September 13, 2006 Source: :
http://www.brandonu.ca/news/article.asp?A_ID=1093 Brandon University Department of English teams with Winnipeg International Writers' Festival to bring 'Thin Air' to campus As part of the Winnipeg International Writers' Festival's THE TOUR, Brandon University will host two sets of readings on campus on Thursday September 21st, featuring authors Tomson Highway, Eden Robinson and Richard Wagamese. Eden Robinson and Richard Wagamese will be reading from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Rowe Theatre, located in Room 209 of the Brandon University education building, and the pair will be joined by acclaimed author and BU Stanley Knowles Distinguished Visiting Professor Dr. Tomson Highway for an evening reading at 7:30 p.m. in the Lorne Watson Recital Hall, located in the Queen Elizabeth II Music Building on the Brandon University campus. In the third week of September each year, Winnipeg welcomes writers from Canada and around the world for a week of readings, lectures, interviews, conversations, book launches, and other events. That week of literary feasting—which reaches out into the rural areas of the province as well—is THIN AIR, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. With programming for adults and children, in English and French, THIN AIR is an infusion of energy into the thriving literary culture of this city. Tomson Highway, the proud son of legendary caribou hunter and world championship dogsled racer Joe Highway, was born in a tent pitched in a snow bank in the extreme northwest corner of Manitoba. Among his acclaimed works are a best-selling novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen, and several plays, The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Rose, and most recently, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout. He has three children's books to his credit, all written bilingually in Cree and English, and has toured his cabaret work throughout Europe and North America. He divides his year between a cottage near Sudbury and an apartment in the south of France. Eden Robinson, the daughter of a Haisla father and a Heiltsuk (Bella Bella) mother, burst into visibility as a writer with Traplines, a collection of stories which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won the Winifred Holtby Prize. Monkey Beach, her first novel, met with critical acclaim as well, winning the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, BC Book Prize for Fiction, and making the shortlist for the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize. Her wrenching new novel, Blood Sports is set in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Robinson lives near Kitimat, B.C. Richard Wagamese, an Ojibway from the Wabasseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario who now lives outside Kamloops, B.C., made an audience for himself with his popular and award-winning column in The Calgary Herald. Two novels, Keeper'n Me and A Quality of Light, appeared to critical acclaim in the 1990s, and were followed by a memoir, For Joshua. Wagamese's respect for traditional native culture, his willingness to explore his own difficult life in his writing, and his warmth and humour are unmistakably present in his new novel, Dream Wheels--along with a passion for the rodeo! For more information, or to arrange interviews, please contact: Kelly Stifora
Communications Officer
Brandon University
Phone: (204) 727-9762
Email: communications@brandonu.ca - 30 -
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