DOCTalks Festival Presents Michael Crummey in Fredericton

The University of New Brunswick would like to invite you to a special documentary and panel discussion based on Newfoundland writer Michael Crummey's book of poetry, Hard Light, and his observations of rural outport culture and life in relationship to the past, and juxtaposed with present day modernity. This event is part of the DOCTalks Festival.

Panelists: Michael Crummey and Joan Clark
Moderator: Ross Leckie

Wednesday, February 27, 7pm, Memorial Hall, UNB
Admission: $5.00

For more information about the documentary Hard Light or about the DOCTalks Festival, click here.

Freedom to Read Week is This Week!

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event focused on the right of intellectual freedom through a variety of festivities, such as readings, discussions, and exhibitions across Canada. You can show your support by participating in a public event, getting involved through education, and/or ordering kits and posters.

 

"Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Schools and libraries are regularly asked to remove books and magazines from their shelves. Free expression on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read." 

 

Check out all the information at the website.

 

 

Writers' Federation of New Brunswick Contest Deadline Approaching

"If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to promote your writing, resolve to enter the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick’s 2013 Literary Competition. With over $2,000 in cash prizes to be awarded to top submissions of poetry and prose, the competition has been the launch pad for many published works since WFNB first welcomed entries in 1985.

Awards include: the new Douglas Kyle Memorial Prize for Short Fiction, valued at $500; the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, which awards $400 for the first place poetry manuscript; the Richards Prize, also valued at $400, for the winning fiction manuscript (either a collection of short stories, a short novel, or substantial portion of a longer novel); and the Sheree Fitch Prize for Fiction, which is open to young writers, up to age 18, and worth $100.

 

The competition is open to WFNB members and residents of New Brunswick. The deadline for entries is February 28, 2013.

 

For a complete list of prizes, contest rules and entry fees, visit www.wfnb.ca. 

 

Now in its 27th year, WFNB is the only organization that brings together writers in all disciplines and at all levels of development to recognize, encourage and promote New Brunswick writing."

A Review and a Reminder

Lori A. May at The Review Review reads The Fiddlehead's West Coast issue (no. 253), and she likes what she reads! She says, "The country may have beautifully distinguishable regions, yet the voices within them branch inward, outward, and transcend borders in original ways. Thus, this issue of The Fiddlehead is perfectly representative of the diversity of styles, voices, and approaches to writing in and about Canada."

You can read the full review on The Review Review's website.

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And for those of you in the Fredericton area, don't forget that Madeleine Thien reads Tuesday night at Alumni Memorial Hall at 8pm.

Madeleine Thien will read from her new novel, Dogs at the Perimeter. Thien is the author of two previous works of fiction, Simple Recipes (2001), a collection of short stories, and Certainty (2006), a novel. She has received the City of Vancouver Book Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Ovid Festival Prize, and her fiction and essays have been featured in Granta, The Walrus, and Brick. Thien lives in Montreal.

Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.

UNB Reading Series presents Madeleine Thien + Fiddlehead News

The University of New Brunswick would like to invite you to a special reading by Madeleine Thien. The reading will take place on Tuesday, February 5 at 8pm in the Alumni Memorial Lounge, University of New Brunswick.

Madeleine Thien will read from her new novel, Dogs at the Perimeter. Thien is the author of two previous works of fiction, Simple Recipes (2001), a collection of short stories, and Certainty (2006), a novel. She has received the City of Vancouver Book Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Ovid Festival Prize, and her fiction and essays have been featured in Granta, The Walrus, and Brick. Thien lives in Montreal.

Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.

Johanna Skibsrud, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, says this about Dogs at the Perimeter: "If you read one Canadian book this year, let it be this one."

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Contributor to The Fiddlehead no. 254 Tamas Dobozy was recently interviewed by Shelagh Rogers on her CBC program The Next Chapter. You can listen to the podcast here.

Winter Issue Newly Arrived from the Printer

No. 254 - Winter 2013

The Fiddlehead's winter issue has recently arrived at our office, and we're preparing to mail it out to our subscribers.

You don't want to miss this one!

Featuring an eye-catching painting by Grand Bay, NB artist Cliff Turner, and the usual fine selection of stories and poems from established and emerging writers, issue no. 254 is sure to help get you through the winter months entertained and enriched. 

Elizabeth Brewster, 1922-2012

Elizabeth Brewster (photo by Richard Marjan)

The news of the death of Elizabeth Brewster has saddened us at The Fiddlehead, and me in particular as editor.  During World War II Alfred Bailey organized a group known as the Bliss Carman Society to meet at his home to critique each other’s poetry, and Betty Brewster, as she was known, was a part of this group.  It was the idea of Don Gammon to form The Fiddlehead to publish the members of the group, and so Elizabeth Brewster joined in to found The Fiddlehead, which first appeared in 1945.  As far as I know, she was the last living member of the Bliss Carman Society.

A new poetic was given birth at these meetings of the Bliss Carman Society, one that would lead to a complete break with Canadian modernism.  Brewster was a leading figure in the formation of a poetry that is plainspoken, precise in its observations of everyday life, and rooted very much in place, as can be seen in her early New Brunswick poem, “Where I Come From.”

Brewster’s poems appeared in the very first Fiddlehead, and in memoriam we will be publishing some of her early work from those first issues in this coming spring number of The Fiddlehead.

Ross Leckie, Editor