Winnipeg International Writers Festival

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The Winnipeg International Writers Festival (also known as Thin Air) is a literary festival based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The annual festival program runs for a week each fall, and there are occasionally other events occurring throughout the year. Programming is available in both English and French. While most of the events occur in Winnipeg, there are also some at Brandon University and in rural areas of the province.

[edit] History

The first Winnipeg Writers festival ran from October 14 to 19, 1997 [1]. The festival hosted approximately 50 writers from across Canada and around the world. The creation of the festival was explained as follows:

"It grew out of the determination to see that the writing, reading and publishing community was being served the way other [Winnipeg] cultural communities were being served. "You have music aficionados being offered events such as the Jazz Festival and the New Music Festival, theatre-goers have the Fringe Festival - we're a festival town. People like to have large-scale events which offer them a lot of choice and that's what we wanted to do for the writing community." - Paula Kelly, coordinator for the 1997 Winnipeg Writers Festival, quoted in The Manitoban

The festival involved collaboration from a number of organizations, including Prairie Fire, the Manitoba Writers' Guild, the West End Cultural Centre (which had previously hosted a 'Word on the Street' series), the Interfaith Marriage and Family Institute, and the University of Winnipeg. In addition, Balmoral Hall School hosted a number of school events related to the festival.

[edit] 2007 Programming

The 2007 festival ran from September 23 to 30. During the week, over 70 writers did readings, workshops and discussions at various sites throughout Winnipeg. The guests included recent Giller Prize nominees Michael Winter, David Chariandy and Lawrence Hill [www.winnipegwords.com].

The mainstage events occurred at CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre at The Forks. The Campus Program events were at the University of Winnipeg, the University of Manitoba, Red River College, Canadian Mennonite University, Brandon University, and Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface. The French program, Foyer des Écrivains, was at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain in St. Boniface. The Rural Tour featured events in Dauphin, The Pas, Brandon and Flin Flon. There were also events at Winnipeg Public Library and McNally Robinson, among others.

[edit] External links