Happy Holidays!

The Fiddlehead office is closing for the holiday season.

On behalf of the editors and staff, we wish you safe and happy holidays. And we wish you all the best for 2015!

An Interview with Charlie Fiset, contributor to Fiddlehead 261 (Autumn 2014)

No. 261, Autumn 2014

The Autumn 2014 issue of The Fiddlehead, No. 261, features a story by UNB Alumni, and current student, Charlie Fiset. This story, entitled “Maggie’s Farm,” is a fictitious account based on Fiset’s own European travels, imbued with a Greek mythological theme drawn from Homer’s Odyssey. This story was originally part of Fiset’s creative thesis for her MA in Creative Writing.

Charlie Fiset is now in her first year of PhD studies at UNB. Originally from Kirkland Lake in northern Ontario, she has her undergrad degree in Classics and English from Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario. “Maggie’s Farm” is her first publication, but she has another story upcoming in The Fiddlehead's summer 2015 fiction issue. That story is about gold-mining and Persephone’s katabasis to the Underworld.

Fiset was kind enough to offer some insight into “Maggie’s Farm” and her creative process, in response to the following questions.

Greg Brown
Editorial Assistant
The Fiddlehead

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Greg Brown: What types of stories or works do you like to read, and which ones inspire you? 

Charlie Fiset: I love epic poems, Ernest Hemingway, and Flannery O’Connor.

GB: What types of stories do you like to write?

CF: Long-short ones!

GB: Does your current dissertation inform your writing at all? And if so, in what way?

CF: My dissertation will be a comparative study of epiphany in the epics of Pound, H.D., and Eliot. I find modern epicists interesting because of the manner in which they consider the history of knowledge; in studying modern epics you’re able to study particular vantages on epistemology since the time of Homer. Pound begins The Cantos in medias res, when Odysseus and his shipmates are leaving Circe’s island. This modernist refiguring of The Odyssey inspired me to refigure my own experiences in an Odyssean frame. I got the idea from Dr. Demetres Tryphonopoulos’ study of The Cantos called The Celestial Tradition.

UNB Reading Series: Michael Crummey Reads on November 25! And more!

The University of New Brunswick invites you to a public reading by award-winning Newfoundland author, Michael Crummey! Join us on Tuesday, November 25th, 2014 at 8:00pm in Tilley Hall 102 (Bailey Auditorium) on the UNB Fredericton campus.

Michael Crummey is an accomplished author who grew up in Wabush, Labrador. He has published several books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, including Hard Light, River Thieves, and Galore. His most recent novel, Sweetland, was shortlisted for the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Award; it tells the story of Moses Sweetland—a resident of a small island off the coast of Newfoundland that shares his family name — who fakes his own death in order to avoid forced resettlement by the Newfoundland government. Sweetland is described in the National Post as having a “focus on a contemporary story, imbuing it with the force and weight of history and myth.”

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Catching up on some local news . . . Fiddlehead fiction editor Mark Jarman, who has a new book forthcoming with Goose Lane Editions in 2015, recently read excerpts at two Goose Lane 60th anniversary parties in Fredericton and Toronto. You can read a roundup of the Toronto celebration at Descant's blog! And you can check out some of his work at Numéro Cinq.

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And Qwerty, UNB's graduate student magazine, is launching its issue 32, on Thursday, November 26th at 7pm in Fredericton's Wilser's Room, 366 Queen Street.

Our Autumn Issue is Out!

The Fiddlehead no. 261 (Autumn 2014)

The Fiddlehead's autumn issue is now on its journey to subscribers' mailboxes and available at newsstands across the country. Visit our website now for a glimpse at the table of contents and a few excerpts from the issue.

As you can see by our cover image, we're celebrating Alistair MacLeod. We've republished "The Vastness of the Dark," his second-ever published story, which appeared in The Fiddlehead back in 1971. It is republished with the permission of Penguin Random House.

In this issue you will find tributes to Alistair MacLeod from editor Ross Leckie, fiction co-editor Mark Anthony Jarman, and friends Douglas Gibson and D.R. MacDonald. You will also find the best poetry and fiction we could find: Stephanie Yorke, Brian Bartlett, Richard Cumyn, Catherine Graham, and Kerry-Lee Powell to name only a few!

Congratulations to another of our contributors to this issue, Michael Prior, who has just won The Walrus poetry prize!

In other contributor news, congratulations to Anne Compton, most recently featured in our Summer Poetry issue (no. 260). Anne has just been awarded New Brunswick's 2014 Lieutenant-Governor's Award for High Achievement in English Language Literary Arts.

One Month Left to Submit to The Fiddlehead's 24th Annual Contest

We don't want to scare you (although it is almost Halloween!), but there is just over one month left to submit to The Fiddlehead's 24th Annual Contest. Full details are on our website, but here are the important ones:

The contest deadline is December 1, 2014 (postmarked).

There are two categories, short fiction and poetry.

The winning entries in each category take home $2000 + publication payment ($40/page).

There are two honourable mentions in each category — each win $250 each + publication payment ($40/page).

The total of all prizes equals $5000!

The winning entries will be published in next Spring's issue, no. 263.

You receive a subscription to The Fiddlehead just for entering!

The fiction judge is Craig Davidson.

The poetry judges are Jeremy Dodds, Danny Jacobs, and Sina Queyras.

Happy Halloween!

Two more readings in Fredericton this week: Qwerty Reads and Greg Bechtel

On Thursday, October 23, Qwerty, the UNB graduate student literary journal, hosts this year's first edition of QWERTY READS. We will be featuring the talent of UNB's English and Creative writing program, along with the book launch of Claire Kelly's poetry collection, Ur-Moth.

Come to the Wilser's Room of The Capital Complex at 7PM to enjoy the cash bar and plenty of time to socialize throughout the night. Here are this month's readers:

Reid Lodge
Michael Meagher
Clair Kelly

Invite your friends! We hope to see you all at the event.

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The University of New Brunswick invites you to a free public reading by UNB alumnus Greg Bechtel! We hope you will join us on Friday, October 24th, at 8:00pm at the Alumni Lounge in UNB Fredericton’s Alumni Memorial Building.

Greg Bechtel graduated from UNB in 2004 with an MA in English (Creative Writing) and is very excited to return to Fredericton to read from his first book, Boundary Problems, which was published earlier this year by Freehand Books. UNB professor Mark Jarman describes Bechtel’s book as “a chaotic collection with comic touches, a paranoid Pynchonesque mix-tape of hosers and hipster cafes, office jobs and summer camp confessions, lit theory and online porn. Boundary problems? No problem for Greg Bechtel; his debut is wild, sly, and magnetic.” We look forward to seeing you at this reading!

Readings in Fredericton this Week: Brian Bartlett, Ann Eriksson, and Gary Geddes

Brain Bartlett reads at UNB on Tuesday evening, and Ann Eriksson and Gary Geddes read at Westminster Books on Wednesday evening.

The University of New Brunswick invites you to a public reading by award-winning poet Brian Bartlett! Join us on Tuesday, October 14th, at 8:00pm at the Alumni Lounge in UNB Fredericton’s Alumni Memorial Building.

Brian Bartlett is currently a Professor of English at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, but grew up in New Brunswick and completed his first degree at UNB. He is the author of seven collections and five chapbooks of poetry, and is also the editor of several other works of prose and poetry. Bartlett’s newest book, Ringing Here and There: A Nature Calendar, is his first published book of prose; it presents a full year of daily journals speaking to the human connection to the natural world.

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British Columbia-based authors Ann Eriksson and Gary Geddes are embarking on a cross-Canada book tour this fall, covering over twenty-five stops from B.C. to the Maritimes in two months. Join the authors for an evening of fiction and poetry in Fredericton, as they read at Westminster Books (445 King Street) on Wednesday, October 15 at 7pm. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Both members of this impressive husband-and-wife team have released new books this year. Eriksson’s High Clear Bell of Morning (Douglas & McIntyre, $22.95) is an elegant, affecting novel about a family struggling to cope when the daughter, Ruby, develops schizophrenia. The book also draws on environmental themes through the character of Ruby’s father, a marine biologist studying the mysterious death of a killer whale on our west coast. Geddes’ What Does a House Want? (Red Hen Press, $19.95) is a collection of selected poems from his highly acclaimed poetic career.

Ann Eriksson is the author of three previous novels: Decomposing Maggie (Turnstone, 2003), In the Hands of Anubis (Brindle & Glass, 2009) and Falling From Grace (Brindle & Glass, 2011), which was awarded a silver medal in the 2011 Independent Publishers Book Awards. Eriksson is a biologist and a founding director of the Thetis Island Nature Conservancy. For more info, go to: www.anneriksson.ca.

Gary Geddes has written and edited more than forty books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, criticism, translation, and anthologies, and won a dozen national and international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region), and the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.

This reading event is made possible with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. For more information, contact Westminster Books at 506-454-1442 or info@westminsterbooks.com.