From the THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival site:
"Right out of THIN AIR, a heap of amazing writers! From the very established to the just arriving, from the funny to the serious, from poets to storytellers to playwrights to novelists, from writers for kids to writers for anybody who ever was a kid – THIN AIR has the full hurrah.
The festival publishes a little paperback every year and every year I have to spend at least an hour reading every-which-way, dog-earing pages, highlighting events/authors I don't want to miss.
Ever since they settled on the THIN AIR theme a few years ago, each year's program is the same shape and uses the familiar pages-in-the-breeze graphic.
The only thing that changes is the colour scheme...and this year's colour is red. But muted red. Sunset-through-fog red. A glass of rose red.
So there I was, with the 'full hurrah' in hand, and in addition to coming up with red-but-not-RED analogies, I came away from my first glimpse at the program looking forward to Monday's Mainstage performances.
Called On The Edge, it features Gil Adamson, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Brian Henderson, Sidura Ludwig, Dave Margoshes, and Jim Nason.
It has the perfect mix of known-to-me writers, writers I've vaguely heard of and want to check out, and complete strangers who happen to be writers.
I'm also looking forward to taking in some of the readings at Winnipeg's university/college campuses.
Two of the venues (U of Wpg and RRC) are within walking distance for me, especially now the the Princess Street campus of RRC is hosting the readings instead of the main campus, and I enjoy getting a tea and slipping into a seat.
The only drawback is that some of the authors don't prepare more than one performance of their work and give the same reading in their university slot as in their mainstage slot. Which is initially disappointing, but such feelings are fleeting, given all that's on offer....
I'm already planning to check out Janice Kulyk Keefer's U of Wpg mid-morning reading September 27th where apparently she'll dip into her poetry and "talk about the power of poetic form."
I've also been meaning to check out Winnipegger Brenda Hasiuk's work, so I'll probably be taking in one of her RRC events September 25 or 26th.
And then there's Saturday night's Poetry Bash, which is a tradition for the festival and also for me, though I will admit to missing the intimacy that the West End Cultural Centre provided as a venue...
I could go on like this for pages and pages, but won't. Suffice to say there'll be much scheming as to where/when/how as the WIWF draws near. Fun!
