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Shortlisted for the 2021 McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award

Nominated for the Forest of Reading White Pine Award!

Shortlisted for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award!

Eugenia Grimm is a tough girl living in a tough town at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She drinks and fights and pushes against expectations. She is also hurting: after her father died by suicide, her older brothers drifted away and her mother up and left.

After a last-straw violent incident and faced with the possibility of incarceration, she is sentenced to time at an Intensive Support and Supervision Program located at a remote mountain ranch. There, she begins to make connections, explore difficult truths, and might even turn things around-until a series of events pull her into a dark spiral she may not have the strength to resist.

[T]he characters - therapists and troubled youth alike - have an inviting combination of snarkiness and depth. - Quill & Quire

. . .many serious themes are woven into the story, but there is also the wonderful appreciation of what can be achieved if only people are given the time, encouragement and incentive to work out their problems and improve their lives. - CM Magazine

"In this page-turner about trying to become a parent, Morwenna Trevenen tells her story... But you don't need to have experienced these troubles firsthand – or even be a parent – to get caught up in this excruciating, wonderful story." — Marsha Lederman, The Globe & Mail

Grow up, get a job, find a partner, have a family, live the dream. This was always the plan...with some deviations along the way. Using sarcasm and vulnerability, Morwenna speaks about growing up, finding love, and then struggling when the rest of “the plan” isn't meant to be.

This is the raw & real story of one couple's rollercoaster ride as they discover infertility, try various treatments, suffer an adoption reversal, and learn to make new plans and find the funny moments. A raw, sarcastic, and sometimes funny account of the struggles of growing up, dealing with infertility, fertility treatments, and the adoption process.

In the Automatic Age, the autovolts have swept the earth clean of most of its human inhabitants. Kerion and Barry are of the few survivors, mistaken as robots in the first purge because of Kerion's prosthetics. Kerion fears that his son will grow up a lonely anomaly on an earth free of people. The discovery of a group of intentionalized fanatics may be the hope they need to reconnect with the human experience. But is it better risk dangerous isolation or stay with a group of religious zealots?

The truth will send them on the run in a fight for survival beneath the sea of stars to the tower known as the BACKBONE OF NIGHT.

"Chomichuk has developed a fascinating, complex setting . . . And he uses it to explore timely themes of automation, scarcity economics, and robot ethics, while also showcasing his formidable imagination." - Quill & Quire

"Amid these magical realist happenings and horror motifs, Brief Life is a small-town coming-of-age story that explores family and community secrets, social status, and how teenage girls discover the world through trial and error, as well as books. Whittle is filled with puzzling people and events; it contains mysterious multitudes that are worth trying to decipher." - Literary Review of Canada

Returning to some of the characters first introduced in his award-winning novel The Green-Eyed Queen of Suicide City to tell a unique and all-new tale, Kevin Marc Fournier's Brief Life is the story of a fraught but lifelong friendship; the chronicle of a small town with a bizarre and tangled history; a multi-generational family saga of ghosts, dreams, visions, and visitations, of strange dogs, secret magic, and mysterious disappearances; a maze of funhouse mirrors, grotesque, poignant, and fantastical.

Finalist, Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction

Finalist, Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher

With a foreword by Beatrice Mosionier.

Abandonment, loss, endless transitions, self-reliance, continued persistence, and fierce beauty all coexist in this compelling collection of stories of ten women who journey from victims of the child welfare system to survivors, and beyond. These women face endless challenges, oppression, and trauma but discover their power through creativity, self-awareness, education, motherhood, and extreme empathy.

A CBC Books Summer Reading Pick!

The Curious Misadventures of Kitty the Cat is a hilarious story of a cat who never grows up. After wandering away from his mom and sibling, he's found in the forest by a little girl and moves with her into the city, where he finds adventure and makes new friends: Prémâché, the big cat of the alley; the spiders of the special arachno-intervention unit; Billy, the nice neighbour; and the parents of the little girl.

The cat will eventually learn that his mother still lives in St. Hilarion, and that he had better learn to speak gull if he wants to find her.

"Part memoir, part medical malfeasance whistle-blowing, and essential reading for medical reform activists, "Take Your Baby And Run" is especially and unreservedly recommended." - Midwest Book Review

Foreword by Lanette Siragusa, RN NM

Take Your Baby and Run is Carol Youngson's first-hand account of the shocking ineptitude and misogynistic behaviour that led to the death of twelve children, primarily infants, under the care of Dr. Jonah Odim at Winnipeg's largest hospital in 1994. Youngson was the nurse in charge of the cardiac unit and in her book she details the dysfunctional hospital hierarchy that allowed this tragedy to unfold, leading to the longest running inquiry in Canadian history. Sadly, the themes of this book are just as relevant today during our current health crisis.

Winner of the 2024 MHS Margaret McWilliams Book Award–Popular History Category

In this book, scientist-historian Gordon Goldsborough hits the road in search of adventure and little-known stories from Manitoba's past. Among the places he visits are underground radiation monitoring posts from the Cold War, a remote hydroelectric generating station, cruise ships on the Red River, and the original route of the Trans-Canada Highway.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selectionA MYRCA Northern Lights selectionA CCBC Best Books for Kids and Teens selection

Opposite Identicals is a non-stop adrenaline rush from start to finish. Deborah Kerbel has written two unforgettable characters who take turns telling the story. Kids of all ages will race through this book, desperate to find out what will happen to the twins when catastrophe strikes in a near future world, changed forever by climate crisis. Don't miss this one!" — Carol Matas, author of A Struggle for Hope and Past Crimes

Opposite Identicals is an upper middle grade novel set in the very near future - a time when climate change has irreversibly altered our planet and lifestyles. Nova and Joule are fourteen-year old twins whose scientist parents have recently uprooted the family from their urban home and moved to the country on a year-long research assignment, studying the effects of GMO 'SuperCrop' farming on the environment in the final regulatory phase before global expansion.

Surrounded by nature and quiet, open spaces, shy, bookish Nova is in heaven. But Joule - whose life's ambition is to be famous and reach a million Hollagram followers - is desperate to escape. One day, Joule gets her wish, although not in a way anyone ever expected. In an instant, she's gone - swallowed up by a mysterious sinkhole under her bedroom floor. Suddenly twinless, Nova is forced to step in and lead the search for her missing sister. But can she face her fears and figure out what caused the sinkhole in time to save Joule?Told from alternating points of view, it's a fantastical adventure about overcoming obstacles, self-discovery, and environmental awareness.

WINNER — 2025 MYRCA AWARDSBest Books for Kids and Teens, 2024

For Coop, adjusting to a new home after being adopted by Zach, Emma and their mother, Jess, is not easy. It's hard enough being a lowly dachshund, but it's even harder when your home is a financially unstable guesthouse with smelly strangers drifting in and out. Worse still, the unhappy teenager in charge of Coop is steaming mad much of the time. On top of that, Lucinda, the annoying cat, likes to tease and torment. It's no wonder Coop wishes he could have his old life back.

Enter a murder of crows, a stranger with a mysterious past, two bullies bent on making Zach's life miserable, and a vicious dog with a grudge against Coop. As the risks and challenges mount, Coop's wish only grows stronger. Will he ever find the forever home he so desperately wants?

A follow-up to Coop The Great!- MYRCA Sundog Nominee- Best Books for Kids and Teens- Highly Recommended, CM Magazine

Through acts of resistance and resurgence, Indigenous people are reclaiming public places in Winnipeg.

In Decolonizing Public Places, Sadie Lavoie explores the history of Indigenous resistance within Winnipeg since Idle No More in 2012, and how that protest played a pivotal role in the Indigenous cultural resurgence of reclaiming space within the city. Lavoie uses their experience to uncover how Indigenous people used places and spaces to revive their decolonial narratives from Indigenous ways of living, knowing and being. As public space in Winnipeg is reclaimed, Lavoie discovers how this newfound inclusion is shaping relationships within Indigenous communities, as well as how this movement connects Indigenous nations with their co-existing treaty partners.

Decolonizing Public Places is part of The City Project, a series edited by Emma and Michel Durand-Wood.

WINNER - Manitoba Day Awards, 2025

In Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories Darren Bernhardt recounts historical anecdotes from middle-Canada's past that were never given top billing, the ones that faded away in time but left their marks behind. Laden with archival images, Bernhardt's stories restore focus on the gunslinging fugitive who became a folk hero, the curious and chaotic battle for Kenora, the flower-bearing American spy, the ghost trail of the Bergen Cutoff, the lost bells of St. Boniface, how the bison were saved from extinction, Hudson Bay's missing gravity, and the many firsts accomplished in the northwest.

The stories of what was - and what could have been - arouse imagination and kindle interest in a complicated and colourful past.

"Guaranteed to hook teen readers ... Pam Withers has crafted such a thrilling yet utterly believable text that this reader stopped at several points to Google details, not believing it was fiction ... It's a gripping story that makes tough choices relatable, difficult concepts understandable, and adventure unforgettable." — Canadian Teacher Magazine

Hudson Greer and his caving partner, Jett, are determined to become teen legends who discover a long-sought passageway that connects two giant cave systems in their little mountain town. But they're haunted by the history of a giant sinkhole that opened up and swallowed the town's fully-packed church, steeple and all. Dozens were killed, including Hudson’s grandfather. Hudson knows it's in danger of happening again; he just doesn't know when or where.

Can his caving instincts and science knowledge predict or prevent the next disaster? Are the shoddy logging practices of the town's main employer tempting fate? And who's on whose side when business and political shenanigans mix with evaded environmental codes?

FINALIEST - Forest of Reading, Silver Birch Award, 2025

FINALIST - Willow Awards, 2025

SELECTION - Best Books for Kids and Teens, 2025

Twelve-year-old Hope Graves can see the dead. But nobody believes her. Not even her best friend. When Hope and her mom move to the Gastown area of Vancouver, their new home isn't exactly as she imagined. The ancient apartment sits over a weird crystal shop, she misses her dad, and ghosts lurk around every corner. The worst part? The strange boy whose parents own the shop can see spirits too, and he won't stop bugging her about it.

Hope tries to avoid Oliver, but when a ghost appears in her bedroom with a haunting plea, he's the only person she can turn to for help. Trying to banish the spirit only leads them down a twisted path far more dangerous than any ghost. Something is hunting the souls of Gastown, and it's closing in on its next victim.

"If gambling intrigue, bear attacks, and political kleptocracy are at all your pet subjects, this may be the book you’ve been waiting for." — Jean Marc Ah-Sen, author of In the Beggarly Style of Imitation

In 1983, Elle is a blackjack dealer at an Alberta casino. At the same time, Amado is a baggage handler in Manila. When Amado witnesses the assassination of a prominent political figure in Manila, he flees to Canada and ends up in the same casino as Elle, disgruntled Hollander, Erik, and card counter and stalker, regrettable Calvin.

Over the next thirty years, the characters remain intimately connected as their stories and histories intersect. Told from alternating points of view, this puzzle-in-progress brings each character's pieces together that make up a whole picture that examines how everything from political espionage to intimate partner violence affects not only its direct participants but also its bystanders and witnesses.

Shortlisted for the 2021 Manuela Dias Book Design Award

A 2021 Manitoba Day Award Honorable Mention

Manitoba's history is one of being carved. Ice sculpted the land before nomadic first people pressed trails across it. Southern First Nations dug into the earth to grow corn and potatoes while those in the north mined it for quartz used in arrowheads. Fur traders arrived, expanding on Indigenous trading networks and shaping new ones. Then came settlers who chiselled the terrain with villages, towns and cities.

But there is failure and suffering etched into the history.

In Winnipeg, slums emerged as the city's population boomed. There were more workers than jobs and the pay was paltry. Immigrants and First Nations were treated as second-class, shunted to the fringes. Rebellions and strikes, political scandals and natural disasters occurred as the people molded Manitoba.

In The Lesser Known, Darren Bernhardt shares odd tales lost in time paired with archival images, such as The Tin Can Cathedral, the first independent Ukrainian church in North America; the jail cell hidden beneath a Winnipeg theatre; the bear pit of Confusion Corner; gardening competitions between fur trading forts and more.

Once deemed important enough to be documented, these stories are now buried. It’s time to carve away at them once again.

Giovanni Zappacosta-O'Hara suspects that there's more to his family's legacy than he's been told. His parents recount the history in devastating, scandalous and rollicking stories, while Gio and his boyfriend joke that there must be lies woven into the details. When his boyfriend is struck with cancer, the laughter stops. Gio can't bear watching the disease eat away his life, his sanity and the person he loves.

Full of shame, Gio flees to New York, using his family history as a feeble excuse — he’s going to get to the bottom of it. What happens next forces Gio to confront his cowardice and find a different motivation for his book: redemption. As he retells the stories, he discovers family secrets that make him question his identity. The hilarious and heartfelt characters he finds along the way give him surprising chances to get over himself — but will he take them?