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Curling legend Jones' memoir coming this fall
One of Canada's most decorated and beloved curlers will tell her life's story in a memoir slated to be released this fall.
Winnipeg-born, Ontario-based Jennifer Jones, who has won two world championships, an Olympic gold medal and many more accolades (and whose face adorns the wall of the St. Vital Curling Club), will release Rock Star: My Life On and Off the Ice, on Aug. 26 via HarperCollins.
The book, co-written with curling writer Bob Weeks, chronicles juggling a law career with throwing rocks, the strains that emerged between teammates and the challenges of balancing her curling schedule and motherhood.
Behind You
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B.C.-born, Winnipeg-based Art Miki has won the $10,000 Canada-Japan Literary Award for his book Gaman — Perseverance: Japanese Canadians' Journey to Justice, published by Talonbooks.
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Released in December 2023, in Gaman the former president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians details the path to reconciliation and resolution taken by Japanese-Canadians around and after the Second World War, when many were interned.
The prize was awarded to Miki by the Canada Council for the Arts.
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Award-winning Ontario author Catherine Hernandez has been named the fall 2025 Jake MacDonald writer-in-residence by the University of Winnipeg.
Hernandez is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent and the author of four novels for adults, including 2017's Scarboorugh, a Canada Reads finalist, as well as Crosshairs and The Story of Us. Her latest, Behind You, was published in 2024 by HarperCollins.
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Hernandez will be available for manuscript consultations and to answer questions from Sept. 8-Dec. 8. She'll also be participating in a number of other activities while serving in the position, including readings, lectures, Q&As, masterclasses and more.
For more information, see
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I Hope This Finds You Well
Last week it was noted in this space that Winnipeg Cree author Rosanna Deerchild had received two honorary doctorates in a month. This week it was announced she has won the Indigenous Voices Award for poetry published in English — and the accompanying $5,000 prize.
Deerchild won the prize for her collection She Falls Again, published by Coach House Press.
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In the published prose category, Kanien'kehá:ka author Wayne K. Spear and Dene politician and advocate Georges Erasmus won for Hòt'a! Enough!: Georges Erasmus's Fifty-Year Battle for Indigenous Rights, published by Dundurn Press.
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Every Second Friday
The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney.
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Natalie Sue has won the 2025 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for her novel I Hope This Finds You Well, published by HarperCollins.
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The Calgary-based author edged out former Winnipegger Greg Kearney's An Evening With Birdy O'Day (published by Arsenal Pulp Press) and Patricia Parsons' We Came From Away (published by Moonlight Press) for the top award, which comes with a $25,000 prize. Each of the runners up receive $5,000.
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Ben SigurdsonLiterary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press's literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press's editing team before being posted online or published in print. It's part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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