Join us for the Calgary (virtual) launch of Vivian Manasc's Old Stories, New Ways: Conversations About an Architecture Inspired by Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Vivian will be in conversation with Dr. Frits Pannekoek.

The event will take place on Zoom; please pre-register here to access login information: https://zoom.us/.../tJwpceGopjopG9wigFJUiMyhsyNFkQW5QIir

Vivian Manasc, one of the founders of Manasc Isaac Architects, has pioneered sustainable architecture in Canada. Her work in partnership with Indigenous communities has been her greatest inspiration, and it has transformed the very nature of her practice. Through the profound lessons of the seven Grandfather Teachings, Vivian came to understand that the process of planning and designing a building should be a circle, with the beginning and end of the story linked together.

The stories Vivian tells in Old Stories, New Ways are also framed by these teachings of Courage, Love, Wisdom, Respect, Truth, Humility and Honesty, with each teaching illuminating an aspect of how working with Dene, Cree, Saulteaux, Métis, Inuit and Inuvialuit communities has influenced her design practice.

-----------------------

Vivian Manasc is the principal architect of Manasc Isaac, a sixty-person architectural and engineering studio with offices in Edmonton, Calgary and Bucharest, Romania. She is past president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, past vice-president of the Canada Green Building Council and served, until recently, as a member on the National Capital Commission Advisory Committee on Planning, Design and Realty. For over thirty years, she has been an innovative design thought leader who has advocated for and designed sustainable buildings and low-carbon, net-zero architecture in the context of global climate change. She attributes much of her passion to her learning from Indigenous Elders. She resides in Edmonton, Alberta. 

Looking for suspense?? Four authors -- A.J. Devlin, D.B. Carew, Mark Lisac, and Niall Howell -- will be joining us online and reading from their latest novels, followed by a Q&A.

The event will be on Zoom. The Zoom link will be sent with the Eventbrite email confirmation. Please register on Eventbrite here. 

Contact production@newestpress.com if you have any issues.

About the Books

The Weight of Blood
After barely surviving the events of The Killer Trail, Vancouver psychiatric social worker Chris Ryder once again finds himself at the centre of a high-profile murder case: Marvin Goodwin, a young man who falls on the extreme end of the autism spectrum, is found covered with blood at the murder scene of a local ice cream truck driver. When Chris is called in to learn what he can about Marvin, he finds that the weight of blood might just be too much for him to bear.

Complicating matters are Chris' strained relationship with his father; the vicious actions of his half-brother, Ray; the blinding spotlight of the media; and the aftereffects of trauma. In The Weight of Blood, D.B. Carew has given us a protagonist who is trying to hold everything together while staunching blood that both spills and connects.

"Carew, a social worker at a provincial forensic psychiatric hospital, does a good job portraying the struggles of a mental health worker to maintain his own mental health. Fans of clinical mysteries will want to check this one out."
~ Publishers Weekly

Image Decay
Mark Lisac’s Image Decay returns to the pugnacious world of backroom politics laid out in his award-nominated Where the Bodies Lie. Set again in that “unnamed capital city east of the Rockies,” where the Brutalist architecture of the downtown core reflects the body politic laid bare.

When a cantankerous ex-government photographer seeks ownership of his prints, the powers that be are determined to prevent the release of certain sensitive photos. Set in the 1990s, this political thriller delves into questions of identity and memory, established power and its fears and secrets, old stock versus newcomers, belonging and alienation.

Image Decay investigates the intricacies of political manipulation, personal anxieties, and how history must be seen to be confronted.

"With his eye for detail and the courage to inflect his genre conventions, Lisac proves a dab hand at conveying weighty themes lightly."
~ Maurice Yacowar, Alberta Views

Rolling Thunder
Former pro wrestler "Hammerhead" Jed Ounstead, now a fully-fledged private investigator, is riding high after his first successful case. In this second episode, Jed leaves the wrestling realm to enter a new arena: women's flat-track roller derby. When old acquaintance Stormy Daze seeks his help finding her team's missing coach, Jed discovers that the turnbuckle-and-metal-chair mayhem of the wrestling ring pales in comparison to roller derby's four-wheeled ferocity.

As his search intensifies, Jed is drawn into the criminal orbit of a shady entrepreneur who doubles as a late-night TV personality, a high-class bookmaker with a yen for racing dachshunds, and a kinky painter with a special technique for producing art. When the thunder rolls, Jed finds he needs more than a few of his beloved banana milkshakes to solve this case.

Rolling Thunder continues A.J. Devlin's hard-hitting, award-winning mystery series with its unbeatable one-two punch of over-the-top-rope humour and elbow-to-the-face adventure.

"Funny, smart, readable ... Devlin takes his cues from the likes of Carl Hiaasen and builds the suspense along with the craziness. Welcome back, Hammerhead Jed and company."
~ Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

Only Pretty Damned
Niall Howell's Only Pretty Damned is a taut noir that takes you behind the big top, revealing rough and tumble characters, murderous plots, and crooked schemes designed to keep Rowland’s World Class Circus afloat for another season. When Toby, former trapeze artist turned disgruntled clown, begins seeing Gloria, a young and beautiful dancer longing for a bigger role under the spotlight, his hardboiled past resurfaces. Can he live without Genevieve, his ex-trapeze partner and lover? What ruthless actions will he take to regain his position as the headlining act? And will Toby’s past repeat itself as he tries to untangle the ropes that bind him and take a leap to roaring applause?

"Only Pretty Damned is a stark, powerful noir, steeped in the stifling heat of the American South and building slowly, inexorably, to a boil."
~ Robert J. Wiersema, Quill & Quire

Celebrate Earth Day with us and Kevin Van Tighem as he launches his new book Wild Roses Are Worth It. Kevin will be in conversation with Evan Osenton.

This event will take place on Zoom. You can register here for access info: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAuf-6hqz0vGtc9-XtztgCQeAtxy_qz_17b

This selection of works by naturalist, hunter, conservation activist, and outdoors journalist Kevin Van Tighem will both inspire and provoke, because it offers an unflinching challenge to cherished myths and conventional wisdom in a troubled province beset with profound questions about its future. Even at their most provocative, however, these writings remind us of what is best about the Alberta spirit, and offer the possibility of a more sustaining relationship with our place and with one another. The rich imagery in these writings is drawn from the author’s intimate relationship with the streams, forests, grasslands, and mountains of the Canadian West. There may be no sacred cows in Van Tighem’s prose, but even the most unblinkingly critical of his writings resonate with a love of place and an abiding respect for the people whose lives he shares. He reminds us that Alberta’s stories were always meant to be about much more than oil.
At a time when social, economic, and environmental changes confront and confound what is still one of Canada’s greatest provinces, we need better ways of remembering our past, knowing our present, and imagining our future. That’s what this inspiring body of work offers — just in time for tomorrow.

Kevin Van Tighem, a former superintendent of Banff National Park, has written more than 200 articles, stories, and essays on conservation and wildlife which have garnered him many awards, including Western Magazine Awards, Outdoor Writers of Canada book and magazine awards, and the Journey Award for Fiction. He is the author of Bears Without Fear, The Homeward Wolf, Heart Waters: Sources of the Bow River, Our Place: Changing the Nature of Alberta, and Wild Roses Are Worth It: Alberta Reconsidered. He lives with his wife, Gail, in Canmore, Alberta.

----------------------------

Access Information:
This event will take place on Zoom with automatic captions, and will not run longer than an hour and a half. Audience members will be encouraged to turn their video off for the duration. We look forward to seeing you and celebrating together! Contact events@shelflifebooks.ca with additional questions.

Treaty 7 Land Acknowledgment:
We at Shelf Life Books acknowledge that we are on the lands of the Treaty 7 People:
-The Blackfoot from Siksika, Kainai and Piikani,
-The Dene-Sarceee from Tsuut’ina,
-And the Stoney-Nakoda from Morley, the Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley First Nations.
We also walk in the footsteps of the Metis People from Region 3, Metis Nation of Alberta

This is session 1 of 2. The Shelf Life Books Youth Zine program is an opportunity for youth (ages 9+) to explore self-publishing practices with the guidance of professional artist, Carlan Savage-Hughes. The participants will explore alternative forms of story-telling, comic drawing and visual communication. They will come away from this program with new book-binding and folding techniques that they can use to make their own zines at home!

This program will take place on Zoom; please register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/.../the-shelf-life-books-youth.... The event will be pay-what-you-can; all proceeds will go to the artist!

Because this is an online program, participants will be expected to provide their own materials. Suggested materials include:
-Paper
-Drawing/colouring supplies
-Needle and thread (for May 16th workshop only)
-Collage material— old magazines and glue (recommended but not required)

What is a zine?
Popularized by the DiY movement of the 1980’s, zines are small, self-published magazines made to be easily distributed and shared. They can be created with a variety of intentions, such as activism, sharing one’s art, poetry or experimental writing. For examples, check out Shelf Life Books’ zine selection!

Who is Carlan?
Carlan Savage-Hughes seeks to make visible the divine, doing so by tracing the poetics of objects, images and relationships. Her additional facilitation and curatorial practices are centred around strengthening independent arts communities as an act of resisting the capital-driven values of the art world. A Mohkinstsis (Calgary) born artist, Carlan recently graduated from Emily Carr University with a major in Fine Arts and a minor in Social Practice and Community Engagement. 

Join us for the virtual launch of Eugene Stickland's First and Last!

The event will take place on Zoom. Please register
here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlceygrTgsGdRRG5Xqj32zJNdbeFW9L5Bl

First and Last is a comedy by Calgary-based playwright and novelist Eugene Stickland. Musician Lenny returns from a West Coast tour to find his girlfriend gone and his apartment empty. Past the deadline for his new album, Lenny struggles to compose new material. In the midst of his heartbreak and while trying to write his next album, people begin to show up at his door to move into the apartment--victims of a con. A young couple, a hipster, a synchronized swim team and two refugees all lay claim to the same sanctuary--Lenny’s apartment.

A few words about himself by Eugene: I grew up in Regina where I eventually worked on an MA in English at the University of Regina, which was interrupted when I went to Toronto to complete an MFA in Playwriting at York University. Following that, I wrote plays in Toronto for a number of years for the Act IV Theatre Company while at the same time working in a number of communications-related positions, including the editor of the Frontier College Press. After a brief stint back in Regina in the early ’90’s, at which time my daughter Hanna came into the world, I moved to Calgary in 1994, and enjoyed a 10 year stint as Alberta Theatre Projects’ playwright in residence, writing 6 plays for the company in that time, along with others for other theatres across Canada. After leaving ATP, I became a feature columnist for the Calgary Herald for the next five years while at the same time continuing to write plays for other theatres. My plays have been produced around the world in several different languages. Queen Lear, which I wrote in 2009 for Calgary actress Joyce Doolittle on the occasion of her 80th birthday, went on to other productions in other cities, including a two year run in Istanbul and throughout Turkey (in translation). I am currently working on several new projects, including a volume of poetry, “Nocturnal Emissions,” a new play, “Those White Things in the Ocean,” and I’ve just completed a novel, “The Piano Teacher,” which I plan to publish on Blurb in the spring of 2015. I am the writer in residence at Calgary’s St. Mary’s University College and I teach a special communications course for internationally educated professionals, mostly from the world of medicine, at Alberta Business and Educational Services. I live in downtown Calgary, proudly without a car. I’m an avid cyclist and in winter a happy enough rider of public transportation.