Vermette lands on non-fiction editing short list

Winnipeg-based novelist, poet and editor katherena vermette has made the three-person short list for a new $25,000 prize given awarded to the editor of a work of non-fiction.

The inaugural Nancy Flight Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Editing finalists are vermette for Louis Busch’s Carry Your Heart: Indigenous Helping Wisdom & the Science of Psychological Flexibility, George Galt for ​My Year in Fairyland: Grief, MAID and a Lifetime of Books, written by ​Sarah Ellis​, and Rachel Rose for ​Humanitarienne: A Doctor’s Stories from the Conflict Zone, written​ by ​Kirsten Johnson​.

In addition to her writerly output, vermette has served as a senior editor at Simon & Schuster Canada since 2024. The winner of the Nancy Flight Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Editing prize will be announced at the Writers’ Trust Awards on Nov. 10.

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Canadian poet Anne Carson has another impressive prize for her proverbial trophy case — the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The author of more than 20 books — primarily poetry but also essays, translations of Greek texts and more — Carson is best-known for 1998’s Autobiography of Red, a novel in verse.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Carson has twice won the Griffin Prize for Poetry, received a Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur “genius grant” and has been awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award.

Nobel organizers apparently reached Carson by phone in Iceland to give her the news, where she said she was “listening to the wind.”

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A new slate of readers descend on Sookram’s Brewing Co. (479-B Warsaw Ave.) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. as the Wild and Wonderful Words reading series returns.

This month’s free, all-ages event, hosted once again by Sheldon Birnie, will feature readings by authors Frances Boyle, Ahniko Handford, Louella Lester and Kelly Nickie.

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Over at Sidestage (700 Osborne St.), the next DreamPlay concert will feature a pair of authors performing with quartet Midbrain Surfers for an event dubbed Resonance.

Margaret Sweatman and Murray Toews will join Midbrain Surfers, offering new poetry and prose, alongside Sweatman’s partner Glenn Buhr and others.

Tickets are pay-what-you-wish, with $20-30 being the suggested contribution. For tickets and more infor see dreamplay.ca/node/411/.

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It’s a big week for book launches at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, with local heroes and award winners of all sorts stopping by to discuss their latest work.

On Wednesday at 7 p.m., St. Lucia-born, Whitby-based Canisia Lubrin visits the store to launch her new poetry collection Bright Machine, where she’ll be joined in conversation by award-winning Winnipeg poet Chimwemwe Undi.

Lubrin’s 2021 poetry collection The Dyzgraphxst won the $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize; her fiction debut, 2024’s Code Noir, won the US$150,000 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.

For an interview with Canisia Lubrin, see this weekend’s 49.8 section.

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Thursday sees hometown hero Clara Hughes launch her new memoir Learning to Breathe at 7 p.m., when she’ll be joined in conversation by serial book-launch host (and former host of CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter) Shelagh Rogers.

Hughes’ second memoir sees the Olympic medalist (in both the summer and winter games) detail her use of psychedelic-assisted therapy to deal with physical and emotional ailments.

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On Friday at 7 p.m., author, screenwriter and University of Manitoba distinguished professor George Toles launches another collection of his micro-fictions, All the People in My Head, where he’ll be joined in conversation by longtime collaborator and Manitoba director Guy Maddin.

Like his first collection, Status Update, Toles’s new work compiles his short, fictional Facebook posts; his latest is illustrated by Robert Fleming, while Status Update was illustrated by the late Cliff Eyland.

books@winnipegfreepress.com