Turnstone Press

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WINNIPEG: Turnstone Press is pleased to announce that Robert J. Sweeney, author of Portraits of Winnipeg: The River City in Pen and Ink, is a recipient of the Association for Manitoba Archives’ Manitoba Day Award for 2012.

The Association for Manitoba Archives’ sixth annual Manitoba Day Awards presentation was held on Thursday, May 10, 2012. The event, which recognizes excellence in the use of archives, was hosted by the Mennonite Heritage Centre Archives and Gallery, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg.

The award recognizes users of archives who have completed an original work of excellence which contributes to the understanding and celebration of Manitoba history. Robert J. Sweeney received the award for his full-colour book of drawings, Portraits of Winnipeg: The River City in Pen and Ink.

Baldur's Song: A Saga by David Arnason adds a third prize nomination to its wish list this spring.

Already short-listed for the Manitoba Book Awards' Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, the novel, featuring the fictionalized life of Arnason's grandfather, has been nominated for the Manitoba Historical Society's 2010 Margaret McWilliams Award in the category of Popular History.

The McWilliams Award is one of the oldest literary awards in Canada named for the Winnipeg author, journalist and feminist, Margaret Stovel McWilliams (1875-1952). Readings from the short-listed books will take place at McNally Robinson Booksellers on April 25 at 7:00 p.m.. The awards ceremony will take place at Dalnavert House on June 4 at 1:00 p.m.

In Baldur's Song, Winnipeg's boom-town days at the turn of the twentieth century come to life through the eyes of Baldur, a boy from Gimli, the Icelandic immigrant settlement on the southernmost shore of Lake Winnipeg. Both city and boy grow from innocence to savvy creatures of business as they mature, fall in love, and survive the politics of a competitive, cut-throat society. Lively characters bring early Winnipeg to life, and old neighbourhoods like the West End, Wolseley, West Broadway, and the Exchange District are immediately recognizable. Readers navigate the dirt streets and boardwalks with Baldur in Arnason's vivid narrative.

David Arnason is an acclaimed novelist, a writer of short fiction, and an editor of Turnstone Press since 1975. Very much in touch with his Icelandic heritage, Arnason has taught at the University of Manitoba since 1972, serving as Acting Head of the Department of Icelandic Studies from 1998 to 2006, and as head of the Department of English from 1997 to 2006. Currently, he lives and writes in Gimli, MB.

WINNER: Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction “Painfully bored” with school, 17-year-old Karen Connelly set off for Thailand to spend one year as an exchange student. This is her account of living in a beautiful but sometimes bewildering culture.

Winner: Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. A fascinating look at the people, places and stories that make up Winnipeg's literary history, from its earliest days to the present.

Gardens and roadkill, even the moon, all play a part in Carla Funk’s collection of emotional poems that capture the fleeting impressions of the human experience.

Fear Not is lyrical, political, raunchy, blasphemous, and deeply engaged with ethical questions. Inspired by the Gideon Bible's list of self-help topics, each poem is arranged to play off poetic and Biblical forms.

WINNER: Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.

"A Rose on Corydon" is a bridal shop like no other. After an encounter with a patch of ice and a broken hip, Mildred and Gertrude, the owners, decide to close the store with style by throwing one last wedding, a lavish ceremony right in the store.

Margaret Sweatman’s clean and elegant prose portrays the politics of a relationship in decline, and the cold and ugly passion that exists just under the surface of Sam and Angie’s upper-class set.

WINNER: McNally Robinson Book of the Year

An epic Canadian survival tale finds Reinhold Kaletsch, a German doctor, trapped in the middle of a northern Manitoba winter, running low on food and hope.

When a snowstorm cancels Clint Dokic’s flight to Thompson where his pregnant wife Kaly waits, Clint forces his mother and brother into an ill-advised road trip. The blizzard outside is nothing compared to the storm brewing within the 4 x 4.