matthews. Cooley has written or edited dozens of poetry and essay collections and anthologies, including his recent The Muse Sings, nominated for a 2020 Manitoba Book Award.

On Saturday, Oct. 23, Helen Olson Agger will launch Dadibaajim: Returning Home Through Narrative, in which she documents the history and culture of the Namegosibii Anishinaabeg of the Trout Lake area in Northern Ontario. Agger is the author of Following Nimishoomis: The Trout Lake History of Dedibaayaanimanook Sarah Keesick Olsen.

All launches take place at 7 p.m. in the store’s atrium and require proof of vaccination. They can also be streamed online via McNally Robinson’s YouTube channel.

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With the Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival wrapping up Monday, the event is ending on a celebratory note for Manitoba writers, publishers, designers and illustrators.

Noting that this year’s Manitoba Book Awards were announced online and so missed out on the gala celebrations of the past, the festival is holding an online celebration tomorrow from 7 to 9 p.m. to shine the spotlight this year’s award winners.

Award-winning authors this year were: David A. Robertson, who won the Carol Shields City of Winnipeg Award and the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for non-fiction for Black Water: Family, Legacy and Blood Memory; Lara Rae, who won the Chris Johnson Award for best new play for Dragonfly; Andrew Unger, who won the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for best first book for Once Removed; Duncan Mercredi and Lenard Monkman, who shared the Manitowapow Award for Indigenous writers; Magdalene Redekop, who won the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher for Making Believe: Questions About Mennonites and Art; Jonathan Ball, who won the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction for The Lightning of Possible Storms; Colleen Nelson, who won the McNally Robinson Award for books for young people for Harvey Comes Home; and David Bergen, who won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award for his collection Here the Dark.

As well, the Manuela Dias Awards for Design and Illustration recognized Johnson Witehira and Relish New Brand Experience for designing Becoming Our Future: Global Indigenous Curatorial Practices; Lisa Boivin for illustrating I Will See You Again; and the team of illustrators behind This Place: 150 Years Retold.

To take part in the celebration, see wfp.to/bookawards21.

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The first of this season’s big awards, to be announced Wednesday, Nov. 3, has a short list dominated by writers with connections to western Canada. The winner of the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Atwood-Gibson prize for fiction receives $60,000.

Winnipegger Katherena Vermette is shortlisted for her novel The Strangers, as is former Manitoban Miriam Toews, for her novel Fight Night. Saskatchewan’s Guy Vanderhaeghe is shortlisted for his novel August Into Winter, while Alix Ohlin, head of the University of British Columbia’s creative writing program, is shortlisted for her short-story collection We Want What We Want. Toronto-born New Yorker Rivka Galchen rounds out the list with Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch.

The $60,000 Writers’ Trust Hilary Weston prize for non-fiction will be awarded the same evening, with five shortlisted books all drawing on memoir and personal experience.

Shortlisted books are Nishga, a memoir by Griffin Prize-winning poet Jordan Abel; On Foot to Canterbury: A Son’s Pilgrimage, by Ken Haigh; Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir, by northern Manitoba-born playwright Tomson Highway; Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity, a Memoir, the followup to his 2018 Governor General’s Award-winning memoir Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod; and Disorientation: Being Black in the World, a collection of personal essays by Giller-winning novelist Ian Williams.

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