"Evanescent indeed": The Review Review Reads Fiddlehead's West Coast Issue

Lori A. May at The Review Review reads The Fiddlehead's West Coast issue, and she likes what she reads! She says, "The country may have beautifully distinguishable regions, yet the voices within them branch inward, outward, and transcend borders in original ways. Thus, this issue of The Fiddlehead is perfectly representative of the diversity of styles, voices, and approaches to writing in and about Canada."

You can read the full review on The Review Review's website.

The Malahat Review's East Coast issue Reviewed

Over at The Review Review, Jenelle Hayward enthusiastically reviews The Malahat's Essential East Coast issue.

She says,

I have always been a fan of Canadian writers but this issue of The Malahat Review reminded me just how much I enjoy them. The writing was stunning and surprising with every turn of the page.

We here at The Fiddlehead wholeheartedly agree!

***********************************************************************************

And more great news to start the new year! The Malahat no. 180 gets reviewed over at New Pages! Here's part of what reviewer John Palen has to say:

For me, the collaboration between the two magazines helps to clarify the distinction between a literature limited by its regionalism and one brought alive by its sense of place. This issue of Malahat is definitely alive.

The Malahat & The Fiddlehead Featured on CBC Radio

CBC British Columbia recently featured The Fiddlehead and The Malahat Review on their weekday afternoon radio program All Points West.

State of the Arts columnist Jennifer Chrumka examined both the West Coast and East Coast issues, and she talks about the collaboration.

Listen to the podcast here.

On the podcast, you'll also hear Ross Leckie, editor of The Fiddlehead, speak about Atlantic literature, and The Malahat's editor John Barton and University of Victoria professor Nicholas Bradley discuss West coast literature.

Occupy Prose: Will Johnson in conversation with Linda Svendsen

Linda Svendsen's story, "Restoration," was published in The Fiddlehead's Essential West Coast Poetry and Fiction issue, #253. One of her UBC Master's in Creative Writing students, Will Johnson, interviewed her for our blog.



Linda Svendsen

"Restoration" is the story of a refugee from Burundi who is struggling to adjust to Canadian culture after surviving some horrific experiences in her home country. What inspired you to tackle this subject, and what sort of research did you have to do?

A decade ago, my husband and I co-produced and co-wrote a 6-hour miniseries for CBC called Human Cargo. It’s a drama, not a documentary. We’d spent a few years researching the Immigration and Refugee Board in Canada, attending hearings, and had also traveled to Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. We’d also done a fair amount of reading/interviewing of people who have survived torture, extreme loss, and exile.

You've developed a very distinctive voice for your main character. Did you find it hard, as a Canadian, to imagine an inner life for this character? Did you find it challenging to see things from her perspective?

A Successful East Coast/West Coast Halifax Launch!

Back row, left to right: Chris Donahoe, Warren Heiti, Matt Cornfield,
Peter Sanger, E. Alex Pierce, Carole Glasser Langille.
Front row, left to right: Heather Jessup, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Brian Bartlett.

On Thursday, October 29, 2012, the University of King's College in Halifax hosted a launch for Halifax-area contributors to The Malahat Review's East Coast issue. Authors read their work from The Malahat and selected a piece from The Fiddlehead's West Coast issue to share with the audience. Our Halifax correspondant Brian Bartlett sent us a photograph and reports that it was a "fine, lively occasion."

Witnessing Both the Ugliness and the Beauty: Will Johnson in Conversation with Chris Donahoe

Chris Donahoe, photo by Will Johnson

Chris Donahoe's creative nonfiction story, "Test," appears in The Malahat Review's Essential East Coast Writing issue, Fall 2012 #180. Will Johnson recently graduated from UVic's creative writing program and is now finishing an MFA at UBC. His first major publication was "Sea to Sky," in The Fiddlehead. He now lives in Halifax, NS.

Your story "Test" (Fall, 2012, issue #180) is about your time working in Alberta’s oil industry right after graduating from high school. What drew you to this story?

In my class with Wayne Grady last year, we tried to look a little deeper at the stories we tell over and over throughout our lives. You know, the stories we tell over beers, or as ice-breakers, or to girls/guys we want to sleep with. These stories become our go-to material in certain situations when we want to impress someone or give them a sense of who we are. And, each time we tell a particular story, it becomes something more fixed and polished, something that comes to define who we think we are and where we think we came from. As a creative nonfiction writer, it’s interesting, and important, to step back sometimes and think about why we tell those stories when we do, and to try to uncover any patterns or bits that link them all. This process can be incredibly revealing and scary, depending on the content. The final event in my story is, quite literally, awesome, a thing that I think anybody would turn into a story to tell over a beer. It’s been bubbling inside me for a long time. But when I put it next to the other stories I tell, it takes on another life and I see that there were other things compelling me to tell and write this story other than the incredible nature of the event itself. The story’s about unexpectedly finding amazing, beautiful things when everything looks most wrong and ugly. That’s a trend for me, not only in my stories, but in my life in general.

Podcast: Steve Noyes and John Threlfall

On Tuesday, November 6th, Steve Noyes and John Threlfall appeared on UVic's campus radio station, CFUV. Steve read from and discussed his poems in The Fiddlehead's Essential West Coast Writing issue, and John talked about his upcoming Malahat-sponsored workshop: Writing the Arts Listen to the podcast here