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Days before The Fiddlehead celebrated its 80th anniversary, the current managing editor of the magazine, Ian LeTourneau, was cleaning out a desk when he discovered an old tape labeled "Fiddlehead 50th Anniversary Feb 27/95."

I have been a fan of Abigail Thomas ever since I read her memoir, “Three Dog Life,” years ago. I recently re-read it along with everything else of hers I could find. I just finished her latest, “Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing,” with a beautiful photo of her multi-lined face on the cover and a beloved dog in her lap. I love her for the way she observes her life in moments, nothing longer than a few pages, exploring how she came to be the person she is. The everyday and the ordinary are her territory, and where her mind goes “when it’s off-leash,” as she says.

Leonard Cohen almost always ends up on my Spotify Wrapped. His gritty, sensual, laconic, husky voice resonates with my melancholic spirit. His music is enduring—sardonic, philosophical, and rhetorical. It’s his refusal to be boxed in that draws me in: his waltzing numbers, pacing and bringing in the unconventional—accordion and string quartets, diverse cultural influences, the dark comedy, and, of course, a relentless inquiry. I’m also a sucker for a good synthesizer.     

I order oodles of books from the library.  

The regional library system where I live spans dozens of communities across many islands, so there’s often a big lag between my request and the appearance of a book on the hold shelf at my miniature local branch. Sometimes its hard to reconstruct my literary breadcrumb trail—to remember why I wanted a particular title, but that wasn’t the case with Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc.  

My first shazam was a Stromae banger, Alors On Danse. I was at a red light hoping Shazam would find the tune before I had to drop my phone and drive. Success! Great beat, gorgeous voice, and content that made me feel something – all the more as I translated from the French. Someone on Youtube wrote, “Guy writes one of the most genius cynical takes about the false relief of clubbing. Ironically becomes one of the biggest club hits.” Exactly. 

Thank you to everyone who came out to the Fredericton Public Library this weekend to celebrate our 80 Years of Art at The Fiddlehead Gallery Opening and Winter Issue Launch! We were thrilled to see how many people were excited to celebrate the journal with us.

I’ve been reading Rob Taylor’s poetry for years and have been looking forward to his latest, Weather (Gaspereau Press, 2024). Now, once again I’m struck by his poetry’s honesty, heart, and honed insights. That’s the thing about news-- / you’ve heard it before, Taylor wrote previously (in The News) but here his poetic updates are fresh with previously unreported advancements.  

I arrived at Laura Cumming’s beautiful book, Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death, just before it won the 2024 Writers’ Prize for Non-Fiction. I had lovingly remembered her previous book, On Chapel Sands, a story of her mother’s life. In Thunderclap, she turns her close attention to the golden age of Dutch art in the 1600s, in particular the cataclysmic gunpowder explosion in Delft that killed the painter Carel Fabritius and destroyed many precious works of art.

My album on repeat right now (it’s true, we bought a record player in 2024!) is Bleachers’ ‘Gone Now’ from 2017. I’m not always very current with music (you can’t keep up with everything) so I missed the early boat on Bleachers as a talent, but of all his albums – including his 2024 ‘A Stranger Desired’ – I find this one the most interesting and joyful (even if a lot of the songs are sadly nostalgic).

Unwashed, Daniel Maluka. Mawenzi House, 2024.

“I had things to draw.”