Literary Salons at the 2011 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Scholars, researchers, students, artists, and performers from all over Canada and the world are coming to Fredericton for the 2011 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. This enormous conference will be held over the next ten days on the campuses of the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University. But Congress is not just a place where scholars present their latest findings (including research papers on The Fiddlehead!) to each other. Many events are open to the public including the Big Thinking lecture series, a special Bard in the Barracks production of Macbeth, and of course for lovers of literature a series of Literary Salon readings.

All the Literary Salons are free and open to everyone. They will take place in the lounge of Alumni Memorial Building from 6:00 to 7:30 pm. There will be refreshments and a cash bar.

• The  first Literary Salon will tonight (Friday 27 May) and will feature readings by Amanda Jenigan, James Langer, Natalie Meisner, Kathleen Brown, Chris Catchalian, Anita Lahey, Sharon McCartney, and Stephanie McKenzie.
• The second is on Saturday (28 May) and will have readings by Sue Sinclair, Anne Simpson, Warren Heiti, Heather Jessup, Kathy Mac, Ross Leckie, Tammy Armstrong, and David Hickey.
• The third is on Monday (30 May) and the readers will be Jess Ferguson, Tanis MacDonald, Norm Ravvin, Dave Brundage, Wanda Campbell, M. Travis Lane, Brian Henderson, and Kasia Juno.
• The fourth is Tuesday (31 May) and the readers will be Greg Shupak, Lorne Roberts, Nathan Dueck, Zhong Chen, Joe Blades, and Arpine Konyalian Grenier.

If you are in the Fredericton area do come by and see what the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences has to offer!

National Magazine Award Nomination

Congratulations to Sue Goyette, who has been nominated for the 2011 National Magazine Award in poetry for her three poems, “Disrupted,” “Recession,” and “Fog: Forgotten Names Begin Their Journey Home.” All three poems were published in The Fiddlehead 244 (Summer 2010). The 2011 National Magazine awards will be presented on June 10 at the annual banquet in Toronto.

The Fiddlehead 247 is Out!

Here in New Brunswick, there are signs of spring everywhere, the snow is rapidly becoming a distant memory, the fiddlehead ferns are popping up along the riverbanks, and The Fiddlehead contest issue – no. 247 – is out!

In addition to wonderful poems and stories from the contest, you will also find stories from Michael Laverty and Diana Swennes Smith and poems from Cory Brown, Geoffrey Cook, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Kim Trainor, Melissa Walker, and Darryl Whetter among others. There are also reviews of books authored by Robert Bringhurst, Chris Hutchinson, Vanessa Moeller, Michael Eden Reynolds, and Terence Young. The cover artwork is from Glenn Priestley’s "The Hill," which was commissioned in 2010 for the University of New Brunswick's C.C. Jones Student Services Centre by the Art for New Spaces Committee.

Pick a copy today and join the celebration!

This Week at The Fiddlehead

The final UNB Reading Series event of the semester is both a launch of The Best Canadian Poetry 2010 (which includes five poems first published in The Fiddlehead) and a farewell reading by John Barton, the 2010/2011 UNB writer-in-residence and one of The Fiddlehead poetry judges for the 2010 contest.

Also reading their poetry as part of the launch will be The Fiddlehead’s editor Ross Leckie, poets Anne Compton, and Allan Cooper. The reading takes place on Tuesday, April 12, at 8 p.m. in the East Gallery of Memorial Hall.

Steven Heighton The Fiddlehead’s 2010 Short Fiction Judge and 2010 National Magazine Award winner, is on The CBC program The Next Chapter. Check out Steven’s episode with Guy Gavriel Kay about social media and its affect on the creative process.

Celebrate National Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month and the League of Canadian Poets has organized a series of readings, performances, and displays that celebrate poets, libraries and twenty-five years of the Public Lending Right Commission. Check out the League’s National Poetry Month blog. Poems will be published all month on this year’s theme “nurture / nourrire” and there is a complete listing of poetry events organized in various public libraries across the country.

Can’t make one of the readings? The Public Lending Right Commission is publishing weekly podcasts of some of the readings.

The Fiddlehead no. 247 Spring Preview

The Spring 2011 issue of The Fiddlehead (no. 247) will be hitting the newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes in late April and early May. Featured in the issue are the winners and honourable mentions of our Twentieth Annual Literary Contest and new poetry and fiction from writers such as Darryl Whetter, Micheal Laverty, Richardo Pau-Llosa. The issue also contains reviews of Chris Hutchinson’s Other People’s Lives, Vanessa Moeller’s Our Extraordinary Monsters, Michael Eden Reynolds’ Slant Room, Terence Young’s The End of the Ice Age, and Robert Bringhurst’s Selected Poems.

New Brunswick artist Glenn Priestley’s The Hill graces the cover. This artwork was commissioned by University of New Brunswick’s Art for New Spaces Committee. If you are near UNB’s Fredericton campus, do drop by and see the actual painting in the C.C. Jones Student Services Centre.

Annabel Lyon's "The Golden Mean"

"This generation's answer to Alice Munro."  Annabel Lyon

 Annabel Lyon will be reading from book The Golden Mean at the UNB Reading Series on Tuesday March 22, at 8 pm in the Alumni Memorial Lounge.