THE LINE UP FOR THE 2010 POETRY BASH AT THE THIN AIR FESTIVAL IS ANNOUNCED
THIN AIR proudly announces that this year’s POETRY BASH will take place on the MAINSTAGE at 8:00 pm on Friday, September 24 at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre, The Forks, Winnipeg. Poets invent new paths through our language—and new languages for our paths… this year we welcome ARIEL GORDON, NORA GOULD, IGNATIUS T. MABASA, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, GEORGE MURRAY and SINA QUEYRAS to the stage.
Biographies
ARIEL GORDON
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The Navel Gaze and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999, and this spring, Palimpsest Press published her first full length poetry collection, Hump. Gordon coordinates literary events at Aqua Books and for several years has been the driving force behind THIN AIR’s Hot Air blog. She is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. When not being bookish, she chases her young daughter or tromps through the woods photographing mushrooms.
Also at the Afternoon Book Chat (Sept 24).
NORA GOULD
Nora Gould has studied at Sage Hill, St Peter’s, Banff Wired Writing and Piper’s Frith in Newfoundland, and her poetry has appeared in echolocation, The Society, cv2, and The Prairie Journal. She is the 2010 recipient of the Bliss Carman Poetry Award, one of the prizes supported by the annual Prairie Fire Press-McNally Robinson Booksellers Writing Contests. Her winning poem, “Some nights he breathed up all the air,” appears in the summer issue of Prairie Fire, and she will be presented with a replica of Bliss Carman’s ring at the Poetry Bash! Gould writes from a ranch near Consort, Alberta, and volunteers in wildlife rehabilitation with Medicine River.
Also at the Nooner (Sept 24).
IGNATIUS T MABASA
Ignatius T Mabasa is an acclaimed writer and storyteller from Zimbabwe. He has published stories and poems for children and adults in both English and his native language, Shona. His most recent book, The Man, Shaggy Leopard and Jackal and other stories (Lion Press), was nominated for Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Award as the best book in the children’s literature category. Mabasa has performed his stories and poems in many countries, and will spend the fall term in Winnipeg as storyteller-in-residence at the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture.
Also at the School Program.
KEVIN MCPHERSON ECKHOFF
kevin mcpherson eckhoff ’s visual poetry has appeared in the anthology Boredom Fighters (Tightrope Books) and in such magazines as dandelion and filling Station. A winner of the Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award, he studied English literature at the University of Calgary. Rhapsodomancy, his first full-length poetry collection, was recently published by Coach House. It dives into two notation systems, Shorthand and Unifon, in order to explore the crossed lines between visual language and voice. eckhoff recently traded his life for a house in Armstrong, British Columbia, and a job teaching literature at Okanagan College.
Also at the Afternoon Book Chat (Sept 24).
GEORGE MURRAY
George Murray has published poems and fiction in journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, Australia, and Europe. His work has been recognized with the PIP Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative Poetry, and has been shortlisted for other awards, including the EJ Pratt Poetry Prize, the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the CAA Poetry Prize. His five books of poetry include The Hunter, The Rush to Here, and a new collection, Glimpse: Selected Aphorisms (ECW). He frequently reviews books for The Globe and Mail, and is the editor of the popular literary website bookninja.com. Murray lives in St John’s, Newfoundland.
Also at the Campus Program (Sept 23 and 24).
SINA QUEYRAS
Sina Queyras is a writer and editor whose work tests genre boundaries. She is the editor of Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets, and recently published a collection of essays, Unleashed, about writing, virtual community, and women artists. Her poetry volumes include Slip, Teethmarks, Lemon Hound, which won both the Lambda and the Pat Lowther Awards for poetry, and Expressway (Coach House), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. She has lived across Canada, in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Currently she lives in Montreal where she teaches and keeps a blog, lemonhound.com.
Also at the Campus Program (Sept 24).
About the Mainstage
Each evening at the CanWest Global Performing Arts Center at The Forks the THIN AIR Festival puts on a showcase of great new writing. McNally Robinson Booksellers has an on-stage bookstore featuring THIN AIR writers, and we offer bar service too. Tickets are $12 ($10 for students/seniors), available at the door. A THIN AIR Festival Pass is a bargain: you get access to all ticketed events for only $35. Knock off another $5 if you have a THIN AIR Club Card. Passes are available at McNally Robinson or at www.thinairwinnipeg.ca.