The 93-seat licensed venue at Aqua Books has been described as 'the best sounding room in the city' by jazz great Prof. Steve Kirby. An acoustic tile ceiling, carpeted floor and wood-panelled walls give the room its unique warm sound, and make it perfect for roots, world, classical or jazz performances. Writer (and famous son of a famous son) Noah Richler anointed Aqua Books 'one of the craziest, most amusing and well-ordered second-hand bookstores I have ever frequented' in the Toronto Star. And truly, over the last decade, Aqua Books has become Winnipeg's most beloved bookstore. A fierce bastion of Winnipeg culture, Aqua is Downtown Winnipeg's largest bookstore, nestled in the benevolent capitalist shadow of Portage and Main. The former Chinese restaurant at 274 Garry Street is now nearly 10,000 square feet of activity. Red Seal Chef Candace Hughes serves up plates full of joy at the onsite EAT! bistro (one of Ciao! magazine's best new restaurants of 2008). Meanwhile, Bookstore Owner Kelly Hughes dishes up his brand of aggressive common sense in This Week at Aqua Books and interviews Canadian greats like Tina Keeper and Kevin McDonald onstage at Kelly Hughes Live!. (While selling a few books on the side.) Aqua Books is Western Canada's second-busiest arts and cultural venue (Banff is #1), seeing an audience of over ten thousand people at three hundred and fifty readings, book launches, meetings, workshops, concerts, plays, film screenings, lectures and shows every year. Our regular series schedule of storytelling (Stone Soup, Telling Tales), readings (Aqua Books Lansdowne series, Mondo!Poetry, Bons mots serie litteraire, Anthology), open mic (Speaking Crow, Soapbox), lectures (ideaExchange, Aqua U.), and music (Kelly Hughes Live!, feat.), is filled out by participation in larger events like the Winnipeg International Writers Festival and the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. We also work with small theatre groups, arts organizations and multicultural associations. Our partners include the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, U of M Jazz Studies, the Manitoba Writers' Guild, Manitoba Independent Songwriters Circle, the Manitoba Editors' Association, the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, and the U of M's Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture. Aqua Books is truly Winnipeg's Cultural City Hall. In keeping with our commitment to Winnipeg's creative spirit, we also sponsor the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. (Le Prix de poésie Lansdowne de Aqua Books) Our poetry award is one of the few bilingual honours at the Manitoba Writing and Publishing Awards, and carries a $1000 cash prize. The new Aqua Books also has writers' studios that we use for our artists-, writers- and songwriters-in-residence.