Thin AIR 2024
September 20 – October 1
THIN AIR / Livres en fête is an annual fall celebration of books and writing. Discover some of the most exciting new books, both English and French, from writers across Canada and beyond. Our line-up is eclectic! Event highlights include Niizhotay Stories, Afternoon Book Chats, the Haiku Death Match, La Plume et le pinceau, our evening MainStages, and more. Spend some time with fascinating people, and find your new favourite book!
Our Featured Writers
Are you into novels? Short stories? Poetry? Non-fiction? Graphic novels? Picture books? We’ve got a stellar line-up of writers from all over Canada (plus a few from the US) who are eager to share their new work with you.
Angeline Schellenberg
Angeline Schellenberg is the author of Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016), linked poems about raising autistic children; it won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry and Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, and was a finalist for the Relit Award. Fields of Light and Stone (University of Alberta Press, 2020), elegies for her Mennonite grandparents, was shortlisted for the 2022 KOBZAR Book Award. Recipient of the 2017 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba writer, Angeline has published chapbooks with The Alfred Gustav, Kalamalka, Dancing Girl, and Jack Pine Presses. Her fiction was recently selected for Exposition Review’s Flash 405 contest and …
Niigaan Sinclair
Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe from Peguis First Nation and a professor at the University of Manitoba, where he holds the Faculty of Arts Professorship in Indigenous Knowledge and Aesthetics in the Department of Indigenous Studies. He is the award-winning author of the national bestseller Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre (McClelland & Stewart, 2024) and was co-editor of Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water (Highwater Press), – the book voted by Manitobans in the “On the Same Page” competition as the top book to read in 2012. Niigaan is a multiple nominee of Canadian columnist of the year (winning in 2018) and is a featured …
Beydi Traore
Beydi Traore est né au Mali le 5 septembre 1988 et vit actuellement à Winnipeg au Canada où il exerce en tant que directeur général. Amateur de fictions, d’écriture et lecteur avide de romans de type fantastique. L’auteur écrit plusieurs petites histoires à l’âge de 22 ans et finit par mettre l’écriture de côté pour se concentrer sur ses études. Très vite, il reviendra à sa passion et commencera l’écriture de son premier roman Les Somniatores en 2015 et ne l’achèvera qu’en 2020. Passionné d’art, de jeux vidéo, de cinéma, de sport et d’automobiles, l’auteur imagine sans cesse des mondes fantastiques qui se veulent novateurs et crédibles tout en mélangeant ses passions.
Featured Books
We like to think that books talk to other books, just as readers talk to other readers. In each lounge, you’ll find books we’ve curated around some idea—we invite you to join in their conversation.
Mondegreen Riffs
Angeline Schellenberg
Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre
Niigaan Sinclair
Les Somniatores
Beydi Traore
Upcoming Events
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ForeWords
We open the festival with a celebration of talent. Four writers, some literary legends, others emerging stars, come together and read at this showcase of writing prowess. Come help us kick-off THIN AIR/Livres en fête 2024! Four writers, some literary legends, others emerging stars, come together and read at this showcase of writing prowess. Join…
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Writing Craft with dennis cooley
making do with what’s at hand A still prominent understanding of poetry expects the original expression of inner thoughts and feelings. Another kind of practice turns to working with what is “out there,” including “unpoetic” material. The found poem would provide a familiar instance of the alternative. Its making do acknowledges, or finds, or positions…
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Lancement de l’anthologie Poésie franco-ouestienne 1974-2024
Livres en fête est fier d’être partenaire de l’évènement culturel de clôture du Colloque interdisciplinaire Un demi-siècle des Éditions du Blé: Une littérature qui se fait Lancement anniversaire de l’anthologie Poésie franco-ouestienne 1974-2024 Les Éditions du Blé vous invitent à participer au lancement anniversaire de l’anthologie Poésie franco-ouestienne 1974-2024, réalisée par J. Roger Léveillé, dans le…
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Signature Series with Jenny Heijun Wills
Join Jenny Heijun Wills for the launch of Everything and Nothing At All: Essays (Knopf Canada). Co-presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers as part of THIN AIR 2024. Featuring a conversation hosted by Lindsay Wong, followed by a book signing. The launch will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also…
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Cabaret littéraire flyé
Prestations multidisciplinaires pour mettre en lumière les mots et les talents de nos artistes locaux et invités. Poésie, cinéma, chant, conte, danse, humour et surprises en vue! Suite au lancement de l’anthologie Poésie franco-ouestienne 1974-2024, certains des écrivain.e.s s’étant déplacé à Winnipeg pour l’occasion livreront des prestations multidisciplinaires qui mettront en lumière leurs mots et…
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Reading & Beading
Join us for a celebration of poetry, art, and community with Marilyn Dumont & Cathy Mattes. Join us for a celebration of poetry, art, and community. This event will include a reading from acclaimed poet Marilyn Dumont, a presentation about beading and Métis art by the esteemed academic Cathy Mattes, and a casual conversation between…
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Writing Craft with Chimwemwe Undi
Writing Windows A poetic practice requires a practice of noticing the world around us. In this generative poetry workshop, we will read and discuss contemporary poems that notice and name what often goes unnamed – poems that cast new light and new shadows onto our shared every-day. We will then write and share our own…
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Winnipeg Poetry Slam ft. Apollo Jenna
This year, THIN AIR / Livres en fête 2024 is teaming up with the Winnipeg Poetry Slam to showcase a fantastic new poetry voice, Apollo Jenna. Following Apollo’s performance, stick around for the Slam, a competition between some of the best spoken word artists this city has to offer. Sign up at 6:00pm if you…
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Free Press Book Club with Greg Kearney
Plume Winnipeg (formerly WIWF) is teaming up with the Free Press Book Club and McNally Robinson Booksellers to present September’s Book Club as a part of THIN AIR Festival! Originally designed to help ease some of the isolation-related boredom, the Winnipeg Free Press runs a monthly book club which will run completely online and is…
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Nooner with Raymond Beauchemin
We’re excited to bring back our half-hour Nooners series, this time online! Prefer to log in from home? We’ve got something for you too! We’re excited to bring back our half-hour Nooners series, this time online. Join us on your lunch break and learn about your new favourite books! This series is free, with required…
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Afternoon Book Chat with Caroline Adderson & Shashi Bhat
Join us for a cozy conversation between two Governor General Award finalists as they read from and discuss their latest short fiction books. Registration is not required, but recommended.
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Big Ideas with Sarah Cox
Our Big Ideas series offers a space for non-fiction writers to share their life-changing insights on some of today’s most pressing topics. “Environmental journalist Sarah Cox has witnessed what happens when we drive species to the brink of extinction. In Signs of Life, she tags along with the Canadian military, Indigenous guardians, biologists, conservationists, and ordinary…
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MainStage #1
Celebrate the come back of THIN AIR/Livres en fête MainStage! Relationships, be those between a person and a lover, or nature, or a history, can be difficult. Join us tonight to hear four award-winning writers read from books that confront the difficulty of relationships, their stories often offering us templates for braving these onerous but…
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Nooner with Robyn Braun
We’re excited to bring back our half-hour Nooners series, this time online! Prefer to log in from home? We’ve got something for you too! We’re excited to bring back our half-hour Nooners series, this time online. Join us on your lunch break and learn about your new favourite books! This series is free, with required…
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Afternoon Book Chat with Sarah Cox & Shani Mootoo
Join us for an hour of fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation with some of this year’s terrific writers! Join us for an interview between two expert thinkers, one a journalist and the other a poet, as they read from their latest books and discuss the intersections of ecological justice, colonialism, displacements, and the legacies of our inheritances.…
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Big Ideas with Niigaan Sinclair
Our Big Ideas series offers a space for non-fiction writers to share their life-changing insights on some of today’s most pressing topics “Based on years’ worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their…
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Nooner with David O’Meara
We’re excited to bring back our half-hour Nooners series, this time online! Prefer to log in from home? We’ve got something for you too! We’re excited to bring back our half-hour Nooners series, this time online. Join us on your lunch break and learn about your new favourite books! This series is free, with required…
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Afternoon Book Chat with Myriam J. A. Chancy & Oonya Kempadoo
Join us for an hour of fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation with some of this year’s terrific writers! Registration is not required, but recommended. Join us for a discussion between two literary luminaries, Myriam J. A. Chancy & Oonya Kempadoo, both of whom continue to advance the content and the literary form of our time. After reading…
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Big Ideas with Kate J. Neville
Our Big Ideas series offers a space for non-fiction writers to share their life-changing insights on some of today’s most pressing topics. “Going to Seed explores questions of idleness, considering the labour both of humans and of the myriad other inhabitants of the world. Drawing on science, literature, poetry, and personal observation, these winding and sometimes…
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Salon de Gabrielle: Chloé Savoie-Bernard et Beydi Traore
En partenariat avec l’Association des auteur-e-s du Manitoba français et la Maison Gabrielle-Roy, deux autrices en dialogue. Premier Salon de Gabrielle de la saison 2024-25, Livres en fête présente, en partenariat avec l’Association des auteur-e-s du Manitoba français et la Maison Gabrielle-Roy deux autrices, poétesses et traductrices participeront à un dialogue animé par Amber O’Reilly.…
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MainStage #2
Come celebrate the return of THIN AIR/Livres en fête MainStage events! These writers have spent their careers investigating the dirt around them—be that the dirt that rests a nation, a colony, an ant hill, or a home—and pondering how they arrived at that space and what it means. Join us at this presentation of four…
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Forest Walk & Talk with Ariel Gordon & Kate J. Neville
Join writers Ariel Gordon and Kate J. Neville as we explore a local ecological treasure, the Assiniboine Forest. Join writers Ariel Gordon and Kate J. Neville as we explore a local ecological treasure, the Assiniboine Forest. During this easy and intimate 90-minute stroll, Ariel and Kate will read small sections from their books while offering…
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L’Atelier de mots avec Chloé Savoie-Bernard
L’écrivaine, traductrice et professeure de littérature offrira un atelier d’écriture ainsi que ses conseils sur le métier d’artiste. L’écrivaine, traductrice et professeure de littérature Chloé Savoie-Bernard offrira un atelier d’écriture participatif. Emmenez des outils pour écrire et les questions qui occupent vos esprits. L’atelier comprendra une période de questions-réponses portant sur l’écriture mais aussi le…
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La plume et le pinceau
La plume et le pinceau est un jeu d’improvisation créative alliant dessins et mots et organisé par l’Association des auteur·e·s du Manitoba français (AAMF) en collaboration avec Les Éditions du Blé, la Maison des artistes visuels francophones et Livres en fête 2024, André Granger et Plume. Cette année les écrivain·e·s : Chloé Savoie-Bernard, Beydi Traoré…
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Signature Series with Rosanna Deerchild
Join Rosanna Deerchild for the launch of her new poetry collection, she falls again (Coach House Books). Co-presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers as part of THIN AIR 2024. The launch will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a YouTube stream. The Sky Woman has returned to…
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Niizhotay Stories with Andrea Currie
On the eve of the fourth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we once again honour treasured Elder and tireless community-builder Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine with Niizhotay Stories, an annual event which calls on us all to forge a healing path in the spirit of “two hearts.”For this year’s installment, we welcome Andrea Currie back to Winnipeg to celebrate…
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Writing Craft with Ariel Gordon
Up in a Tree: a nature/eco writing workshop Wild turkeys roaming the back alleys. Elms with Dutch elm disease losing their leaves. Coyotes running down the street. What does it mean to slow down and pay attention to the urban ecosystem? What lives in the urban forest with us? This workshop focuses on what it…
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AfterWords Meets Speaking Crow
Help us wrap up THIN AIR/Livres en fête 2024 with a poetry celebration and our annual Haiku Death Match! Steve Locke, Angeline Schellenberg, Sue Sorensen + Haiku Death Match ft. Winnipeg Poetry Slam Team This year, our closing event combines our monthly Speaking Crow reading with our annual Haiku Death Match. The event begins with…
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