Non-fiction prize finalists include Toews, El Akkad

The three-person jury for the 2025 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for nonfiction has chosen the five finalists for the award, to be presented at a ceremony on Nov. 13.

And the nominees are: Miriam Toews for A Truce That Is Not Peace; Omar El Akkad for One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This; Tessa McWatt for The Snag: A Mother, A Forest, and Wild Grief; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson for Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead; and Vinh Nguyen for The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse.

The jury was comprised of Winnipeg author and Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair alongside Winnipeg-born, Nova Scotia-based poet Lori Nielsen Glenn (The Old Moon in Her Arms, Following the River) and Toronto’s Matthew R. Morris (Black Boys Like Me).

The winner takes home $75,000, while each of the finalists receives $5,000.

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If inspired readings in a cosy setting over a cold local brew (or some other beverage) sounds like your kind of fun, keep Wednesday evening clear, as the Wild & Wonderful Words reading series returns to Sookram’s Brewing Co. (479-B Warsaw Ave.) starting at 7 p.m.

The event is the brainchild of local author (and Free Press reviewer) Sheldon Birnie, who will again play host for the fifth instalment of the series. Featured readers this time around are John Scoles, Brett Leanne and two more Free Press reviewers — Craig Terlson (see his review in this week’s books section of Days of Feasting and Rejoicing by David Bergen) and monthly poetry columnist melanie brannagan frederiksen.

The event is free and open to all ages.

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A conversation and book launch exploring notions of decolonization, Orange Shirt Day and reconciliation kicks off another busy week of book launches at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location.

Métis author Kristy McLeod, who has family roots in the Lac St. Anne and Red River settlements, and Phyllis Webstad, who is Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation in B.C., have co-authored Decolonization and Me: Conversations about healing a Nation and Ourselves in response to the increase of residential school denialism.

The conversations in the pair’s book look to engage readers on a range of Indigenous-related topics, with a focus on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day, the latter of which emerged from Webstad’s children’s book The Orange Shirt Story.

McLeod and Webstad will launch the book at 7 p.m. tonight in a conversation and book launch hosted by University of Manitoba history and Indigenous studies prof Sean Carleton.

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Locked out of her rural Minnesota home on a frigid December night, 18-year-old Ash Hayes knows she needs to find shelter. She staggers to the nearest house, owned by neighbours she’s not met, and when she wakes up, seemingly injured, the world as she knows it has changed — maybe forever.

Ash realizes she must leave the house and try to regain some sense of normalcy in her life. But the doctor who lives there insists she stay in the house with no mirrors, blocked windows and no modern technology. As Ash comes to learn his unsettling plans for her, she is forced to try and escape — and try to put the world back in the order in which she once knew it.

St. Andrews author Lauren Carter launches her latest novel, The Longest Night, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ location, where she’ll be joined in conversation by fellow author Seyward Goodhand.

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Winnipeg author Catherine Hunter’s launch of the short-story collection Seeing You Home , originally slated to take place Sept. 10, was postponed due to illness, and will instead take place this coming Thursday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location — and still with fellow author Margaret Sweatman in conversation with Hunter.

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books@freepress.mb.ca