The New Brunswick Literary Times

Le Pays de la Sagouine is searching for someone else to perform the iconic role of La Sagouine, which has been played for more than 40 years by Acadian artist Viola Leger.La Sagouine, one of author Antonine Maillet's best-loved characters, is described as a modest woman with an honest view of the world.

Harry Forestell talks with award winning children's author Sheree Fitch. She is one of today's special guests at the Peter Gzowski Invitational Golf Tournament for Literacy in Moncton.

While reading Pain, Porn and Complicity my mind kept returning to that bizarre Stephen Marche interview of Megan Fox in Esquire.  It was mysteriously bad.  It was doesn’t-make-sense bad.  At the ti...

It’s day 3 on the Fierce Ink Press Takeover Week. A quick description of what a ‘Fierce Short’ is before I get started on my review. To quote from the Fierce Ink Press website, “Fierce Shorts are c...

The exquisite craftsmanship of the words inside The Deer Yard match its beautiful exterior. The collection of 21 poems begins with an explanation of the format, which uses the Wang River Sequence as a model.

 

Lucy and I are heading to Fredericton, New Brunswick, in September for a gig as Writer in Residence at the University of New Brunswick (I am going to be the writer, Lucy will be the dog in residence). I’ll be there until May more or less. There will be no disruption in service to NC readers, except for the usual disruptions. I will dedicate a page on NC to my activities as WIR, readings, special workshops, parties and such. No doubt many of you will be chartering jets and buses (bring your passports).

New Brunswick is familiar ground to me. I taught philosophy at the University of New Brunswick in 1971-72. I worked as a reporter at the Evening Times-Globe, a daily newspaper in Saint John, 1972-73, my first (of many) newspaper jobs. I was the Writer in Residence for a year at the university in the the late 1980s. The Saint John River Valley is a beautiful and mysterious place to me. I particularly love walking home down University Avenue late in the evening on a fall night. And I have many friends there. My longtime, loyal, and beloved publisher, Goose Lane Editions, is located in Fredericton. I’ll be living in Mark Anthony Jarman‘s vast warren of a house on Waterloo Row (another denizen is NC Senior Editor R. W. Gray). NC’s famous weight-lifting poet Sharon McCartney also lives in Fredericton. As does Gerard Beirne among others including several contributors to the NC at the Movies slot.

As an avid devourer of pop culture, I occasionally like to pry myself back and take a critical look at what it is I am so rabidly consuming.

Kerry-Lee Powell was born in Montreal and grew up in Antigua and the United Kingdom, where she received a BA in Medieval and Renaissance Literature and an MA in Writing and Literature from Cardiff University. Her poetry has appeared in The Spectator, Magma, and Ambit. Her fiction has been published in The Boston Review, The Malahat Review and the Virago Press Writing Women series. In 2012, she was nominated for a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize. In 2013, she won The Boston Review fiction contest and the Alfred G. Bailey manuscript prize. She is currently writing a book of short fiction and a novel. Her debut collection of poetry is forthcoming from Biblioasis Press in 2014.

Songs That Remind Us of Factories (Paperback; $18.95): The poems in Songs that Remind Us of Factories explore how we
remain connected: to the world outside, to our ideas of home, to
each other, an...

New Brunswick poet Sharon McCartney’s fifth collection uses weightlifting as its central metaphor to explore both interiority and relationships. McCartney’s poetic voice is direct, confessional, and, at times, philosophical, examining the nuances of family dynamics, romance, friendship, and illness. These lyric narratives are structured in single-stanza bursts of emotion and infused with plenty of raw vulnerability, as in the strong opening poem, “Deadlift,” and the sequence titled “Married Man.”

The first half of the collection is ordered according to the subject of bodybuilding, examining the paradoxical notion that pain creates strength and power – both literally and figuratively – in scar tissue. The second half, the “Married Man” series, is the stronger of the two. These poems explore a romance with directness and emotional punch, using more concrete language than can be found in some of the poems in the first section. This specificity pays off in immediacy and impact.  

New Brunswick Public Library Service invites everyone to join in an exciting reading challenge that’s popping up in libraries all across the province, Read Around New Brunswick. Read Around New Brunswick challenges participants to read books set in, or written by authors from, six New Brunswick regions inspired by the province’s scenic drives: North, Acadian Coast, Miramichi Valley, Southeast, Fundy Coast and the Saint John River Valley.

Pain, Porn and Complicity contains five essays by Kathleen McConnell: Containing People for Popular Consumption: Echoes of Pygmalion and “Rape of the Lock” in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence Chaos at the Mouth of Hell: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Columbine High School Massacre Flex and Stretch: The Inevitable Feminist Treatise on Catwoman Dark Angel: A Recombinant Pygmalion for the Twenty-First Century The Twilight Quartet: Romance, Porn, Pain and Complicity - 

Congratulations to Kerry-Lee Powell (Moncton, NB) on winning the 2013 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction with her entry, “Palace of the Brine.” The Far Horizons Award celebrates the achievement of emerging writers who have yet to publish their fiction in book form.

Powell’s short story will be published in our Fall 2013 issue (#184). Final judgeAlissa York (Toronto) chose her story from 295 entries. York said: “'Palace of the Brine' is a literary high-wire act, not for the faint of heart. The denizens of the crumbling Coronet Hotel are at home with brutality

"IN A CLOUD OF DUST AND SMOKE is a beautiful novel, written from the heart – it has a wonderful truth to it. The author handles the story of a young boy in love better than anyone else I've ever read." FRED COGSWELL, poet & critic ........ "A fine, fine book—well-written, provocative, engaging." MICHAEL HOLMES, ECW Press ........ "A touching and often very funny story." MARGARET DAVIS, Spotlight-Verlag ........ "Endearing and engaging... provides a nuanced insight into a time that will never return." ANNE INGRAM, The Gleaner ........ "This is a personal, moving, and emotionally taut novel. Drawing from his own experiences, Fraser imbues his story with a raw honest humanity." ATLANTIC CANADA'S 100 GREATEST BOOKS

When? 7pm on August 1, 2013 (as part ofDowntown Fredericton's Culture Crawl)

Where? Gallery 78, 796 Queen St., Fredericton

Please drop by Gallery 78 August 1 for a launch and celebration of a very specialSummer Fiction Issue of The Fiddlehead, an issue which boasts new stories from Dan Woodrell (writer of Oscar winner Winter’s Bone), Craig Davidson (writer of the filmRust and Bone and a UNB grad), local bard and Flat-Earther Ray Fraser, and three accomplished Irish writers, Mary O’Donnell, Mike McCormack and Eoin McNamee, the latter a Man Booker Prize nominee