Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 28, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba C2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMTUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2025 Percival Everett’s James wins Carnegie Medal for fiction N EW YORK — For author Percival Everett, libraries have long been a source of knowledge and discovery and pleasure, even of the forbidden kind. “I remember making friends at age 13 with the librarian at the Univer- sity of South Carolina, and she used to let me go through the stacks when I wasn’t supposed to,” Everett, who spent part of his childhood in Colum- bia, said during a telephone interview Sunday. “One of the wonderful things about libraries is that when you’re looking for one book, it’s surrounded by other books that may not be connected to it. That’s what you get (online) with links, but (in libraries) no one’s decided what the links are.” Everett’s latest honour comes from the country’s public libraries. On Sun- day, the American Library Association announced that Everett’s James was this year’s winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, which includes a US$5,000 cash award. Kevin Fedarko’s A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadven- ture in the Grand Canyon was chosen for non-fiction. Everett’s acclaimed reworking of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspec- tive of Jim, Huck Finn’s enslaved companion, has already received the U.S. National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize and is a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award. James has even topped the New York Times fiction hardcover list, a rare feat in recent years for a literary work that wasn’t a major book club pick or movie tie-in. “Percival Everett has written a modern masterpiece, a beautiful and important work that offers a fresh perspective from the eyes of a classic character,” Allison Escoto, chair of the award’s selection committee, said in a statement. “Kevin Fedarko’s unforget- table journey through the otherworldly depths of the Grand Canyon shows us the triumphs and pitfalls of exploration and illuminates the many vital lessons we can all learn from our precious natural world.” Fedarko is a former Time magazine correspondent whose work also has appeared in the New York Times and Esquire. A Pittsburgh native fascinated by distant places, Fedarko has a long history with libraries — Carnegie libraries. He remembers visiting two while growing up, notably one in the suburb of Oakmont near the hairdress- ing salon his parents ran. He would read biographies of historical figures from George Washington to Daniel Boone, and otherwise think of libraries as “important threads running through his life,” windows to a “wider world.” Now a resident of Flagstaff, Ariz., Fedarko says that he relied in part on the library at the nearby Northern Arizona University campus for both A Walk in the Park and its predecessor, also about the Grand Canyon, The Emerald Mile. “The library has an important and unique collection about the Grand Can- yon, and it’s the backbone of the kind of history that helps form the frame- work of both books,” he says. “Neither of them could have been done without the library.” Previous winners of the medals, established in 2012 with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, includes Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit. This year’s finalists besides James in the fiction category were Jiaming Tang’s Cinema Love and Kavin Ak- bar’s Martyr! Adam Higginbotham’s Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disas- ter on the Edge of Space and Emily Nussbaum’s Cue the Sun! The Inven- tion of Reality TV were the non-fiction runners-up. All three fiction nominees were pub- lished by Penguin Random House and all three non-fiction finalists by Simon & Schuster. — The Associated Press HILLEL ITALIE ALBERTO PEZZALI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES James, a retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has garnered many awards. Publisher drops Neil Gaiman amid sexual assault allegations NEIL Gaiman has been dropped by his publisher, Dark Horse Comics, amid mounting sexual assault accusations against the acclaimed fantasy writer. In a brief statement on X late Friday night, the publisher said it “takes seri- ously the allegations” against Gaiman and would be “no longer publishing his works.” “Confirming that the Anansi Boys comic series and collected volume have been cancelled,” the statement concluded. Bombshell claims against the 64-year-old Sandman and Coraline scribe first came to light last summer in the podcast series Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman. Two alleged victims, a former nanny and a fan, said they were sexually assault- ed and abused while in consensual relationships with the English author. Additional women came forward shortly after the first set of episodes was released. Further allegations were detailed in a Vulture exposé earlier this month, with eight women accusing the self-proclaimed feminist writer of sexual assault. Four of those women also spoke with the podcast. Many of the women said Gaiman forced them into rough sex and BDSM activities that had not been consented to beforehand. One of the alleged vic- tims, a former babysitter for Gaiman’s son, claimed she was sexually assault- ed on the first day she met him. The abuse continued, she said, sometimes in the presence of the young boy. Gaiman has denied all the allega- tions against him. “I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever,” he wrote in a statement on his website, while acknowledging that he may have been “careless with people’s hearts and feelings.” “At the same time, as I reflect on my past — and as I re-review everything that actually happened as opposed to what is being alleged — I don’t accept there was any abuse,” he concluded. The television adaption of Anansi Boys is still expected to hit Prime Vid- eo later this year. The third season of Good Omens, based on Gaiman’s 1990 novel of the same name, was cut short last fall amid the allegations. — New York Daily News JAMI GANZ THEO WARGO / GETTY IMAGES Coraline author Neil Gaiman, 64, has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women. BUFFALO GAL ● FROM C1 CORY WOJCIK ● FROM C1 For years, those cassettes were happy memories, but when Wojcik and his family cleared out their St. James home several years after their matriarch’s death, they resur- faced as rewindable reminders of a giving spirit gone quiet. “They were in a big plastic tub be- hind the washing machines,” recalls Wojcik, who didn’t consider himself a particularly nostalgic person until he reached his 40s. There was so much to sort through that Wojcik felt overwhelmed. “I was thinking, let’s get this place cleared out so we can get on with our day,” says Wojcik. “But my sister, she was the one who was making sure we were cautious and really thinking through what we’re doing. She’s the one who said, ‘Don’t throw out those mixtapes.’” Wojcik listened, and the cassettes’ content became the lyrical basis for Wojcik’s most enduring work as a writer and performer. The musical, featuring Wojcik and a live band, premièred at the 2019 Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival in a fitting location: X-Cues, a Sargent Ave- nue institution that resembled the types of venues Wojcik’s uncle’s band played and where his mother listened, always a No. 1 fan. “Sharing a story this deeply personal on a public stage can be a challenge for any actor, but Wojcik is the type of performer whose charisma draws in the audience to create an immediate emotional connection,” Matt Schaubroeck wrote in his five-star Free Press review. Since then, the show’s lived on, visiting several Manitoba small towns — including Sherri Wojcik’s birthplace of Crystal City — as the RMTC’s touring production last year. While the boombox style has be- come one of the show’s trademarks, Wojcik originally intended to devel- op a musical featuring only original songs. “But there are only so many sad songs you can write,” he says. “And I was like, ‘Nobody wants to see a guy get up onstage and bleed for an hour.’” So Wojcik leaned on his fringe director, Mariam Bernstein, along with his friend and now-Warehouse director Trish Cooper for feedback, he says. They encouraged him to lean into the humour and joy of nostalgia, not only the pain. During that fringe run, each per- formance required such emotional investment that Wojcik had difficul- ty waking up the morning after. But over time, Wojcik says he’s gotten a lot of strength from listening to au- dience members who’ve connected with the work and felt comfortable sharing their own stories of grief with him. “Every time I do this show, I bring my mom with me,” says Wo- jcik, who won’t ever say never, but figures that this run of Mix Tapes will be the show’s last with him as a performer. “Eventually, you’ve got to say goodbye,” he says. ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com The cross-border collaboration enables the company to cast a wider net to find and commission original projects to pitch to networks and streamers, which, if greenlit, will then move into Buffalo Gal’s produc- tion queue. “It allows Jen to ensure the devel- opment pipeline and the pipeline of intellectual property and content doesn’t stop,” Laing says. “It makes it far more seamless for us both.” “It’s basically no rest for the wick- ed,” Beasley adds. While the Los Angeles wildfires have wreaked havoc on Hollywood, Fiasco’s work has, so far, been unaf- fected. As company president, Beasley — whose credits include The Spen- cer Sisters, Acting Good and Guy Maddin’s Rumours — is focused on immersive, character-driven stories that offer audiences a sense of escapism. Fiasco already has several projects in development, including a workplace comedy from Garry Campbell (North of North, Kids in the Hall) and a comedic police pro- cedural from Hollis Ludlow-Carroll (Wong & Winchester). Fiasco launches during Buffalo Gal’s 30th anniversary. Beasley says “it’s amazing” to have the backing of an established local production company. “The amount of experience I’ve picked up working here adds that credibility to the venture I’m starting,” she says. “Buffalo Gal was creating female-led projects before it was the ‘in thing’ — that’s a legacy I’m really proud to continue.” Laing founded the company in 1994, when a shift to digital broadcasting was spurring a need for more televi- sion programming. Over the last 30 years, she has overseen the produc- tion of thousands of hours of film and television, including documentaries on iconic Manitoba authors Margaret Laurence and Gabrielle Roy, as well as feature-length projects My Winni- peg, Siberia and Flag Day. The launch of Fiasco is the latest expansion for Buffalo Gal, which also partnered with Tina Keeper in 2010 to create Kistikan Pictures, a production outfit focused on develop- ing Indigenous film and TV content. “Right from the very beginning, we’ve always looked at what the con- tent is, who the creators are and who the directors are — the hallmark of Buffalo Gal is the creative under- pinnings of the storytelling,” Laing says. “We look forward to continuing to work with passionate voices and continue growing in different ways.” eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS Jennifer Beasley (right) is the inaugural president of Fiasco Global Media, a new TV-focused venture from Phyllis Laing’s Buffalo Gal Pictures. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Mixtapes From My Mom is based on cassettes Cory Wojcik’s late mother made him. ‘There are only so many sad songs you can write’ — Cory Wojcik ARTS ● LIFE I ENTERTAINMENT ;