P&M Press Author David Alexander Robinson chosen writer in residence for Aqua Books.

Restoring the Balance: First Nations Women, Community and Culture by Gail Guthrie Valaskakis et al. Has been chosen as a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title for 2009. UMP.

February 15 is the ad deadline for the AMBP’s tabloid publication, Prairie books NOW. The spring issue, distributed widely through the Prairies and nationally through the Canada Booksellers’ Association mail-out, is due out March 31. Please contact Carlene Rummery at pbn@mts.net for more information or to book an ad.

2010 Writing Contests - Prairie Fire Press & McNally Robinson Booksellers. Bliss Carman Poetry Award - Judge: Christian Bök, Short Fiction ­ Judge: Joan Thomas, Creative Non-Fiction - Judge: Hal Niedzviecki. $6,000 in prizes. 1st prize in each category $1,250, 2nd prize $500, 3rd prize $250. Deadline: Postmarked November 30, 2010. For full contest rules check out www.prairiefire.ca, or contact: Prairie Fire Press, 423-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg Manitoba R3B 1H3. Phone (204) 943-9066, E-mail: prfire@mts.net.

March 5, 12:00 pm., Millennium Library. Lil Anderson will read from her book Pond Memories: More Tales from a Wildlife Rehabilitator as part of the Winnipeg Public Library’s noon hour lecture series. TUR.

March 12 12:00 pm., Millennium Library. Deborah Schnitzer will read from An Unexpected Break in the Weather, as part of the Winnipeg Public Library’s noon hour lecture series. TUR.

Teaching Art: A Complete Guide for the Classroom by Rhian Brynjolson is an accessible and clearly written guide for integrating visual art into classroom practice. Revised and expanded from the author’s previous bestselling resource, Art & Illustration, Teaching Art incorporates new developments in art education. Throughout the book, you will find suggestions for extending and adapting art exercises to meet the needs of both your students and the curriculum. This new edition includes:
•how to set up an art-friendly classroom
•how to teach drawing skills
•how to integrate art with core curricula
•how to use art and illustration as a companion to writing
•a chapter on art and assessment
•the basic art elements and principles
•colour mixing and colour theory
•strategies to encourage creativity and problem solving
•new chapters on sculpture, photography, video, multimedia, installation, and performance art
•featured artists and art teachers who share their best practices
•updated list of picture books, including several new children’s books and illustrator
…and much more!
Teaching Art is written for classroom teachers, art education specialists, childcare workers, artists working in schools, parents who home-school their children, and school administrators. It can also be used as a university textbook for Education students. The book provides a framework for teaching art in a way that is integrated with regular classroom practice and mindful of current art curriculum outcomes. Although the book focuses on art for primary and middle-school students from pre-school to grade eight, Teaching Art is also useful to art specialists at the high-school level who are looking for new strategies or project ideas to add to their established secondary programs. PMP. ISBN: 978-1-55379-195-9, LEVEL: For grades preK–8.

The Global Fight for Climate Justice: Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction, Ian Angus, editor. As capitalism continues with business as usual, climate change is fast expanding the gap between rich and poor, and between and within nations, as well imposing unparalleled suffering on those least able to protect themselves. In The Global Fight for Climate Justice, anti-capitalist activists from five continents offer radical answers to the most important questions of our time: Why is capitalism destroying the conditions that make life on Earth possible? How can we stop the destruction before it is too late? In essays on topics ranging from the food crisis and carbon trading to perspectives from Indigenous peoples, the authors make a compelling case that saving the world from climate catastrophe will require much more than tinkering with technology or taxes. Only radical social change can prevent irreversible damage to the earth and civilization. FPC. ISBN: 9781552663448, $24.95. Co-published with Resistance Books, London UK.

Winner of the CAA 2009 Lela Common Award for Canadian History which recognizes excellence in the writing of Canadian history: J.M. Bumsted, author of Lord Selkirk: A Life, published by University of Manitoba Press.

Gold medalist in Young Adult Fiction – Mature Issues, in the 2009 Moonbeam Awards: Gail Sidonie Sobat’s, author of Gravity Journal published by Great Plains Teen Fiction.

Nov. 11, 5-7 p.m., Chapters Polo Festival. Allan Levine author of Coming of Age: A History of the Jewish People of Manitoba, live and in person at the “meet your local author” event. HL.

Nov. 12, 7 p.m., Aqua Books, Anthology Series. Featuring Allan Levine, with guests Doug Whiteway and Karen Dudley.

November 12, 8 p.m. McNally Robinson, Grant Park, Prairie Ink Restaurant. Launch of Tales from the Underworld, by Roland Penner and Norm Larson. HL.

November 12, Noon, Millennium Library, Carol Shields auditorium. Slide show and book signing of All Our Changes: Images from the Sixties Generation by Gerry Kopelow. UMP.

Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m., McNally Robinson, Polo, Events Alcove. Author Brock Holowachuk launches Impact: A History of Disasters in Manitoba. GPP.

Nov. 13, 7 p.m. Aqua Books. Presenting, on the 38th anniversary of the death of Helen Betty Osborne, a double launch of two of this year’s most important books: David Robertson’s graphic novel The Life of Helen Betty Osborne, and the brand new memoir, Come Walk With Me, by iconic Métis writer Beatrice Mosionier (In Search of April Raintree). P&M.

Nov. 14, 1 - 4 p.m., Chapters Polo Festival. Mike McIntyre, author of Devil Among Us, live and in person at the “meet your local author” event. GPP.

Nov. 16, 6 – 9 p.m. Chapters Polo Festival. Bill Redekop, author of Crime Stories live and in person at the “meet your local author” event. GPP.

Nov. 16, time TBA, McNally Robinson, Polo Park. Linda Ducharme reads from her new novel, River of Tears. PEM.

Nov. 17-18, CMU. Laudamus Auditorium, North Shaftesbury Campus. Marlene Epp, author of Mennonite Women in Canada will be the guest lecturer at CMU’s John and Margaret Friesen Lecture Series. Free Admission. For more details see www.cmu.ca and click on news and events. UMP.

Nov. 17, 6 – 9 p.m. Chapters Festival. David Robertson author of Helen Betty Osborne at the “meet your local author” event. P&M.

Nov. 22, 1 - 4 p.m., Chapters Festival. Bartley Kives author of Daytrippers Guide to Manitoba at the “meet your local author” event. GPP.

Nov 24, Aqua Books, 7p.m. Deborah Schnitzer, author of An Unexpected Break in the Weather. TUR

Nov. 25, 6 – 9 p.m. Chapters Festival. Christina Penner author of Widows of Hamilton House at the “meet your local author” event. Enfield & Wizenty. GPP.

Nov. 26, 6 – 9 p.m. Chapters Festival. Deborah Schnitzer author of An Unexpected Break in the Weather live and in person at the “meet your local author” event. TUR

Nov. 29, 1 - 4 p.m., Chapters Festival. Meet author Russ Gourluck, author of Picturing Manitoba: Legacies of The Winnipeg Tribune. GPP.

Nov. 29, 2:00 p.m., McNally Robinson, Grant Park,Travel Alcove. Double launch of L’arbre aux coeurs by France Adams — the original French - and The Restless Tree - the English translation. Both books are illustrated by Serge Salvador and The Restless Tree is translated by Mark Stout. PLA.

Nov. 30, 1 - 4 p.m., Chapters Festival. Meet Jack Tinsley, author of Without Fear or Favour: a Free-wheeling Account of Life on the Thin Blue Line. GPP.

Dec. 3, 7 p.m. Aqua Books.
Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry Series featuring
Lori Cayer with Clarise Foster and K.I. Press.

December 9, 8 p.m., McNally Robinson, Grant Park. Launch of Wild West: Nature Living on the Edge, by Heather Beattie and Barbara Huck. HRT.

Courting Johanna by Marcia Johnson. Courting Johanna is set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Huron County, Ontario in the 1950’s. Johanna is a dignified Scottish immigrant housekeeper who works for the well-off Mr. McCauley. She looks after McCauley’s granddaughter, Sabitha, whose mother is dead and whose father, Ken, is a deadbeat looking for work out west. When silly, spoiled Sabitha and her younger, but more mature friend Edith – the sensible daughter of an immigrant shoemaker – discover a personal letter Johanna has written to Ken, they decide to play a trick on her. More out of boredom than cruelty, they begin forging letters from “Ken” to the lonely Johanna, who opens her heart and confesses that before she became his pen pal, she had “only had one friend in my life.” Based on the luminous short story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” from the Alice Munro collection of the same name, Courting Johanna is a window into the human heart – a tale of loneliness, deception, and redemption. JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-46-4, $14.95.

The Morning Bird by Colleen Wagner. Beth and her husband Jake are expecting a baby. While Beth is having an ultrasound, her very expensive hand-sewn Italian-made coat disappears from the hospital waiting room. Beth is furious – the coat which was a honeymoon gift from Jake has become a symbol of the couple’s destiny together and it’s loss now takes on inordinate significance. The next time they see the coat it’s being worn by Doreen, a homeless woman who is mentally unstable. As the characters lives become more closely entwined, the line between reality and fiction blurs. We step into a shadowy world where fantasies erupt: people morph into other selves. They steal babies, prescribe hysterectomies, and kill one another. Each of them will have to confront the shadow side of themselves before being able to the song of the morning bird. JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-41-9, $14.95.