Latest news with #GregKearney
Winnipeg Free Press
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg-set novel among Leacock finalists
The finalists for the 2025 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour were announced on May 20, whittled down to a trio of contenders from the 10-book long list in the search for excellence in Canadian literary humour. The three books remaining in the running for the top prize and the $25,000 purse are Greg Kearney's Winnipeg-set novel An Evening with Birdy O'Day, Patricia J. Parsons' We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock and Natalie Sue's I Hope This Finds You Well. The winner will be announced at a gala dinner on June 21 to be held in Orillia, Ont. The winner of the 2024 Leacock Prize was Patrick deWitt for his novel The Librarianist. The Librarianist Buy on ● ● ● The Association for Manitoba Archives has released the list of books nominated for its 2024 Manitoba Day Awards, honouring a book which has utilized archives to help contribute to the understanding of the province's history. The finalists are: Darren Bernhardt for Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravities and other Lesser Known Histories; Patricia Bovey for Western Voices in Canadian Art; John Einarson for Words and Music: The Stories Behind the Books; Gerald Friesen for The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman; Alison Gillmor, Serena Keshavjee and Susan Algie for Henry Kalen: Photographer; Kimberly Moore and Janis Thiessen for mmm…Manitoba, The Stories Behind the Foods We Eat; Kevin Nikkel for Establishing Shots, An Oral History of the Winnipeg Film Group; Michael Parke-Taylor for Bertram Brooker: When We Awake!; David Pentland with H.C Wolfart and Will Oxford for Proto-Algonquian Dictionary: A Historical and Comparative Dictionary of the Algonquian Language; James Urry for On Stony Ground, Russländer Mennonites and the Rebuilding of Community in Grunthal; and Anton Wagner for The Spiritualist Prime Minister: Vol. I Mackenzie King and the New Revelation; and Vol. II Mackenzie King and His Mediums. The winners will be announced on at a ceremony on Monday. ● ● ● Grab the kids and head to McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park location this afternoon for the launch of an outdoorsy-themed picture book. Manitoba author Rayna Meakin will read from and discuss her new picture book A Little Camper Love today at 2 p.m. at the bookseller, in which she has penned and illustrated a love letter to vintage camper vans that highlight themes of individuality and positivity. Meakin will be joined in conversation by early-years education specialist Jennifer Richardson, and the event will feature camper-themed giveaways. Buy on ● ● ● An engineer and the boss' dreamy son end up at a tropical company retreat in Hawaii, and while issues of workplace favouritism and competitiveness bubble under the surface, so too does something a little… steamier. Winnipeg author Nisha J. Tuli launches her latest contemporary romance novel Not Safe For Work on Friday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson's Grant Park location, where she'll be joined in conversation by romance-fantasy author Briar Boleyn (also known as Fenna Edgewood) and local content creator Kaila Anttila. Every Second Friday The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Buy on ● ● ● If the teen reader in your life is looking for something a little on the creepy side, Raven's End Books (1859 Portage Ave.) has just the thing in the form of the store's new teen horror book club. The club's first meeting is on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the store, where the novel Wilder Girls by Rory Power will be discussed. The book's available at the shop; follow @teenhorrorbookclub on Instagram for future picks and events. books@ Ben SigurdsonLiterary 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. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Greg Kearney, Patricia J. Parsons and Natalie Sue finalists for $25K Leacock Medal for Canadian humour writing
Canadian writers Greg Kearney, Patricia J. Parsons and Natalie Sue have made the shortlist for the 2025 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. The $25,000 prize is one of the oldest of its kind, established in 1947 to support the growth of Canadian humour writing. Kearney is on the shortlist for his book An Evening With Birdy O'Day, which follows Roland Keener, an aging hairstylist in Winnipeg who enjoys a quiet, predictable life with his partner of 25 years, Tony. That calm is disrupted when Birdy O'Day —Roland's first love — returns to the city for his debut concert, forcing Roland to confront the complicated past that took them from lovers to strangers. Kearney is a writer who divides his time between Toronto and Winnipeg. His previous works include the short story collections Mommy Daddy Baby and Pretty, which received a ReLit Award, as well as the novel The Desperates, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. His plays have been staged at Theatre Passe Muraille and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Parsons is recognized for her novel We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock. In We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock, Nora Houlihan, a proud Newfoundlander nearing her 100th birthday, insists her far-flung children and grandchildren return home to celebrate. She plans a cross-island tour to reconnect them with the province they left — but unexpected family secrets emerge, changing everyone in surprising ways. Parsons is a Toronto-based writer with a background in health communications and academic textbook writing. Sue is on the shortlist for her book I Hope This Finds You Well, which follows Jolene, an anxious admin for Supershops, Inc., as she navigates a workplace of unsatisfactory colleagues. Jolene copes with the frustrations of her office job through passive aggressive messages in emails that are never meant to be seen. When she is caught and reprimanded, an IT mishap results in her having access to the confidential messages of her superiors. Can Jolene use this to the advantage of her career? Sue is a Calgary-based writer of Iranian and British descent. I Hope This Finds You Well is her debut novel. The winner will be revealed on June 21. The prize is named in honour of Ontario writer Stephen Leacock, a humorist and popular author in the first half of the 20th century. His books include Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, published in 1912, and Literary Lapses, published in 1910. The prize has been funded by the Dunkley Charitable Foundation since the fall of 2020. The organization is based in Orillia, Ont., the town that inspired the fictional community of Mariposa in Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Leacock had a summer estate there. Last year's winner was Patrick deWitt for The Librarianist. Other past winners include Wayne Johnston, Heidi L.M Jacobs, Robertson Davies, Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat, Paul Quarrington, Mordecai Richler, Stuart McLean, Terry Fallis, Susan Juby and Cassie Stocks. The Stephen Leacock Associates also announced the winners of the 2025 Student Humorous Short Story Competition. Nina Yu from Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute won first place for Error 404: The Life of a Search Engine. The runners-up are A Scroll Down Memory Lane by Iris Matthews and The Great Escape by Hamza Siddiqi.
