Category: Features

I was seven or eight years old when I learned the story of Akedat Yitzchak. It appears in Genesis 22, where God instructs Abraham to take his son Isaac up a mountain and make of him a burnt offering. Abraham complies, or seems to, binding Isaac to an alter and preparing to slit his throat. An angel materializes and tells Abraham, “Don’t do it! You passed the test. God knows that you believe in Him.” Then a ram appears, and Abraham releases Isaac, sacrifices the ram, and down the mountain go father and son.

Dafna Izenberg won this year’s Creative Nonfiction Prize for “The Promised Language,” published in The Fiddlehead, No. 281 (Autumn 2019). Editorial Assistant Jaeden Langlois conducted the following interview with Dafna Izenberg about her relationship to the Hebrew language.

by Megan Kuklis

A review of Melissa Barbeau's The Luminous Sea (Breakwater Books, 2018)

By Megan Kuklis
A Review of Darusha Wehm's The Home for Wayward Parrots (NeWest Press, 2018)

The Home for Wayward Parrots by Darusha Wehm is a charming novel that centres on the complicated lives of its many sweet characters. Exceptionally readable, the novel flows through the past and present of Brian “Gumbo” Guillemot’s life with such care that readers will not be able to put it down. This novel should be devoured in a single sitting.

by Rebecca Salazar

The following interview was conducted via email by Editorial Assistant and member of the Poetry Board Rebecca Salazar. Kim Trainor’s poem “Paper Birch” is the winner of The Fiddlehead’s 2019 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize. 

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By Kendra Guidolin

Ahmad Danny Ramadan has won The Fiddlehead’s 28th annual Short Fiction Prize for his story “My Name is Bridge.” The following interview was conducted via email with Editorial Assistant Kendra Guidolin in March/April 2019.

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Nicholas Herring’s “The Lives of Milton Acorn” appears in The Fiddlehead No. 277 (Autumn 2018). The following interview was conducted via email with editorial assistant Salar Ghatta in late November 2018.

By Kerry-Lee Powell

Jill M. Talbot's essay "Checkmate" appears in The Fiddlehead No. 277 (Autumn 2018), our all creative nonfiction issue. 

By Megan Kuklis

A Review of Andrew Battershill's Marry Bang Kill (Goose Lane Editions, 2018).

Andrew Battershill’s novel defies classification. Part west coast island thriller, part mystery/adventure, Marry Bang Kill tells the story of Tommy Marlo, a relatively inept thief with perfect pitch who robs people of their laptops. . . .

On August 25, 2018, The Fiddlehead hosted the first of our planned events leading up to our 75th anniversary in 2020. We brought Alicia Elliott, our nonfiction editor, and Rebecca Thomas to Fredericton to give workshops, and while they were here, we organized a reading that also featured local Fredericton writer Anthazia Kadir. 

Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts (for a Public Outreach Grant), the Fredericton Public Library, and Ty Giffin and Mathew Gracie (videographers). And thanks to Anthazia, Alicia, and Rebecca for their superb readings!