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Winnipeg Free Press
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fantasy-adjacent historical fiction finds fans worldwide
It's difficult to neatly categorize Guy Gavriel Kay's published work of the last 35 years — and that's just the way he likes it. The Saskatchewan-born, Winnipeg-raised Kay, now 70, was studying at the University of Manitoba when he was enlisted by J.R.R. Tolkien's son Christopher to help edit his late father's unpublished work, The Silmarillion, in Oxford, England. After returning to Canada and completing his law degree in Toronto, Kay set about writing fantasy of his own, beginning with the three books in The Fionavar Tapestry. But since his breakout 1990 novel Tigana, set in a world similar to Renaissance Italy, Kay's writing has moved away from deep fantasy, treading a fine line between fantasy and historical fiction, inspired by real-life events in history but with a certain mystical element underlying his novels. 'I write about the past — I do that quarter-turn to the fantastic, but essentially, I'm writing about moments in history that seem to me powerful and resonant for today,' says Kay, who will launch his latest novel, Written on the Dark, at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park, where he will be joined in conversation by Bruce Symaka. Written on the Dark follows the exploits of Thierry Villar, a tavern poet in the town of Orane (a stand-in for Paris) in medieval France, who becomes embroiled in the machinations of local politics, war and an investigation into the murder of one of the local dukes, the king's brother. Kay took inspiration from real-life poet François Villon and the assassination of the Duc d'Orleans in Paris during the Hundred Years' War. Avoiding straight historical fiction has allowed Kay to explore themes that continue to resonate today without being hemmed in by the hard facts of what happened at the time. 'History rhymes for me, and it underlies my entire literary method, which is that I'm not trying to pretend I know the thoughts and feelings of real people — I'm fine with other people doing that,' he says. 'I'm happier with that quarter-turn so that my protagonists and the secondary characters are clearly identified as inspired by real people, but not equivalent to them.' Kay's body of work continues to be widely read; his books have translated into dozens of languages, with the bulk of his novels still in print. Tigana and his 1995 novel The Lions of Al-Rassan, set in a world similar to medieval Spain, have both enjoyed a particular uptick in popularity in recent years thanks to BookTok, the TikTok sub-community that posts reviews and thoughts about books, and where fantasy novels remain incredibly popular. 'I've been given a gift by readers around the world. I don't sell on the order of people who've had movies and television series made of their books, because I don't write those kinds of books, but by great good fortune, I sell well, and I sell around the world, and the books stay in print around the world,' Kay says. Among Kay's recent global accomplishments are the recent release of Tigana in Taiwan, for which he wrote a new introduction, and some of his books having been published in Ukrainian in the last 18 months, with two more in the works. He admits to being moved by the fact that not only is the war-torn country still publishing and reading books, but that his are among them. 'In a war zone, in a country afflicted the way it is, especially as I get older, that sort of thing really gets to me,' he says. Every Second Friday The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Kay recognizes one of the keys to success is recognizing who can help you get your art into the world, acknowledging that doing book tours and interviews in advance of a new work's release is all part of the business of writing. 'All artists need a patron — whether it was the Borgias or Medicis or the pope in the Renaissance, or the Chinese emperor in the Tang Dynasty, or McNally Robinson stocking you at the front of the store, or the Canada Council supporting you if you're a poet, he says. 'Artists have always needed to find a way to appeal to those who can let them make a living, let them make their art.' @bensigurdson 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.
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.
Winnipeg Free Press
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Death in the diplomatic service
Eliza Reid has been a force in the Icelandic literary community for over a decade. In 2014 she co-founded the Iceland Writers Retreat, just two years before becoming first lady of the country after her husband, Gudni Johannesson, was elected president, a position he held until 2024. And while the Ottawa-born Reid (whose mother and maternal grandparents have Winnipeg roots) has written extensively for a range of Icelandic publications, it wasn't until 2020 that she penned a book of her own, Secrets of the Sprakkar, which detailed the achievements and contributions of women in her Nordic country. Now Reid, 48, has returned with her first work of fiction, Death on the Island, published April 29 by Simon & Schuster in Canada. Reid will be in Winnipeg at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park location on Sunday at 2 p.m., where she'll be joined in conversation by Shelagh Rogers. (She'll also be at Gimli's Unitarian Church at 3:30 p.m. today.) Saga Sig photo Eliza Reid's first mystery novel, Death on the Island, is set on Iceland's Westman Islands. The premise of Death on the Island: At a dinner party, guests (including diplomats, business leaders, a novelist from Gimli and others) mingle before the restaurant serves up its signature cocktail, the Flaming Viking, as a welcome. Within moments, the Canadian deputy ambassador is dead, seemingly poisoned. But which of the guests gathered at Skel, the high-end restaurant located on Iceland's Westman Islands, could have done it, and why? That's what Jane Shearer, the head ambassador's wife, wants to find out. Reid started work on Death on the Island right after finishing Secrets of the Sprakkar. 'I was in the writing mindset; I had enjoyed that process,' she says by Zoom from her home outside Reykjavik prior to her Canadian visit. 'And I thought, you know, if I ever want to write another book, maybe I should start right now — otherwise I'll tell myself that I'm too busy to actually do anything.' She's already at work on a sequel to Death on the Island, and on May 1 it was announced her debut work of fiction had been picked up to be made into a TV series in a joint Iceland-Canada production, for which Reid will serve as executive producer. Rather than join the long and rich literary tradition of bestselling Nordic noir thrillers, Reid fancied a less grisly and dark murder mystery, inspired more by the likes of Agatha Christie. 'I don't know that I would define it as necessarily a cosy mystery … I've always loved the British-style, closed-room murder-mystery,' she says. 'You're not going to discover five pages before the end that the murderer is someone you've never met. I want to give the reader a fighting chance to be able to figure out what happened.' Setting the novel on one of the Westman Islands allowed weather to trap the cast of characters on the island when the ferry shuts down and flights are grounded — and the suspense ratchets up. It also gave Reid a chance to highlight the remote, relatively unknown locale. Death on the Island Every Second Friday The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. 'It's an area of the country that visitors know a bit less about, but like many regions of the country, it has this long rich history,' she says, noting a 1973 volcanic eruption that decimated many homes on the island also proved an 'interesting metaphorical backdrop.' Reid's own experiences and interactions with ambassadors and diplomats served as an inspiration in writing Death on the Island — particularly the misconceptions around what they do. 'It's a bit of an homage to the diplomatic service. When I was serving as first lady, I saw the work they did first-hand and I think that it's often unappreciated. 'I think that there's a sense that it's very glamorous, people drinking champagne all the time,' she says, adding with a laugh 'the book's not an international thriller where they're going around the world to bring about world peace, but I'm hoping it's a little sexier than 'I lost my passport somewhere.'' 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.
Winnipeg Free Press
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Stanzas for SPRING
This year's National Poetry Month marks the 10th anniversary of Writes of Spring, an annual gathering of poems edited by Ariel Gordon and, this year, Charlene Diehl, director of Plume Winnipeg. Of the 500-plus poems submitted, Gordon and Diehl selected 13 from established and emerging Winnipeg poets, including Rosanna Deerchild, the only returning writer of the group, Marjorie Poor, Spenser Smith and others, which can be found in the 49.8 section of today's Free Press. (Pages F2 through F4 in the print edition.) A reading to launch and celebrate these poems will take place at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park location at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Re:Wild Her ● ● ● Rewilding, an intervention into the natural world to restore ecosystems, is the structuring conceit in Shannon Webb-Campbell's latest collection, Re:Wild Her (Book*Hug, 112 pages, $23). These poems follow the speaker from Iceland to France to California through art, tarot and deep time, gathering tenderness and claiming pleasure and expansiveness. The collection is propelled by a subtle, incantatory rhythm that evokes the ebb and flow of the tide: 'Water rushes over cracked earth/ you retrace tides through clay/ grounding mud with reversing rhythms/ (… .)// what flows in/ must flow out.' In How Do I Reach for the Wild/ (Three Graces), Webb-Campbell uses the life cycle of a girl, woman, crone to trace a process of reclaiming a self that's been worn away. The poem moves from a position of alienation from the world and the self — 'how do I reach for the wild?/ circle the womb/ how can I grasp the wind?/ motherlines ring a cosmic spin' — toward reconnection: 'become a fish-woman/ emerge from the water's offering/ after a trinity of swims all in one day/ baptism by sea.' Buy on Myth ● ● ● Terese Mason Pierre's much-anticipated debut, Myth (House of Anansi, 120 pages, $23), is a startling, transformative collection. Using a series of speculative logics and images, Pierre transcends the boundaries between earth, ocean and cosmos and past and future. In Momentum, the speaker considers the conditions of belongingness: 'My family takes a second helping of love —/ my father, from the church parking lot.' From this opening, Pierre weaves images that create friction between the speaker's family and true belonging before she invokes a myth to change the story: 'I draft// a new mythology, of sand and shells/ and touching every other creature// that has breathed an air of full faith/ beyond a warped chain —// a taught beld, the scuttling of crabs/ underfoot, the rising tithes.' Here, Pierre's intricate use of line and language shine. She ties this new mythology of water and interconnection to the opening image of the church parking lot with 'the rising tithes,' which at the same time calls back the strictures of religious rules — and, with its phrasing and near-rhyme, evokes the ocean. These poems enact a myriad of small and monumental shifts away from disconnection and injustice into a web of belonging and justice. In Aliens Visit the Islands, Pierre envisions a possible future that centres and celebrates Black people, as well as an ideal model of cultural exchange: 'they give us teleportation (the key is to ignore/ philosophy when you push the button) and we/ give them white sand, yellow roti, a container/ of sorrel.' While the background of this poem is the meeting of two cultures, the poem ends with a several-lines-long meditation on grief and longing, which is rooted in the Aliens' physical difficulty inhabiting the world: 'When they leave, they promise/ to tell their people Earth was warm, was Black,/ and cradles its pain in the sea.' Unmet Buy on ● ● ● In Unmet (Biblioasis, 124 pages, $22), stephanie roberts uses surrealism and ekphrastic poems to explore the way one's imagination shapes one's experience of the world. The poems in this collection demonstrate a vivid use of image and a versatile use of line and technique. In the first of four poems titled Unmet, roberts conjures Marilyn Monroe as a child, who 'during services (…) sat/ on her hands, bit her lip, & for a minute,/ forced a smaller self against the world.' Here, the past and the spiritual world are made concrete with a visceral bodily sensation, of an addressee for whom 'silence stiffens your neck,' of a girl whose adult self will become iconic forcing 'a smaller self against the world.' In Einige Kreise (Several Circles), an ekphrastic poem responding to Wassily Kandinsky's painting of the same title, roberts explores the relation between viewing a painting and painting it. The poem opens and closes with the same image pattern. In the opening, the speaker imagines cold, and in the closing stanza, after the speaker has moved backward and forward in time, 'the imagination's ouroboros' returns to cold and 'Love waits at the end of line;/ mind seizes line, draws it/ end to end, kisses it to canvas.' Elegy for Opportunity Buy on ● ● ● Natalie Lim's debut, Elegy for Opportunity (Wolsak & Wynn, 96 pages, $20), opens with an argument against writing to feed the voyeuristic hunger for trauma: 'what if I'm done with diasporic trauma. done imagining what people want to read,' she writes. What follows is a dynamic collection, lively and moving with curiosity. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. In On Biology, the speaker considers the way the pandemic altered their relation to the world and their bodily experience. Notably, the speaker does not look away from the ways in which they are made helpless in the face of overwhelming conditions: 'gotten bored/ and felt guilty about it, because what a privilege it is/ to be bored instead of desperate or sick. I try to do/ the small things I can, for myself and the world —/ go on walks, sign petitions, take baths, donate./ all of it feels like failure.' The collection is anchored by five elegies for the NASA Opportunity Rover. In the last of these, which closes the collection, 'things are bad right now./ really bad.// the world feels unrepairable.' Here, the short, end-stopped lines weigh the poem down — for good reason, because, as in On Biology, the problems Lim faces aren't solvable with individual action, whatever good intentions fuel them: 'unchecked greed and exploitation./ heat domes and cold snaps./ bombs, disease, starvation, genocide —/ 40,000 dead in Gaza.// 40,000.' The strength of these poems lies in their clear-sightedness and their bravery. Time and again, Lim faces devastation in the same way she continues to address the dead rover, the same way she continues to imagine a future, persistently, curiously, lovingly: 'I would love that kid so much,/ like no one has ever loved a kid before,' she says of the question of motherhood, 'and it wouldn't be enough/ but I would try, I would try so hard.' Buy on Poetry columnist melanie brannagan frederiksen is a Winnipeg writer and critic.
Winnipeg Free Press
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
On the night table: Nita Prose
Nita Prose Author, The Maid's Secret I very recently finished Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall, and it's an extraordinary novel. For anyone who liked (Delia Owens') Where the Crawdad Sings, this is that sort of next, rich tapestry of a read. It's really brilliant — I don't want to say too much about it, but I do think what it does so expertly is navigate love and grief at the same time. And it does so in a way that's incredibly insightful and poignant. Dahlia Katz photo Nita Prose During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Buy on Nita Prose will be at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park location on Wednesday at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss her new novel The Maid's Secret.
