Kawacatoose First Nation Elders Launching Our History: Ana Kawâhkatos kâ-kî-manitowakihtêyik onôtinikâkan (In Person + Streaming)

Wednesday Feb 01 2023 7:00 pm - Travel Alcove & YouTube, Saskatoon

Join us for the launch of Our History: Ana Kawâhkatos kâ-kî-manitowakihtêyik onôtinikâkan/Spiritual Spear of Chief Kawacatoose (Sweet Grass Records Inc.) with contributors Chief Lee-Anne Kehler, Elder Dexter Asapace, and Elder Austin Kay of Kawacatoose First Nation.

The event will be hosted live in the Travel Alcove, and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream. The video will remain available for viewing thereafter. Before arriving, please review details of how to attend physical events here at the store.

About Our History:

Kawacatoose has a rich history to share. This collection of stories, of documents, of images and teachings are a small example of what is within this Nation’s vault of knowledge. Once you read this work and feel the beat of the Nation’s heart we hope you will be interested to know more, to visit and to learn with us about our ways, our people, our teaching and our laws.

More people have touched this work than most books in history. It is literally decades in the making, and the commitment of many people who wanted to retain, revive and to share the stories within. It is a work of love and passion for the story of Kawacatoose and the people.

Kawacatoose First Nation is situated in southeast Saskatchewan near the communities of Raymore, Quinton and Punnichy. The Reserve is 8,248 hectares with a population of 2,210 people with over 1,000 members within the Reserve. Kawacatoose First Nation, also known as Poor Man or Lean Man, signed Treaty 4 on September 3, 1874. Prior to this settlement, Kawacatoose’s people were known as part of the Touchwood Hills People or posâkanacîwiyiniwak. Posâkanacîwiyiniwak consisted of four Bands: kawacatoose (Poor Man or Lean Man); wâcîkowinînâhk (Day Star, kīsikwachk): kisipatinahk iyinînâhk (George Gordon or living at the edge of the hill); and maskawikwan (Hard or Strong Quill).Today they are known as Kawacatoose First nation, George Gordon First Nation, Muskowekwan First Nation and Day Star First Nation that are part of the Touchwood Agency Tribal Chiefs and include the Fishing Lake First Nation.

Jessie Pyne Launching The Shattered Cage (In Person + Streaming)

Friday Feb 03 2023 7:00 pm - Travel Alcove & YouTube, Saskatoon

Join Jessie Pyne for the Saskatoon launch of her novel The Shattered Cage (BWL Publishing Inc.).

The event will be hosted live in the Travel Alcove, and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream. The video will remain available for viewing thereafter.  Before arriving, please review details of how to attend physical events here at the store.

About The Shattered Cage:

After leaving her best friend behind in Dreamwing, Randi is losing hope of ever returning there. She’s no hero, and everything she does ends in disaster. Trapped on Earth, with Excalibur rusting under her bed, Randi is forced to face the terrible reality of a world where she never truly fit—without magic and, worst of all, without Tessa.

Fortunately, not all damsels need to be rescued.

Jessie Pyne lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and works as an Early Childhood Educator. She has been writing since the age of fourteen and has always found inspiration in the mystical and unexplained. She lives with her cat Simon and her collection of over one hundred dragon stuffies and statues.

K.A. Reynolds Winnipeg Hybrid Book Launch

Thursday Feb 23 2023 7:00 pm - Grant Park in the Atrium, Streaming via YouTube, Winnipeg

Join author K.A. Reynolds as she returns to Winnipeg to launch Izzy at the End of the World (HarperCollins Canada). This event will feature a reading, a conversation hosted by Nicky Mehta, and a book signing.

The launch will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream featuring live chat. Before arriving, please review details of how to attend physical events here at the store.

The Last Kids on Earth meets Margaret Peterson Haddix in this middle grade adventure about fourteen-year-old Izzy, an autistic girl surviving the end of the world who must team up with her loveable dog to uncover the hidden truth behind her family and the rest of humanity’s disappearance.

K. A. Reynolds is a head-in-the-clouds widow and neurodivergent author from Winnipeg, currently residing in the hills of Vermont. When not lazing about with her goofball dogs or wandering the sun-dappled wood, she enjoys writing books for kids and adults by candle and moonlight, laughing hard and loud, and reading dark and colorful tales expertly crafted by other imagination astronauts in love with words.

Host Nicky Mehta is a singer-songwriter, writer, speaker, and mental health advocate. Her work with the JUNO award-winning folk/roots trio, The Wailin’ Jennys has taken her all over the globe and her advocacy within the group has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Canadian Mental Health Association. She is thrilled to be a part of the launch of her oldest friend, KA Reynold’s new book and excited that this work will resonate particularly with kids dealing with mental health issues, neurodiversity, and grief.

Lindsay Wong Hybrid Book Launch

Thursday Mar 02 2023 7:00 pm - Grant Park in the Atrium, Streaming via YouTube, Winnipeg

Join Lindsay Wong for the launch of her new book Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality: Stories (Penguin Canada) featuring a reading, a conversation hosted by Jenny Heijun Wills, a Q&A, and a book signing.

The event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream with live chat. Before arriving, please review details of how to attend physical events here at the store.

From the bestselling, Canada Reads-shortlisted author of The Woo-Woo comes a wild, darkly hilarious, and poignant collection of immigrant horror stories.

They’ll haunt and consume you—in strange and unsettling ways. Living forever isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Hearts can still break, looks can still fade, and money still matters, even in eternity. The ghosts, zombies, and demons in this collection are all shockingly human, and they’re ready to spill their guts. Vanity, love, and tragedy are all candidly explored as the unfulfilled desires of the dead are echoed in the lives of modern-day immigrants. Story-by-story, the line between ghost and human, life and death, becomes increasingly blurred.

Lindsay Wong is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Wong holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Winnipeg.

Host Jenny Heijun Wills has lived, studied, and worked in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and Seoul. She currently teaches at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba.