ArticlesLuis Reis
Luis Reis is 30-year veteran with Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre. His directing credits include An Enemy of the People, And Then There Were None, and Tempest-Tost.
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Non-FictionLetters to young son connect to the past, show new visions for masculinity
In his memoir Trust the Bluer Skies: Meditations on Fatherhood, Alberta-based author paulo da costa writes to his four-year-old son, Koah, recording the details of their five-month stay with family in Portugal. In a series of letters, he shows his strong ties to his family, heritage, and culture – to the landscape of his youth. -
FeaturesCanada’s first open access publishing house wants books to reach the broader public
The Athabasca University Press was founded in 2007 as the first open access publishing house in Canada. Its mandate, like the mandate of its parent institution, is to reduce barriers to knowledge. -
DramaReal-life pilgrimage to Burning Man amid grief, transformation comes to life in one-woman play
Mieko Ouchi’s one-woman play Burning Mom follows Dorothy, a character based on the playwright’s mother, as she uncovers the pain and grief of the past so that she can fully embrace the future. The title is a reference to Burning Man, the Nevada art festival to which Ouchi’s mother made a pilgrimage a year after her husband’s passing. -
DramaPlay moves from traditional to surreal settings, drawing audience in to consider mortality
Winnipeg-based actor, director, and playwright Debbie Patterson’s play How It Ends explores end-of-life choices and the legalization of medical assistance in dying. “It’s the thing we all want to know but don’t want to know: the circumstances under which we will die,” she says. -
DramaIntimacy, ‘rural, down-home feel’ incorporated into play about dementia on a family farm
“The wind takes. It breaks. It bends. It harms and steals. But it brings too.” So says the character Sarah near the end of Daniel Macdonald’s play Blow Wind. -
FeaturesPublisher preserves oral culture, safeguards accomplishments of Indigenous people
“Oh, wow!” “Oh, my gosh!” This is what the Dëne Sųłiné or Chipewyan word eschia means in English. Eschia Books, based in Stony Plain, Alberta, on Treaty 6 territory, is an Indigenous-owned publishing house. -
FictionMennonites do have a sense of humour, and Andrew Unger’s collection proves it
In the follow-up to his award-winning debut novel, Once Removed, Steinbach-based author Andrew Unger returns to familiar territory with The Best of the Bonnet, a selection of articles from The Daily Bonnet, the website where he has posted approximately 2,300 satirical news articles over the last five years. -
FeaturesURP grows into wide-ranging publisher while working with underrepresented writers
Known as the “little house on the Prairie with big ambitions,” the University of Regina Press (URP) publishes a mix of trade and academic books for audiences in and beyond the academy in Canada and around the world. -
DramaOne-man drama brings ‘the singing miner’ through disaster to life
“You ask me what kept me alive down there? Well, it was my faith. My music. My family.” So says the protagonist of Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story by Beau Dixon, a playwright, actor, and musician who divides his time between Peterborough and Toronto. -
FeaturesTurnstone Press turns 45, stays true to its roots
The year 2021 marks the 45th anniversary of Turnstone Press. As the story goes, Turnstone sprang from a get-together at a local Winnipeg pub. There, Robert Enright, Dennis Cooley, John Beaver, David Arnason, Wayne Tefs, and Daniel Lenoski discussed creating a collection of poetry books to bring light to a huge wellspring of Manitoba writing that was being overlooked by the mainstream.
