Maurice Mierau & MWG Mentorship Reading

Aqua Books is pleased to be the permanent home of the venerable poetry series 

Speaking Crow. The Crow starts on Tuesday, June 7, at 7:00 pm and is followed by two open-mic sets and short breaks in between.

Maurice Mierau is the author of two books of poetry: Ending with Music and Fear Not, which won the prestigious ReLit award for poetry in 2009. He is also the editor for the new online magazine The Winnipeg Review.

Mierau’s work exemplifies a bitter illustration of and a desperate railing against a fallen human world filled with catastrophic violence. His powerful poems, lyric but also given to being conceptual, set up a negotiation between some of humanity’s most compassionate philosophies and those most ungovernable emotions. What is presented throughout is a desire to muck defiantly through human harms toward a state of living in dignity and peaceably.

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Manitoba Writers' Guild presents

2011 Sheldon Oberman Mentorship Program Reading

Aqua Books, Thursday, June 9 · 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Mentor and apprentice pairs have been working together on apprentices' projects since January. Come celebrate their successes in this annual culminating event of the Program, which will feature readings by apprentices introduced by their mentors. 

This year's program pairings are: 

Jonathan Ball mentoring Debbie Calverley

Anita Daher mentoring Tara Lee Baxter

Sarah Klassen mentoring Annie Deeley

Chandra Mayor mentoring Jack Frey

Maurice Mierau mentoring John Herbert Cunningham

Duncan Thornton mentoring Reshal Stein

Chandra Mayor's Forging the Muse

This Autumn, Aqua Books will be featuring Chandra Mayor's course Forging the Muse.

Classes will be on Wednesdays, starting September 15 till December 1, 

from 7:00 p. m. to 9:00 p. m.

Cost: $250 plus GST 

Register: kelly@aquabooks.ca or 943-7555 

This workshop is limited to 10 people. 

Bring a notebook and pen.

According to Chandra, This course will help us understand how each of us can transform images, ideas and emotions into words that truly communicate in our writing.  

We will focus on the craft of poetry and of language.  

We’ll learn why editing and workshopping is so important. 

We’ll explore personal mythologies, the worlds of publishing, performativity and whatever else seems interesting. 

The course will include lots of reading, discussion, writing and feedback.

We’ll play, take risks and create a community of writers.

We won’t always agree, but we’ll understand more about what we write, why we write, and how to get closer to the poems we want to write.  

Chandra Mayor’s writing has appeared in several anthologies, including Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood; Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets, and Post-Prairie. 

Her first book, August Witch: poems, won the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book.  She received the 2004 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer.  Her novel, Cherry, won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. 

Her most recent book, All the Pretty Girls (conundrum), won a Lambda Award for Best Lesbian Fiction.  The title story was shortlisted for a 2008 CBC Literary Award.  Mayor lives in Winnipeg.

Have a great day.  How can you miss - you're in Winnipeg!

Aqua Books: Gillian Sze, Ariel Gordon & Chandra Mayor

Please come for an evening of readings by Writer-in-Residence Gillian Sze and resident Aqua poets Ariel Gordon and Chandra Mayor. The event will take place from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Aqua Books, located at 274 Garry Street (between Graham & Portage) on Thursday, June 10.


Gillian Sze was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her poetry collection, Fish Bones, was shortlisted for the QWF McAuslan First Book Prize. She is the author of 3 chapbooks and her work has appeared in national and international journals. She is also co-founder and co-editor of Branch Magazine. The Anatomy of Clay, a poetry collection, will be published in 2011.

After Gillian appeared at Aqua last summer, bookstore owner Kelly Hughes was eager to have her as Writer-in-Residence during June, 2010. Gillian has a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Concordia University. She resides in Montreal.


Ariel Gordon's first book of poetry, Hump, was published in 2010. She recently won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer at the Manitoba Book Awards. Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.


Chandra Mayor is a Winnipeg writer, editor and shop girl. She is the award-winning author of 3 books, including the short story collection All the Pretty Girls, which was the recipient of the Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction.


Have a great day. How can you miss - you're in Winnipeg!