Category: Stop! Look! Listen!

Here in New Brunswick, there are signs of spring everywhere, the snow is rapidly becoming a distant memory, the fiddlehead ferns are popping up along the riverbanks, and The Fiddlehead contest issue – no. 247 – is out!

April is National Poetry Month and the League of Canadian Poets has organized a series of readings, performances, and displays that celebrate poets, libraries and twenty-five years of the Public Lending Right Commission. Check out the League’s National Poetry Month blog.

The Spring 2011 issue of The Fiddlehead (no. 247) will be hitting the newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes in late April and early May. Featured in the issue are the winners and honourable mentions of our Twentieth Annual Literary Contest and new poetry and fiction from writers such as Darryl Whetter, Micheal Laverty, Richardo Pau-Llosa.

The Fiddlehead is a proud auction donor in support of Margaret Atwood in Vancouver, a fundraiser to benefit the Writer's Trust of Canada. Check out the Online Auction of Literary Collectibles, which runs from January 26th at 12:00 a.m.

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.

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: