August 31, 2010

THIN AIR Director Charlene Diehl News

Check out the latest Winnipeg Public Library newsletter with THIN AIR Winnipeg International Writers Festival Director Charlene Diehl on the cover at http://wpl.winnipeg.ca/library/. Or pick one up at your local library!

August 31, 2010

DAVID CARPENTER at BIG IDEAS

DAVID CARPENTER will be talking about Using Nature as part of this year's Big Ideas afternoon lecture series.

Wednesday, September 22, 4:30 - 5:30 pm

Carol Shields Auditorium, Millennium Library, 251 Donald Street, Winnipeg

Admission: Free

As a young man, David Carpenter was an avid hunter; over the years, he has become an equally avid conservationist. In A Hunter’s Confession, he explores the many faces of hunting—sport, subsistence, cultural beliefs—and looks at the complex feelings that are connected with being alert and armed (or unarmed) in the wild zone.

August 30, 2010

THE PLAY’S THE THING AT THE 2010 THIN AIR FESTIVAL

THIN AIR proudly announces THE PLAY’S THE THING this year! Come enjoy some of the country’s sharpest playwrights at the MAINSTAGE at 8:00 pm on Thursday, September 23 at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre, The Forks, Winnipeg.

THIN AIR welcomes NATE CRAWFORD, DONNA CREIGHTON, CAROLYN GRAY, GREG MACARTHUR and JENNY MUNDAY to the stage for an event complimenting the Manitoba Association of Playwrights and the Playwright Development Centre of Canada’s annual conferences.

About the Mainstage

Each evening at the CanWest Global Performing Arts Center at The Forks the THIN AIR Festival puts on a showcase of great writing. McNally Robinson Booksellers has an on-stage bookstore featuring THIN AIR writers, and we offer bar service too. Tickets are $12 ($10 for students/seniors), available at the door. A THIN AIR Festival Pass is a bargain: you get access to all ticketed events for only $35. Knock off another $5 if you have a THIN AIR Club Card. Passes are available at McNally Robinson or right here!

August 24, 2010

THE LINE UP FOR THE 2010 POETRY BASH AT THE THIN AIR FESTIVAL IS ANNOUNCED

Biographies

ARIEL GORDON

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The Navel Gaze and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999, and this spring, Palimpsest Press published her first full length poetry collection, Hump. Gordon coordinates literary events at Aqua Books and for several years has been the driving force behind THIN AIR’s Hot Air blog. She is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. When not being bookish, she chases her young daughter or tromps through the woods photographing mushrooms.

Also at the Afternoon Book Chat (Sept 24).

NORA GOULD

Nora Gould has studied at Sage Hill, St Peter’s, Banff Wired Writing and Piper’s Frith in Newfoundland, and her poetry has appeared in echolocation, The Society, cv2, and The Prairie Journal. She is the 2010 recipient of the Bliss Carman Poetry Award, one of the prizes supported by the annual Prairie Fire Press-McNally Robinson Booksellers Writing Contests. Her winning poem, “Some nights he breathed up all the air,” appears in the summer issue of Prairie Fire, and she will be presented with a replica of Bliss Carman’s ring at the Poetry Bash! Gould writes from a ranch near Consort, Alberta, and volunteers in wildlife rehabilitation with Medicine River.

Also at the Nooner (Sept 24).

IGNATIUS T MABASA

Ignatius T Mabasa is an acclaimed writer and storyteller from Zimbabwe. He has published stories and poems for children and adults in both English and his native language, Shona. His most recent book, The Man, Shaggy Leopard and Jackal and other stories (Lion Press), was nominated for Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Award as the best book in the children’s literature category. Mabasa has performed his stories and poems in many countries, and will spend the fall term in Winnipeg as storyteller-in-residence at the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture.

Also at the School Program.

KEVIN MCPHERSON ECKHOFF

kevin mcpherson eckhoff ’s visual poetry has appeared in the anthology Boredom Fighters (Tightrope Books) and in such magazines as dandelion and filling Station. A winner of the Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award, he studied English literature at the University of Calgary. Rhapsodomancy, his first full-length poetry collection, was recently published by Coach House. It dives into two notation systems, Shorthand and Unifon, in order to explore the crossed lines between visual language and voice. eckhoff recently traded his life for a house in Armstrong, British Columbia, and a job teaching literature at Okanagan College.

Also at the Afternoon Book Chat (Sept 24).

GEORGE MURRAY

George Murray has published poems and fiction in journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, Australia, and Europe. His work has been recognized with the PIP Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative Poetry, and has been shortlisted for other awards, including the EJ Pratt Poetry Prize, the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the CAA Poetry Prize. His five books of poetry include The Hunter, The Rush to Here, and a new collection, Glimpse: Selected Aphorisms (ECW). He frequently reviews books for The Globe and Mail, and is the editor of the popular literary website bookninja.com. Murray lives in St John’s, Newfoundland.

Also at the Campus Program (Sept 23 and 24).

SINA QUEYRAS

Sina Queyras is a writer and editor whose work tests genre boundaries. She is the editor of Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets, and recently published a collection of essays, Unleashed, about writing, virtual community, and women artists. Her poetry volumes include Slip, Teethmarks, Lemon Hound, which won both the Lambda and the Pat Lowther Awards for poetry, and Expressway (Coach House), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. She has lived across Canada, in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Currently she lives in Montreal where she teaches and keeps a blog, lemonhound.com.

Also at the Campus Program (Sept 24).

About the Mainstage

Each evening at the CanWest Global Performing Arts Center at The Forks the THIN AIR Festival puts on a showcase of great new writing. McNally Robinson Booksellers has an on-stage bookstore featuring THIN AIR writers, and we offer bar service too. Tickets are $12 ($10 for students/seniors), available at the door. A THIN AIR Festival Pass is a bargain: you get access to all ticketed events for only $35. Knock off another $5 if you have a THIN AIR Club Card. Passes are available at McNally Robinson or at www.thinairwinnipeg.ca.

August 24, 2010

Review of David Arnason's Baldur's Song!

Check out the nice review of David Arnason's Baldur's Song in this weekend's Winnipeg Free Press.

David will be at the Festival (September 19-26) where he will be taking part in the Opening Night at Oodena (September 19 at the Forks behind the Johnston Terminal). Admission is free to this event that begins at 7:00 pm and features new works by Ismaila Alfa, Simone Chaput, Theodore Fontaine and Jan Horner!

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/books/a-bit-of-everything-in-tasty-local-stew-101214914.html

August 24, 2010

Review of A.J. Somerset's Combat Camera

There's a nice review of A.J. Somerset's Combat Camera in the latest Quill and Quire! You can read it at:
http://quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=6914

A.J. will be at the festival this year - September 19-26 - so watch for the upcoming programs. He will be on the Mainstage at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People at the CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre at the Forks in Winnipeg on Tuesday, September 21 (titled The Matter With Men with David Bergen, David Carpenter, Ken Finkleman and Lawrence Scanlan).

A.J. will also be doing a Campus Reading at the University of Winnipeg on September 21 in room 3M67 from 4:00 to 5:15.