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Myrl Coulter & Norma Dunning -- Dual Book Launch

Thursday Oct 05 2017 7:30 pm, Winnipeg, Grant Park in the Travel Alcove
NOTE: This event has already taken place. Please visit this page to see our upcoming events.

Winnipeg launch of Myrl Coulter’s The Left Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories and Norma Dunning’s Annie Muktuk and Other Stories (University of Alberta Press).

In The Left-Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories, everyone is missing something or someone; every family is riven by secrets and absences. From “The Remedy,” a tale of revenge and justice, to “The Smart Sisters,” a story of tricky family dynamics, Coulter’s narratives portray relationships, loss, and what we learn in the aftermath of death. Ghosts, echoes, memories, regrets...Coulter’s characters are haunted in many ways. With style and sweep that hints at Lynn Coady and Alice Munro, Coulter is a strong, fresh voice in contemporary Canadian fiction.

Myrl Coulter is the author of two award-winning books: A Year of Days (UAP) and The House With the Broken Two (Anvil Press). She lives in Edmonton.

“I woke up with Moses Henry’s boot holding open my jaw and my right eye was looking into his gun barrel. I know one thing about Moses Henry; he means business when he means business.”

Norma Dunning’s short stories are raucous and funny and resonate with raw honesty. Each eye-opening narrative twist in Annie Muktuk and Other Stories challenges readers’ perceptions of who Inuit people are.

Norma Dunning is an Inuit writer, scholar, researcher, and grandmother who grew up experiencing a silenced form of Aboriginality in the southern areas of Canada. When she began to write about her own ancestors, her Inukness became evident. Her creative work keeps her most grounded in the traditional Inuit ways of knowing and being. She lives in Edmonton.

See:

The Left-Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories

- Myrl Coulter

Trade paperback $21.99
Reader Reward Price: $19.79

Secrets aren't good for families. -- from "Big Luck Island"

In The Left-Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories--a collection of new, delightful, distinctive short stories--everyone is missing something or someone; every family is riven by secrets and absences. From "The Remedy," a tale of revenge and justice, to "The Smart Sisters," a story of tricky family dynamics, Coulter's narratives portray relationships, loss, and what we learn in the aftermath of death. Ghosts, echoes, memories, regrets...Coulter's characters are haunted in many ways. With style and sweep that hints at Lynn Coady and Alice Munro, Myrl Coulter is a strong, fresh voice in contemporary Canadian fiction.

Annie Muktuk and Other Stories

- Norma Dunning

Trade paperback $22.99
Reader Reward Price: $20.69

I woke up with Moses Henry's boot holding open my jaw and my right eye was looking into his gun barrel. I heard the slow words, "Take. It. Back." I know one thing about Moses Henry; he means business when he means business. I took it back and for the last eight months I have not uttered Annie Mukluk's name.

In strolls Annie Mukluk in all her mukiness glory. Tonight she has gone traditional. Her long black hair is wrapped in intu'dlit braids. Only my mom still does that. She's got mukluks, real mukluks on and she's wearing the old-style caribou parka. It must be something her grandma gave her. No one makes that anymore. She's got the faint black eyeliner showing off those brown eyes and to top off her face she's put pretend face tattooing on. We all know it'll wash out tomorrow.

-- from "Annie Muktuk"


When Sedna feels the urge, she reaches out from the Land of the Dead to where Kakoot waits in hospital to depart from the Land of the Living. What ensues is a struggle for life and death and identity. In "Kakoot" and throughout this audacious collection of short stories, Norma Dunning makes the interplay between contemporary realities and experiences and Inuit cosmology seem deceptively easy. The stories are raucous and funny and resonate with raw honesty. Each eye-opening narrative twist in Annie Muktuk and Other Stories challenges readers' perceptions of who Inuit people are.