Welcome to our Stop! Look! Listen! Music page! Here you'll find what our editors, contributors, and readers are currently listening to in short, snapy recommendations and raves. You'll also find the occasional playlist and other musical features. All contributions welcome — please get in touch to let us know what you're listening to!
Maria Kubacki's Reading & Music Recommendations:
I recently read two books by Jhumpa Lahiri: In Other Words, a memoir about her decision in her mid-40s to move to Rome and immerse herself in Italian, and Whereabouts, her first novel written in Italian, published in English this spring.
Angie Macri is the author of Underwater Panther (Southeast Missouri State University), winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize. Her recent work appears in Cherry Tree, NELLE, Sou’Wester and issue 286 of The Fiddlehead. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs and teaches at Hendrix College. Find her online at angiemacri.wordpress.com.
Ellen Chang-Richardson (she/her) is an award-winning poet of Taiwanese and Cambodian-Chinese descent currently living on the traditional unceded territories of the Algonquin Anishinabeg First Nation. Ellen's poem rain brings the angler fish was featured in issue 285 of The Fiddlehead. www.ehjchang.com.
Music recommendation from author Dustin Hoffman.
Dustin M. Hoffman is the author of the story collections One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist (winner of the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize) and No Good for Digging (Word West Press). He painted houses for ten years in Michigan and now teaches creative writing at Winthrop University in South Carolina. Hoffman's short fiction A Sky So Sharp was published in issue no. 285 of The Fiddlehead.
Eleonore Schönmaier’s poetry has been published by The Fiddlehead many times, most recently in our 2020 Summer Poetry Issue. Her Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete is forthcoming in 2021 (MQUP). Her critically acclaimed Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP) was published in German translation in 2020. In 2019 she won the National Broadsheet Contest. Her poetry has been widely anthologized including in Best Canadian Poetry. Find out more at eleonoreschonmaier.com!
Geneviève Paiement’s poetry, journalism and essays have appeared in Seneca Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Literary Review of Canada, the Malahat Review, the New York Times, and elsewhere. She is a Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient and a candidate in the University of Guelph’s Creative Writing MFA program. Her Instagram is @manygenderedmompoems.
Conor Kerr is a Metis writer living in Edmonton, Alberta. He was the winner of our 2019 poetry contest for his poem A Millenial Love Letter, which appeared in the Spring 2020 issue, and more of Conor's work will appear in our forthcoming summer poetry issue.
Gordon Lonethunder's poem The Garden of the Pysbytery at Neunen appears in issue No. 281 (Autumn 2019). Click "Read More" to access his music recommendation!
The most engaging musicians for me lately, are ones who have perfected the art of music as Trojan horse. Unleashing their rage from within a perfect overlay of pop, R&B, or Indigenous drumming, Janelle Monáe, King Princess, Eastern Owl, and U.S. Girls, create sublime melodies and catchy hooks that tackle an array of topics not often captured in song.
Annie Q. Syed describes her relationship to music and writing. Her essay, "Landscape Through the Body," appeared in The Fiddlehead No. 279 (Spring 2019).
