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In January 2011, Editorial Assistant Peter Forestell sat down with John Barton, poet, editor of The Malahat Review, and the University of New Brunswick's 2010-11 writer-in-residence, to talk about his latest book of poems, Hymn, as well as the politics of being a gay writer in Canada.

The winter 2011 issue of The Fiddlehead (no. 246) will be mailed out to subscribers and on the newsstands in January. Enjoy the five stories: Greg Bechtel’s “The Mysterious East (Fredericton, NB),” Marjorie Celona’s “Big Sex,” Michael Doyle’s “The Disappearing Man,” Sheila McClarty’s “Stolen,” and Shane Neilson’s “Freight.”

Turn to the poetry and read new works from fifteen poets including Jan Zwicky, Jack Hannan, Christine Lowther and Shane Rhodes. There are also reviews and Anna Cameron’s wonderful artwork, “Untitled V” graces the cover.

By Matt Mott

Set small, specific goals like write a scene with a lamp, a dog, and blue sedan. Remember, education is about drills and jumping through hoops. Most of those hoops are going to be completely arbitrary, just like lifting a dumb-bell up and down is completely arbitrary, but arbitrary hoops provide practice, and you need to practice creativity to develop it as a skill. Editing comes later. Learn to just grow a story first. . . .

By Matt Mott

You can’t teach someone to be a good writer per se, but you can teach people, or rather train people, to regularly access the creative side of their brain. You’d think this would come eventually as you write more and more stories (however failed those stories may be), but this is not always the case. . . .

By Matt Mott

Just because the likelihood of something being good is very low doesn’t mean you should look down on it. Every once in a while something comes along that combines sharp, smart composition with more-leaning-towards-straight-up-fun content, the result being a piece of art that just plain rocks! Case in point, The Walking Dead — a weekly late night series that you can catch on AMC Sunday nights.

And Ross Leckie, editor of The Fiddlehead also has a poem in Best Canadian. Thanks to Lorna Crozier for taking on the task of editing the book. It's a lot of work.

Five poems first published in The Fiddlehead were selected for inclusion in The Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2010, edited by Lorna Crozier and published by Tightrope Books.

The five authors and poems are:

Congratulations to Daryl Hine and Sandy Pool! Their poetry collections, &: A Serial Poem and Exploding into Night, were shortlisted for Governor General’s Literary Award in Poetry.