News

  • Posted on
    April 18th 2011
    at 9:24am

    Emma LaRocque wins 2011 Non-Fiction Award

    Emma LaRocque took home the 2011 Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction for her book, When the Other Is Me: Native Resistance Discourse, 1850-1990, at the 23rd annual Manitoba Book Awards Gala last night. Full coverage of the event is available here.

  • Posted on
    March 15th 2011
    at 11:09am

    Winnipeg’s Great War leads Manitoba Book Awards short list

    Manitoba’s best books up for 12 prizes at annual awards

    A history of Winnipeg’s contribution to the First World War has garnered the most nominations in this year’s Manitoba Book Awards.

    Winnipeg’s Great War: A City Comes of Age by University of Manitoba librarian Jim Blanchard has received nods for the Alexander Isbister non-fiction prize, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and the Mary Scorer Award for best book by a Manitoba publisher, the U of M Press.

    Meanwhile, three novels, a memoir and a poetry collection, all by women, are in the running for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year.

    Twelves prizes, worth about $30,000 in total, will be handed out at the Manitoba Book Awards April 17 at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain.

    The nominations were released Monday by the event’s co-producers, the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers.

    The novels A Cycle of the Moon by Uma Parameswaran, Curiosity by Joan Thomas and This Hidden Thing by Dora Dueck are up against the memoir Out of Grief Singing by Charlene Diehl, and the poetry collection Walking to Mojacar by Di Brandt, published by Turnstone Press.

    David Bergen’s Giller Prize-nominated novel The Matter With Morris has been nominated for the Carol Shields award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.

    The Thomas and Dueck novels also received nods for the Laurence prize, worth $3,500, as did Autumn, One Spring by Patti Grayson and Baldur’s Song by David Arnason.

    Crime novelist Michael Van Rooy, who died in January, is nominated in the Carol Shields category for his final book, A Criminal to Remember.

    Read the full Winnipeg Free Press story here.

  • Posted on
    January 21st 2011
    at 10:35am

    Interview with Curtis Brown

    Former Sun journalist edits book focusing on Manitoba politics
    By Keith Borkowsky, The Brandon Sun

    Former Brandon Sun reporter and editor Curtis Brown will return to the Wheat City on Thursday to promote a book he co-edited with University of Manitoba academic Paul Thomas.

    Manitoba Politics and Government: Issues, Institutions and Traditions is the first book of its kind since 1963 and offers a modern look at Manitoba’s unique political scene.

    “Other provinces have had a lot written about them,” Brown said. “In the Atlantic provinces, there are people that specialize in that and have come out with quite a bit about the political culture and the political processes of those places, but not as much Manitoba. Especially since so much has changed politically and socially in this province since the early ’60s, it was really important to do something like this.”

    Brown will join Brandon University political science professor Kelly Saunders, one of the book’s contributors, at the event at the Brandon Public Library at 7 p.m. There, Brown and Saunders will discuss the many aspects to Manitoba’s politics and Westman’s place within the structure.

    “One of the things we talk about a lot is … this is a province that’s typically defined by the centre and that it’s a bridge between east and west,” Brown said.

    “You have a political culture that’s very different from Alberta or Ontario and Quebec. That seems to be a recurring theme when you look at this history of the province. There’s this quiet confidence and calm that seems to prevail.”

    Brown, who worked on the 2 1/2-year project as a masters student at the University of Manitoba, said the book was born during discussions at a conference talking about Manitoba issues. It is also part of a resurgence of interest in how Manitoba’s leaders took power and how they governed.

    “There have been periods where there have been pretty big tremors,” Brown said.

    “You look at the Winnipeg General Strike, you look at when Manitoba entered Confederation with (Louis) Riel and other times like the French language debate in the 1980s. There have been periods of crisis and division. But most of the time, there’s a calm that prevails.”

    He compared that to living near a fault line, where two tectonic plates can co-exist for years. However, that doesn’t prevent conflict when the plates start to shift.

    “Then you have the Meech Lake constitutional accord, where Manitoba was the place where Meech died and that chapter followed a decade of tumultuousness.”

    Brown, now a research associate with Winnipeg-based Probe Research, said the book also discusses a 1970s period when Manitoba’s politics polarized left wing from right wing, squeezing out the centrist Liberals.

    “Meech seemed to be a culmination from that,” Brown said.

    “But then we live through a period of relative calm, where for the last 20 years, whether it’s been Progressive Conservatives or NDP in office, there’s been an attempt by both parties to reach for the middle and try to govern by a wide, moderate consensus. That appears to be the secret to success when it comes to navigating these different visions in the province.”

    While Brown co-edited the book the introductory chapter, the bulk of the text was written by experts in Manitoba politics such as academics Jim Silver, Gerald Friesen, Manitoba’s Clerk of the Executive Council Paul Vogt, former deputy premier and NDP MLA Jean Friesen and Winnipeg Free Press columnist Frances Russell.

    Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition January 19, 2011 A2

  • Posted on
    December 10th 2010
    at 1:47pm

    Panel to study improving education for First Nations

    Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan announced Thursday he will appoint a panel of education experts to meet over the next several months and report back to him with recommendations. The panel, which has not yet been appointed, will deliver a report with various options by the middle of 2011, Duncan said, and the options can even include possible legislation. Read the Winnipeg Fress Press article here. For further reading, consult Blair Stonechild’s The New Buffalo: The Struggle for Aboriginal Education in Canada.

  • Posted on
    December 6th 2010
    at 4:09pm

    U of M Press launches new web site

    Welcome to the new University of Manitoba Press web site! We hope you’ll stay a while and check out all the new features:

    • search-inside-the-book features on all of our titles so you can read a chapter, flip through the index, or scan the table of contents
    • easy sign-up features for exam copies and e-catalogues
    • on-line ordering through your favourite booksellers
    • an author blog with weekly posts from our authors giving us their views on new research and current events
    • and convenient sharing features through Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds.
  • Posted on
    November 29th 2010
    at 12:43pm

    Episkenew wins First Peoples’ Writing Award

    Jo-Ann Episkenew took home her second win on November 27th when she was awarded the First Peoples’ Writing Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards for her book Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing.

    The Saskatchewan Book Awards were established in 1993 by the joint efforts of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, Saskatchewan Publishers Group and Saskatchewan Library Association. Fourteen awards were presented during the gala celebration of excellence in writing and publishing in the Saskatchewan literary community.

    Last year, Jo-Ann won the Sakatchewan Book Awards’ Scholarly Writing Award.

  • Posted on
    August 4th 2010
    at 4:02pm

    Manitoba Apologizes to Sayisi Dene

    A recent press release from the Manitoba Government reveals more about the relocation of the Sayisi Dene. Read it here. And, check out the book page for Night Spirits: The Story of the Relocation of the Sayisi Dene.

  • Posted on
    January 4th 2010
    at 2:20pm

    Restoring the Balance selected as Outstanding Academic Title

    Restoring the Balance: First Nations Women, Community, and Culture has been selected as a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title of 2009. Congratulations to the editors: Gail, Madeleine, and Eric.