Thursday, January 29, 2015

UNB Art Centre Celebrates Black History Month with Poet and Filmmaker Sylvia D. Hamilton

UNB ART CENTRE CELEBRATES BLACK HISTORY MONTH
FEBRUARY 2015

In celebration of Black History Month, the UNB Art Centre is pleased to welcome Sylvia D. Hamilton to Memorial Hall for a poetry reading on Thursday, February 5 at 7:00 PM. She is an award-winning filmmaker and acclaimed poet. Dr. Hamilton’s films have been screened on CBC, TVO, the Knowledge Channel, and on university campuses across the country. She has been honoured with many awards for her work, including a Gemini award, the CBC Television Pioneer Award, and Nova Scotia’s Portia White Prize for Excellence. Her collection of poetry, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, was published by Gaspereau Press in 2014.

Much of Dr. Hamilton’s work exposes the systemic racism that Black Canadians have experienced across the country. Her collection of poems, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, deals with the settlement of African peoples in Nova Scotia, and discusses the complex layers of the lives of early Black Nova Scotians and the generations that followed.

In addition to the reading, there will be a talk, and a lunchtime film series that will run from Monday, February 2 to Friday, February 6, screening Dr. Hamilton’s films as well as others related to the Black History of Canada. All films will be screened at Memorial Hall, starting at 12:00 PM.

On Monday, February 2, the UNB Art Centre will be screening Black Mother, Black Daughter (Dir: Sylvia Hamilton & Claire Prieto | National Film Board of Canada | Canada | 29 minutes). This film explores the lives of Black women in Nova Scotia, and the heritage they pass on to their daughters.

On Tuesday, February 3, the film will be Remember Africville (Dir: Shelagh Mackenzie | National Film Board of Canada | Canada | 35 minutes), a short film about Africville that was uprooted in the 1960s. Through archival photographs and films, Remember Africville tells the story of the relocation.

On Wednesday, February 4, join us for Journey to Justice (Dir: Roger McTair | National Film Board of Canada | Canada | 47 minutes), a documentary film profiling 6 Canadians who were instrumental in the legal battle for civil rights in Canada.

On Thursday, February 5, the film will be Sylvia Hamilton’s film Little Black Schoolhouse (Dir: Sylvia Hamilton | Maroon Films | Canada | 60 minutes), which exposes the segregation of schools in Nova Scotia and Ontario. The policies of segregation officially ended in the provinces in 1954 and 1964, respectively, but remained in operation as late as 1983, when the last segregated school closed in Nova Scotia. Dr. Hamilton will be present at the film, and participate in a question and answer session following the screening.

On Friday, February 6, the final film in the series, Speak it! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia (Dir: Sylvia Hamilton | National Film Board of Canada | Canada | 28 minutes), is also one of Sylvia Hamilton’s films. This piece looks at Black Nova Scotians at a predominately white high school in Halifax, the racism they experienced there, and the educational and cultural programs they develop to build self-esteem and cultural awareness.

On Friday, February 6, 12:30-1:50 p.m., Sylvia Hamilton will be giving a talk titled “Education: A Passport for the Future” at Marshall d’Avray Hall room 356.

The UNB Art Centre is located at Memorial Hall, 9 Bailey Drive, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. The galleries are open 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM weekdays and for special events. Admission is free to members of the public. Everyone welcome!

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Qwerty Launches New Issue!

Our friends at Qwerty, UNB's graduate student literary journal, are launching their new issue, no. 32, this Thursday, January 29 at 7pm down at Wilser's Room, 362 Queen St. There will be readings and Qwerty's redesign will be unveiled.

Also: the deadline for the chapbook contest jointly hosted by Qwerty and Echolocation is coming up very soon. Entries are due by January 31. For more details, see their Facebook page.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Introducing the Judges for The Fiddlehead's 24th Annual Literary Contest

We have now closed The Fiddlehead's Annual Literary contest, and we are thrilled to announce the panel of judges reading the submissions this year.

Fiction Judge

Craig Davidson, credit Kevin Kelly
Craig Davidson was born and grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario, near Niagara Falls. He has published three previous books of literary fiction: Rust and Bone, which was made into a feature film of the same name, The Fighter, and Sarah Court. Davidson is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, and his articles and journalism have been published in the National Post, Esquire, GQ, The Walrus, and The Washington Post, among other places. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his partner and their child.

Follow Craig's alter-ego on Twitter.



.

The Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize Judges

Jeramy Dodds
Jeramy Dodds grew up in Orono, Ontario, Canada. He is the winner of the 2006 Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award and the 2007 CBC Literary Award for poetry. His first collection of poems, Crabwise to the Hounds, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won the Trillium Book Award for poetry. He is a poetry editor at Coach House Books. His most recent publication is an English translation of the Poetic Edda. He is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the University of New Brunswick.

Follow Jeramy on Twitter: @jeramy_dodds




Sina Queyras







Sina Queyras is the author most recently of MxT. She lives and works in Montreal.

Follow Sina on Twitter.














Danny Jacobs
Danny Jacobs’ poems have been published in a variety of journals across Canada, including The Fiddlehead, Arc, Event, The Malahat Review, Grain, and Hazlitt, among others. He has also written reviews for Maisonneuve and Vallum. His first book, Songs That Remind Us of Factories
(Nightwood, 2013), was shortlisted for the 2014 Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry. Danny completed an MA in creative writing at The University of New Brunswick in 2008 (he did a fiction thesis) and went on to do an MLIS at Dalhouise (2011). Danny now lives with his wife in Riverview, NB and works as the librarian in the village of Petitcodiac.You can follow him on Twitter: @DannyJJacobs. 







And don't forget, The Fiddlehead is on Twitter too!

Contest winners (including the honourable mentions) will be featured in our Spring 2015 Issue No. 263.











Monday, January 19, 2015

Linden MacIntyre reads this Wednesday 8PM at UNB

The University of New Brunswick would like to invite you to a reading by the critically acclaimed novelist Linden MacIntyre, author of Punishment, published last year by Random House. In this new novel MacIntyre presents a powerful exploration of justice and vengeance, and the peril that ensues when passion replaces reason, in a small town shaken by a tragic death.

A Canadian journalist, broadcaster and novelist, MacIntyre has won eight Gemini Awards, an International Emmy, and numerous other awards for writing and journalistic excellence. His childhood memoir Causeway (2006) won The Evelyn Richardson Prize and The Edna Staebler Award for Non-Fiction. His fiction has included his bestselling novel The Long Stretch (1999), and The Bishop’s Man (2009), which was the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2010 Libris Fiction Book of the Year Award.

His reading will be held on Wednesday, January 21st at 8:00pm in the Bailey Auditorium, room 102 of Tilley Hall, on the UNB Fredericton Campus.

Admission is free and all are welcome to attend!

Monday, January 12, 2015

Fiddlehead News

The Ottawa Citizen has a story of its 15 most anticipated new fiction books, which features Fiddlehead fiction editor Mark Jarman who has a new book of stories Knife Party at the Hotel Europa coming out in March from Goose Lane Editions. Mark's book also is highly anticipated by The Toronto Star. In their Spring Lookahead, it is one of the top 25 books they can't wait to read.

Which book are you looking forward to this Spring?

*  *  *  *  *

And The Fiddlehead is now on Twitter. Follow us at @TheFiddlehd to keep up to date on all the scintillating literary happenings in Fiddlehead-land!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

UNB Reading Series Presents Kathleen Winter on January 14

The University of New Brunswick would like to invite you to hear a reading by the critically acclaimed writer Kathleen Winter, author of The Freedom in American Songs, published last year by Biblioasis. In this collection of stories, Winter employs her unusual sensuality, lyrically rendered settings, and subversive humour to examine themes of modern loneliness, small-town gay teens, catastrophic love, and the holiness of ordinary life.

Winter's novel, Annabel (2010), was a #1 bestseller in Canada, has been translated around the world, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Governor General’s Award, and won the Thomas Head Raddall Award. Her debut story collection, boYs (2007), won the Winterset Award and the Metcalf-Rooke Award. Her Arctic travel memoir, Boundless (House of Anansi), was published just last fall, and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

Her reading will be held on Wednesday, January 14th at 8:00pm in the Alumni Lounge of the Alumni Memorial Building on the UNB Fredericton Campus. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend!