Writes of Spring 2023 Launch!

For the eighth year in a row, Writes of Spring—a National Poetry Month project of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival and the Winnipeg Free Press—will appear in the print and online editions of the newspaper. Twelve poems by Manitoba writers will appear in the Winnipeg Free Press on April 29 and will be launched at McNally Robinson Booksellers the same day!

The event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream. The video will be available for viewing thereafter. Before arriving, please review the details of how to attend physical events at the store.

Hosted by editors Ariel Gordon and Sally Ito, this event will feature readings on the theme of “Joy” by the 2023 Writes of Spring poets: Hazel Aduna, Elizabeth Denny, Joanne Epp, Evan J, Sarah Klassen, Kirstian Luzubski, Margo McCall, Abiola Regan, Holly Smith, Christine Stewart-Nunez, Sue Sorensen, and Jess Woolford.

Born in Taber, Alberta, Sally Ito is the author of four books of poetry, Frogs in the Rain Barrel, Season of Mercy, Alert to Glory, and Heart’s Hydrography, the memoir The Emperor’s Orphans, and translator of Are You an Echo?, a collection of poetry by Misuzu Kaneko. Ito teaches creative writing in Winnipeg, where she lives with her husband.

Ariel Gordon (she/her) is a Winnipeg/Treaty 1 territory-based writer, editor, and enthusiast. Her fifth book, Sightseeing: Writing nature & climate change across the prairies, written in collaboration with Saskatchewan poet Brenda Schmidt, will be published by At Bay Press in the fall of 2023. Gordon’s work has appeared recently in Canadian Notes and Queries, Canthius, periodicities, and The Quarantine Review and is forthcoming in FreeFall and Grain as 2nd place winner of the Kloppenberg Hybrid Grain Contest.