This week, a library full of writerly types will converge on the city. The man who introduced the word 'cyberpunk' to the dictionary, William Gibson, will be dropping by a downtown bookstore while CBC's book diva, Eleanor Wachtel, will spend an evening talking about her friendship with the late Carol Shields. National institution Roch Carrier, author of the iconic children's short story The Hockey Sweater, will offer some Family Story Time at the Millennium Library while city disc-spinner DJ Coda will be laying tracks late one night.

All this activity can only mean it's time for Thin Air, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. Every September, a huge number of literature lovers convene at The Forks and then spread out over the city. At the centre of it all is festival director Charlene Diehl, spinning wildly like a top.

For the past few years, Diehl has been bringing all these personalities together as the artistic director of the festival. Presumably, that wasn't enough on her plate, so this year she's in charge of the whole shebang - simply titled director, period. With the festival quickly approaching, Diehl miraculously found some time to talk about this year's edition.

"It's more work for me," Diehl says of her augmented duties. "But you know what? I'm able to see more clearly how all the parts connect.

"It's a huge team effort," she's quick to add, perhaps fearing her staff's wrath if she takes too much credit. "It's a really strong team. There's a lot of enthusiasm for this work."

The event will feature morning and afternoon events for schools, and noon readings at the Millennium Library. There are the classic mainstage events in the evenings at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People followed by some late-night, genre-twisting goings-on.

"The festival offers a very varied palette," Diehl says. "There's a lot of interesting daytime stuff for people who don't want to go out at night. And there's a lot of uptown stuff for people who want to go to a theatre because they think writers should be onstage."

One series that's been given a new twist is After Words, a more unstructured, even surprising gig. (Last year, George Elliot Clarke gave a memorably hot-bloode impromptu reading of the Song of Solomon.) It's been moved to The Cyrk, the West Broadway private home/performing space that is the brainchild of psychotherapist/spoken word performer Darek Dawda.

Diehl is looking forward to seeing how the popular series adjusts to its new home.

"I really wanted to take advantage of a really interesting performance space," she says. "It's like the house party goes literary. It's a miniseries where I could draw on performing writers."

Diehl is known for her enthusiasm, and this year she's practically head over heels with excitement.

"I feel as a show, (Thin Air has) really found its wings. This year, there's nothing brand new but all the parts are in the right place."

Attention bookworms
Here are some of the writerly events you should check out at Thin Air

There's a lot going on at different times at all sorts of different places during Thin Air 2007, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival.

Here's what I happen to be looking forward to:

Opening night, Sept. 23, features work written especially for the Festival. Wayne Tefs, J.R. Leveille, Rosanna Deerchild, Darek Dawda, and Pamela Banting will be at Oodena, the amphitheatre at The Forks, starting at 7 p.m. (If the weather's lousy, it'll be inside the Forks Market.)

Mainstage events at Manitoba Theatre for Young People are the core of the Festival and I'm especially looking forward to the show at 8 p.m. on Sept. 24. Shauna Singh Baldwin has won prizes all over the world for her writing, but look out for Brian Henderson, whose new book is a poetic exploration of madness, as well as Jim Nason, whose debut novel features a homecare worker and his colourful array of clients.

If you're downtown on the afternoon of Sept. 25, you just might want to drop by the Millennium Library. Festival staff have been talking up Alice Kuipers' "deceptively simple" novel which consists entirely of notes left by a mother and daughter on the family refrigerator.

Helas, je parle francais comme un vache espagnole, but if my French was better, I'd be at the Centre cultural franco-manitobain at 8 p.m. Sept. 26. The evening is called "La plume et le pinceau," and even I can figure out that it's got to be some intriguing combination of the literary and visual arts.

Finally, for a more serendipitous festival experience, I might just want to hang out at The Forks all week. That's festival HQ, and most of the participants will be there at one point or another. Spend some time there and you'll see practically everyone. It's kind of like Yorkville during the Toronto International Film Festival - only with bookworms.