Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom (Tundra Books)

From the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award winning author of Word Nerd.

Violet’s TV-director dad has traded a job in Vancouver for one in Los Angeles, their run-down house for a sleek ranch-style home complete with a pool, and, worst of all, Violet’s mother for a trophy wife, a blonde actress named Jennica. Violet’s younger sister reacts by bed-wetting, and her mother ping-pongs from one loser to another, searching for love. As for Violet, she gets angry in ways that are by turns infuriating, shocking, and hilarious.

When her mother takes up with the unfortunately named Dudley Wiener, Violet and her friend Phoebe decide that they need to take control. If Violet’s mom can’t pick a decent man herself, they will help her snag George Clooney.

MYRCA and Gemini Award-winner Susin Nielsen has written sixteen episodes of the hit television show Degrassi Junior High and four of the books in the Degrassi series. She is the co-creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed television series Robson Arms. She also adapted Susan Juby’s Alice, I Think into a TV series. Susin Nielsen lives in Vancouver with her husband, Goran, son, Oskar, and Sam the cat.

Contributions to Ojibwe Studies: Essays, 1934-1972 (University of Nebraska Press)

From 1930 to 1940, A. Irving Hallowell, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, made repeated summer fieldwork visits to Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, and to the Ojibwe community at Berens River under the guidance of the treaty chief William Berens. Contributions to Ojibwe Studies presents twenty-eight of Hallowell’s writings focusing on the Ojibwe people of the area.

A. Irving Hallowell (1892–1974) was an American anthropologist who taught for most of his life at the University of Pennsylvania. Jennifer S. H. Brown holds a Canada Research Chair and is director of the Centre for Rupert’s Land Studies at the University of Winnipeg. She has published widely on Northern Algonquian and fur trade history, and coedited, with Susan Elaine Gray, Memories, Myths, and Dreams of an Ojibwe Leader by William Berens.

Susan Elaine Gray, an award-winning scholar of Northern Algonquian history and cultures, teaches Aboriginal history and is the research associate to the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Peoples and Histories at the University of Winnipeg. She is the coeditor of The Spirit Lives in the Mind: Omushkego Stories, Lives, and Dreams.

No Safe Place (Groundwood Books)

Every year thousands upon thousands of people leave their homelands to seek better lives in the world’s rich, safe countries. Some of them are economic migrants; many others are fleeing abuse, wars and other dangers. They are rarely welcomed. A substantial number arrive in France and end up looking for a way to get across the English Channel and into a country that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will be more receptive to their arrival. And many of these people are young, alone and desperate. No Safe Place tells the story of four young adults in similar, desperate straits. On this special evening, author Deborah Ellis will speak on the topics raised in her book that are affecting young adults seeking safety around the world today.

Deborah Ellis has won multiple awards and achieved international acclaim with her courageous and dramatic books that give Western readers a glimpse into the plight of children in developing countries. A long-time feminist and anti-war activist, she is best known for The Breadwinner Trilogy, which has been published around the world in seventeen languages, with more than a million dollars in royalties donated to Street Kids International and to Women for Women, an organization that supports health and education projects in Afghanistan.

The Matter with Morris (HarperCollins Canada)

When Morris Schutt, a prominent newspaper columnist, surveys his life over the past year, he sees disaster everywhere. His son has just been killed in Afghanistan, and his newspaper has put him on indefinite leave; his psychiatrist wife, Lucille, seems headed for the door; he is strongly attracted to Ursula, the wife of a dairy farmer from Minnesota; and his daughter appears to be having an affair with one of her professors. What is a thinking man to do but turn to Cicero and Plato and Socrates in search of the truth? Or better still, call one of those discreet “dating services” in search of happiness? But happiness, as Morris discovers, is not that easy to find.

David Bergen won the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel The Time in Between. The work also won the McNally Robinson Award of the Year and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, had its film rights sold to Crescent Entertainment and was published around the world. He is the author of four other novels: The Retreat, winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction; The Case of Lena S., winner of the Carol Shields Award; See the Child, which The Globe and Mail compared to the work of Richard Ford and John Updike; and A Year of Lesser, winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and a New York Times Notable Book. The recent winner of the Writers’ Trust Award for a writer in mid-career, David Bergen lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

When the State Trembled: How A.J. Andrews and the Citizens' Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike (University of Toronto Press)

The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, which involved approximately 30,000 workers, is Canada's best-known strike. When the State Trembled recovers the hitherto untold story of the Citizens' Committee of 1000, formed by Winnipeg's business elite in order to crush the revolt and sustain the status quo.

This account, by the authors of the award-winning Walk Towards the Gallows, reveals that the Citizens drew upon and extended a wide repertoire of anti-labour tactics to undermine working-class unity, battle for the hearts and minds of the middle class, and stigmatize the general strike as a criminal action. Newly discovered correspondence between leading Citizen lawyer A.J. Andrews and Acting Minister of Justice Arthur Meighen illuminates the strategizing and cooperation that took place between the state and the Citizens.While the strike's break was a crushing defeat for the labour movement, the later prosecution of its leaders on charges of sedition reveals abiding fears of radicalism and continuing struggles between capital and labour on the terrain of politics and law.

Reinhold Kramer is a professor in the Department of English at Brandon University. Tom Mitchell is a university archivist at Brandon University and co-author of A Square Deal for All: Historical Essays on Labour in Brandon.

Live Music

Singer/Songwriter

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South Asian Adventures with the Active Poor (Tangent Books)

This is a true collection of stories of a Canadian family’s experiences living and working in the slums of South Asian -- the poorest region on earth. GEM Munro takes readers into the secret heart of of what may be the world’s least-known, least cosmopolitan major city and into the heart of its poorest inhabitants, as relayed by one Canadian family working to establish a unique system of schools in the area.

Munro is also the author of By the Skin of the Teeth.

Live Music

Roots

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The Big Book of UFOs (Dundurn Press)

Chris Rutkowski’s name is synonymous with UFO research the world over, and this book captures his most breath taking research, along with new and exciting accounts, that will have you questioning “are we alone in the universe?”

The Big Book of UFOs is a compendium of his best and most disturbing UFO stories for enthusiastic fans everywhere, with startling evidence to challenge even the biggest skeptics. The renowned ufologist takes us on a tour of UFOs in Canada and around the world. He has studied UFOs, aliens, abductions, and even encounters reported by kids.

The Big Book of UFOs offers many famous reports, such as the “ghost airplanes” seen over the Parliamentary Buildings in 1915, but has many exciting new cases, secret files, and statistics, as well as lots of tidbits and trivia to keep everyone excited.

Chris Rutkowski is a science writer who has devoted much time to investigating and studying reports of UFOs, writing about case investigations, and offering his insights into the broad UFO phenomenon. Two of his previous books published by Dundurn, Abductions and Aliens, and The Canadian UFO Report, were national bestsellers. He lives with his family just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Winnipeg's Great War: A City Comes of Age (University of Manitoba Press)

From the local bestselling author of Winnipeg 1912 comes the next chapter in the city’s history. Winnipeg’s Great War picks up in 1914, just as the city is regrouping after a brief economic downturn. War comes unexpectedly, thoughts of recovery are abandoned, and the city digs in for a hard-fought four years.

Using letters, diaries, and newspaper reports, Jim Blanchard brings us into the homes and public offices of Winnipeg and its citizens to illustrate the profound effect the war had on every aspect of the city, from its politics and economy, to its men on the battlefield and its war-weary families fighting on the homefront. He also reveals how these crucial years set the stage for the 1919 General Strike, and how the First World War transformed Winnipeg into the city it is today.

Jim Blanchard is the author of Winnipeg 1912, which won a Margaret McWilliams History Book Award, and editor of A Thousand Miles of Prairie. He is the Head of Reference Services at the Elizabeth Defoe Library at the University of Manitoba. He lives in Winnipeg.

7 Generations Book 2: Scars (Portage & Main Press)

The year is 1870, and the last great smallpox epidemic is sweeping the prairies. After witnessing the death of his entire family, White Cloud, a young Plains Cree boy, summons the strength to deliver himself from the terrible disease and journey to a new home. Readers also reconnect with Edwin, a lost young man on his own quest who must summon his own courage and travel to confront the main source of his own despair. Scars is Book 2 in the graphic-novel series 7 Generations, which follows the story of one Aboriginal family from the early 19th century to the present day.

This evening will also preview Book 3: Ends/Begins, which features the story of Edwin’s father and his residential school experience.

David Robertson’s realization that education could combat racism and sexism inspired him to write the graphic novel The Life of Helen Betty Osborne, published in 2008. David lives in Winnipeg with his wife and children, and works in the field of Aboriginal employment.

Scott Henderson’s many projects include work as a colourist and illustrator for comics, portraiture, advertising art, and most recently two WWII web comics for the Canadian Air Force’s For Valour series. Scott is also the author and illustrator of the sci-fi/fantasy comic, The Books of Era.

Some of the best travel experiences can be found in escorted small group tours. Join Pat Rochon, National Sales Manager of Trek Holidays for his presentation of the most popular itineraries in China, Africa and India. Please RSVP by calling Lois Edwards, The Travel Bug-TPI, at 488-5099 or e-mail travelbg (at) mts.net.

Life Sucks (White Buffalo Books)

Lindsay McKay is a 14-year old girl on the cusp of womanhood struggling to understand life and her place in it. Her struggle is with identity – what she sees on the outside is not in sync with the spirit within. She journeys with her mother, Emma, through conflict and challenge to truth and love. Together they find answers to their questions through the grace and wisdom of Martha, a powerful Cree Medicine Woman who introduces them to the Seven Sacred Teachings of the Ancient Cree.

Donna Sutherland is best known for her work in historical non-fiction with works such as Peguis: A Noble Friend and Nahoway: A Distant Voice. Using the knowledge and wisdom gained from her many years of research, Donna has written an insightful and heartwarming fictional story about the issue of identity. Life Sucks is intended to show children today how to become balanced by learning about those who came before them.

Out of Grief, Singing (Signature Editions)

Out of Grief, Singing is an achingly beautiful account of how a woman comes to terms with the loss of her newborn. After a bewildering series of rapid diagnoses and emergency interventions, Charlene’s daughter Chloe is born. But her too-brief life is spent in the neonatal intensive care unit, and her mother, leveled by an epidural anaesthetic procedure gone wrong, can barely make it to her daughter’s side. In the months following Chloe’s death, more medical crises further complicate matters, making it nearly impossible to even begin the grieving process, let alone return to any semblance of a normal life. But return she does, and with a poet’s ear for language, Charlene Diehl

Charlene Diehl is a writer, educator, critic, teacher and the director of THIN AIR, Winnipeg’s annual literary splash. She has published essays, poetry, non-fiction, reviews, and interviews in journals across Canada, and has to her credit a scholarly book on Fred Wah as well as a collection of poetry, lamentations, and two chapbooks, mm and The Lover’s Handbook. Excerpts from Out of Grief Singing, which appeared in Prairie Fire, won a western Canadian Magazine Gold Award. She was the featured poet in the fall 2007 issue of CV2. When she’s not chasing literary language (or her two speed pre-teens), she edits dig! Magazine, Winnipeg’s little-jazz-engine-that-could.

Charlene will be joined this evening by musicians Steve Kirby (bass), Will Bonness (electric piano) and Shannon Kristjanson (flute) whose performance will be interwoven with the reading.