Nick DiChario will be launching his new novel Valley of Day-Glo, a post-apocalyptic comedy, at our Grant Park location May 17th in a joint launch with fellow science fiction authors Robert J. Sawyer and Hayden Trenholm. DiChario, who previously held a science fiction/fantasy writer's workshop event for us, was kind enough to answer a few of my questions via email.

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Winnipeg writer Martha Brooks has won the Vicky Metcalf Award. The $15,000 national literary award honours Martha's entire body of work. The award was presented on Tuesday night in Toronto.

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The Manitoba Book Awards Committee has announced the shortlists for the 2008 Manitoba Book Awards.

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Jurists for the 23rd John Wesley Dafoe Book Prize have released their shortlist.

• At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916 by Tim Cook
• Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson by Andrea Mandel-Campbell
• Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable Story of the Hudson's Bay Company by James Raffan
• The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood by Robert J. Sharpe and Patricia I. McMahon
• The Life of Yousuf Karsh: Portrait in Light and Shadow by Maria Tippett

The book prize memorializes John Wesley Dafoe one of the most significant Canadian editors of the 20th century. It is one of the richest book awards for good non-fiction about Canada, Canadians and the nation in international affairs. In his tenure at the Manitoba Free Press, later renamed the Winnipeg Free Press, from 1901-1944, Dafoe was known for his advocacy of western development, free trade and national independence. His case for adoption by Britain of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 severed formal ties with Empire and created the dominions which became the nucleus of the Commonwealth.

This year the Prix Aurora Awards, Canada's science fiction and fantasy award will be announced at Keycon 25 in Winnipeg. This year's shortlist features strong contenders from Robert J. Sawyer, whose Rollback was just shortlisted for The Hugo Award, and Nalo Hopkinson's The New Moon's Arms, which was previously shortlisted for The Nebula Award. Will the small press titles be able to upset two of Canada's genre giants?

The selections for best long form work in English follow after the jump.

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By day, paranormal romance author Kate Brallier works as an editor for a major publishing house in New York. With her second novel The Boundless Deep just released, Kate was kind enough to answer some questions for our website prior to her March 22nd reading and signing at our Grant Park location.

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In the Eye of Heaven$9.99 add to cart

I recently had the pleasure of conducting a brief interview with fantasy author David Keck. David will be at our Grant Park location with his wife and fellow author Kate Brallier, March 22nd for a dual launch of In a Time of Treason, and The Boundless Deep.

Previously: The Boundless Deep By Kate Brallier

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In a Time of Treason$28.95 add to cart

With his novels In the Eye of Heaven, and the forthcoming In a Time of Treason, David Keck has delved deeply into myth, folklore and history to create Errest the Old, a world both strikingly familiar, yet tantalizingly strange. I have stated before that In a Time of Treason was one of my most anticipated books of 2008, and it didn't disappoint.

When Keck writes about knights and tournaments you can smell the armour, feel the horses thunder across the lists and you shudder with the impact of lance on shield. The quieter moments of the novel are equally powerful, as Durand Col must choose between staying true to his Lord Lamoric, or his love, Lamoric's young wife Deorwen.

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Fantasy author (and former Winnipegger) David Keck was ambushed by Jeff Vandemeer on the subject of fame and obscurity.

Keck's second novel, In a Time of Treason will be out in February, and he will be returning to McNally Robinson's Grant Park location to launch the book in March. The reading for David's first novel, In the Eye of Heaven was fantastic, so I encourage Winnipeg fantasy fans to make it down for this one too.

Previously:
In a Time of Treason Hits the Pipeline
In the Eye of Heaven: A Review