Get ready to laugh with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged April 13

Your high school English teacher would cringe, but you'll laugh your head off!

Get set for a roller coaster ride of comedy, hold on to your seats and prepare to be taken on a frenzied romp as three irreverent actors condense the entire works of William Shakespeare into one outrageous 97 minute evening. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged will be performed by Tribal Productions as part of the @theplayhouse Heroes & Icons series on Friday, April 13.

These three madcap men in tights weave their wicked way through all of Shakespeare's comedies, histories and tragedies; Hamlet is performed forwards, backwards and sideways, Titus Andronicus serves tasty treats and Othello does the rap. This is an incomparable assault on the Bard that will leave you weak with the exertion of helpless laughter. "Laugh?" said Bernard Levin of The Times, London, "I nearly died".

Originally written and performed by the legendary RSC (Reduced Shakespeare Company) in California, this swashbuckling bard buster has been performed to sell out crowds in New York, UK, Asia and Australia. Receiving rave reviews wherever it goes, The Complete Works holds the record for London's longest running West End Comedy Hit where it played for nine hilarious years. No performance is the same and audiences return again and again.

Tickets are on sale for April 13 performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged and all Playhouse performances at the Playhouse box office, 458-8344 or online at www.theplayhouse.ca

Lynn Davies featured poet at odd Sundays at molly’s April 1

Sunday, April 1, 2007, 2 pm
Molly’s Coffee House
554 Queen Street, Fredericton

Featured reader, Lynn Davies, has one husband, two teenagers, one cat, and poetic sensibilities vivid enough to get her work nominated for a Governor General’s Award. In The Bridge that Carries the Road (1999 Brick Books), [Davies’ poetry] “surrenders to the demands of a fully experienced life with a remarkable sureness of tone and clarity. She chronicles the hilarities, struggles and innocence of family, astonished with the fierce power of love. Throughout, the lonely beauty of the Maritimes is a vision of the most silent reaches of the self.”

Her second book, Where Sound Pools, was published by Goose Lane 2005. “With engaging alertness, Davies beautifully blends strength and understatement, observation and fancy, passion and play-fulness. Her poems acknowledge how breakable human beings are and how easy it is to get lost, but they encourage us, too, to “try empathy.” A celebration of the enriching power of the imagination, Where Sound Pools reaffirms Davies’ reputation as one of Canada’s most accomplished younger poets.”— http://www.gooselane.com. While her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, Davies has milked cows in Norway, made beds in Amsterdam, and picked grapes in Provence. A tutor of children in reading and writing, she now lives in McLeod Hill and works at Westminster Books in downtown Fredericton.

Open Set: Bring lyrics, drama, fiction, or music to present in the open set. If it is created from words, we want it.

Please join us at 2 pm on Sunday, April 1, at Molly’s Coffee House, for an afternoon engaged with literature. For information: acalvern@nbnet.nb.ca or 459-1436. (Just say yes to poetry.)

QwertyREADS: feverspring March 30

QwertyREADS: feverspring
30 march 2007
8:30 pm
Underground Café (Charlotte St. Arts Centre)

This month featuring:
tammyARMSTRONG carsonBUTTS dannyJACOBS michaelLOCKETT vanessaMOELLER emiliaNIELSEN davidSEYMOUR

musical rar-rar:
DAKARI (dannyNkari)
kora&matt OF VETCH: Our Quirky QWERTY House Band

QWERTY READS is a monthly night of poetry, short fiction, visual art and music held at the Underground Café -an arts laboratory where everyone is welcome to experiment.

OPEN MIC! Bring your textual hypermetrics, visual dialectics or musical inventions.

This month QWERTY READS feverspring launches forward, revels in treadless shoes, chilled puddles and sun. We shed our winter skin along the muddy green roadsides out of town, ungender in our new buds, imagine peace processes in our underwear in the early evening sunset. Plus, we're musically accompanied (and poets are just so damn cute).

QWERTY is a literary magazine published two to three times each year by the Department of English at the University of New Brunswick. QWERTY READS is our new monthly reading series to showcase young artists in Fredericton. We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the University of New Brunswick Graduate Students Association and the Faculty of Arts.

The Underground Café and Alternative Bookstore is a youth volunteer-run, collectively owned, not-for-profit, fair trade cafe. The Underground promotes social justice and positive change in our community.

Fredericton Library Reading

On April 4 at 7:00 p.m. Jo-Anne Elder will be the presenter at the Friends of the Fredericton Public Library Series Winter Series (12 Carleton St, Fredericton, NB). Jo-Anne will be reading from her collection Postcards from Ex-Lovers and talking about her work as a translator. In her career as a translator she collaborated extensively with the late Fred Cogswell and collaborates with Lieutenant-Governor Chiasson.

Writers Gathering in Sackville

The Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB) will hold their annual spring literary weekend in Sackville, NB, next month.

The three day event kicks off Friday April 13th with a spectacular reading at the Owen’s Art Gallery on the Mount Allison University campus. Poetry & Music (In)Tense featuring poets Kathy Mac, Greg Cook, Marilyn Lerch, Roger Moore, Laurence Hutchman and Robert Moore, with special guests, pianist Janet Hammock and flautist Karin Aurell, will be a unique blending of music, poetry and improvisation that promises to entertain.

“We are so honoured to have this opportunity to have such celebrated musicians as Janet Hammock and Karin Aurell participate in this reading,” says Kellie Underhill, WFNB Director and event organizer. “This is going to be one of the most spectacular and unique events we’ve done in years, and I hope a lot of people come out to support it.”

A series of writers’ workshops are slated for Saturday April 14th beginning at 10:45am at the Marshlands Inn. Participants are invited to choose either “Writing Children’s Fantasy: Not a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme” with celebrated children’s author, K.V. Johansen, or a Drama Workshop with Governor General’s Award-winning playwright, Kent Stetson, for the morning session. The afternoon session will see all participants exploring short fiction forms with J.J. Steinfeld in a workshop entitled “Wordful Explorations: An Exploration of Imagination and Creativity through the writing of Short Fiction.”

“This weekend is a very affordable way to try your hand at writing if you’ve always wanted to but haven’t dared,” Underhill says. “For full-time writers, the weekend will surely get your creative juices flowing. I always love our annual spring gathering because it draws together such a unique mix of readers and writers, professional and amateur, young and not so young. We always have a great time.”
Another highlight of the weekend is the Annual General Meeting for the WFNB membership, which all members are encouraged to attend Saturday morning before the workshops begin.

Saturday evening, April 14th, the Marshlands Inn plays host to a literary banquet honouring the winners of the WFNB’s Annual Literary Competition. Tickets for the banquet must be purchased in advance. The Marshlands’ specialty of pan-seared fresh Atlantic salmon, a traditional roast beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding, and a delectable asparagus crepe are on the menu. Winning writers will read from their entries.

“Often this is the first opportunity these writers have to read in public,” Underhill says. “They’re just starting out, it may be the first contest they’ve ever won. Most of them have no idea how good they really are. It’s wonderful to see new talent on the rise. I especially enjoy when the winners in the youth categories read. We have so many talented young writers in our high schools.”

On Sunday morning everyone who would like to participate is invited to read during an Open Mic event at the Marshlands over breakfast. Always a popular event with writers and literary enthusiasts alike, this reading offers a supportive environment for budding artists especially. Anyone may attend any of the weekend’s events whether they are WFNB members or not. Everyone is welcome.

A full schedule of fees and a registration form are available online at www.umce.ca/wfnb.

Spring Forward Reading Crawl

The Maritime Writers’ Workshop & Literary Festival, Canada’s longest standing workshop of its kind, is proud to invite you to our Spring Forward Reading Crawl.

Featuring eleven of Fredericton’s finest writers at three downtown venues, this FREE event is sure to inspire, engage and enthuse folks of all literary persuasions.

Mark you calendars for this coming Friday, March 23 for this premiere event in our city!

6pm @ Westminster Books
Mark Jarman
Karen Solie
WhiteFeather

7pm @ Read’s Newstand
Jesse Ferguson
Matt Leslie
Biff Mitchell

8pm @ The Taproom
Eric Hill
Katie Brown
John Heinstein
Matte Robinson
Andrew Titus

PLUS a special musical performance by Matte Robinson and Kora Woolsey of VETCH!

For more information, contact Andrew Titus at 452-6360, or at atitus@unb.ca.

Booked

Canada’s book community presents this first-ever event offering a unique opportunity to connect with the author personalities behind the books you love!

The BookExpo Canada (BEC) Task Force is pleased to announce the official name for the three-day readers’ fest that will bring internationally acclaimed authors, buzzed-about new writers, dynamic media personalities and some of the biggest names in books together with fans in myriad events to coincide with BookExpo Canada in Toronto this June. BOOKED! Three Days Between the Covers promises to delight booklovers from June 7 to 9 with an array of book-centric entertainment.

BOOKED! will encompass everything from readings and interviews to interactive demonstrations and kids’ activities in venues large and intimate across the Greater Toronto Area. There will be premier ticketed events and free, informal festivities featuring celebrated fiction and non-fiction authors from home and abroad. BOOKED! will offer something for everyone, creating great excitement around books by bringing them to life on a large scale for the public. Attendees at public events will be able to purchase books.

BOOKED! Three Days Between the Covers was conceived by the BEC Task Force (consisting of representatives from the Association of Canadian Publishers, Canadian Booksellers Association, Canadian Publishers’ Council and BookExpo Canada) in partnership with International Readings at Harbourfront to introduce a public element to BEC’s conference and tradeshow programming which already brings many authors and much of the book industry to Toronto in June. By inviting book readers and buyers to join in on the fun of previewing upcoming releases and meeting with some of their favourite authors in lively and engaging events, BOOKED! will bridge the book business with its marketplace. The objective is to draw a more diverse line-up of talented writers and to generate more attention for their books.

"With the lists of authors and books presented for year one, we know that BOOKED! is going to grow into a major book celebration from the start,” commented Geoffrey Taylor, Director, International Readings at Harbourfront and member of the BEC Author Selection Committee.

BEC Task Force sub-committees devoted to Marketing and Author Selection are currently at work finalizing event specifics (timing, venues, featured authors, etc.) and promotion plans. Details to the trade are forthcoming. A Press Conference to introduce BOOKED! to the public is planned for May.

An event website is currently under development at bookedbetweenthecovers.ca, and will support all activities by providing information to the public.

For more information on BOOKED! please contact:
Dahlia De Rushe, Event Director
BookExpo Canada
Tel: 416-848-1663, ext. 203
dderushe@reedexpo.com

Geoffrey Taylor, Director
International Readings at Harbourfront
Tel: 416-973-4760
gtaylor@harbourfrontcentre.com

Jan Conn in Maritimes

Jan Conn’s new book Jaguar Rain: the Margaret Mee Poems is written in the voice of Margaret Mee (naturalist, explorer, and painter of flowers in the Amazon between 1956 and 1988). Jan Conn has published five previous books of poetry, most recently Beauties on Mad River: Selected and New Poems (2000). She is a Research Scientist at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, in Albany, NY, and Associate Professor in the Biomedical Sciences Department at the School of Public Heath at SUNY-Albany. Her current research is focused on the populations of malarial mosquitoes in the Brazilian Amazon.

Fredericton - Monday, March 19 - University of New Brunswick, 8 p.m. reading with Ken Babstock in the Alumni Memorial Lounge.

Halifax - Tuesday, March 20 - at 8:30ish, at the Shoestring Reading Series at the Seahorse Tavern on Argyle Street (just next to the Shoe Shop). For more information, call David Rimmington at 902-488-9643.

Antigonish - Wednesday, March 21 - Evening reading at St. Francis-Xavier University.

Call for Short Fiction

Ottawa literary publisher Chaudiere Books is seeking submissions by Canadian writers of short fiction of no more than 1,500 to 2,000 words for an upcoming anthology project. Seeking vibrant, engaging works perhaps more language than narrative, but not exclusively. Please send works no later than August 15, 2007 to Chaudiere Books, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario K1R 6R7 (include s.a.s.e. if you expect work returned) or over email to rob_mclennan@hotmail.com

For more information on Chaudiere Books, check out www.chaudierebooks.com or www.chaudierebooks.blogspot.com

Grain Editor to Give Talk

Kent Bruyneel, editor of Grain Magazine will speak about publishing on Friday March 16th at 2:00 pm in Singer Hall room 351, UNB-Fredericton.. Contact Ross Leckie 458-7395

Eat, Drink & Travel for Money

Novel Writing Workshop

ON WRITING YOUR NOVEL
Award-Winning Author Joan Hall Hovey
SATURDAYS - 10:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.
April 14, 21st, 28th ~ May 5th, 12th, 19th –
Saint John Arts Centre~Tompkins Studio Hall (506) 633-4870

If you've always wanted to write a novel, this is the course for you. Author Joan Hall Hovey has been helping aspiring writers realize their dreams for 20 years. Her novels, Chill Waters, Listen To The Shadows and Nowhere To Hide have been released to impressive reviews and sales. Her short stories and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers.

Ms. Hovey will cover topics ranging from getting the idea for a novel to getting your novel published. From fighting Writer's Block to dealing with rejection. The course will explore the nuts and bolts of the novel - dialogue, characterization, pacing, point of view, creating mood, and more.

She will offer tips and advice to the aspiring novelist, from the craft of writing to the business of writing. She also looks forward to working individually with her students. The ultimate objective of the course is to get YOU well on your way toward writing your novel. And to arm you with the tools to see that novel through to completion, and get it published.

REGISTER EARLY!
www.saintjohnartscentre.com

Ken Babstock and Jan Conn to read at UNB

Poets Ken Babstock and Jan Conn will be giving a reading at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. The reading will take place on Monday, March 19 at 8:00 pm in the Alumni Memorial Lounge. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Ken Babstock is widely recognized as one of the most important young poets writing in Canada today. He is the author of three books of poetry, Mean, Days into Flatspin, and, most recently, Airstream Land Yacht. His poetry has received numerous awards including the National Magazine Award for Poetry, the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Prize and the Atlantic Poetry Prize. He is currently the poetry editor for Toronto’s House of Anansi Press.

Jan Conn is the author of six books of poetry. Her latest, Jaguar Rain, focuses on the Amazonian botanical illustrator, naturalist and explorer, Margaret Mee. She holds a Ph.D in Genetics and currently works as a Research Scientist at the Wadsworth Center, Division of Infectious Diseases, New York State Department of Health in Albany, New York.

The reading is sponsored by UNBF’s department of English, the University Bookstore and the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information on the reading, feel free to contact Ross Leckie at 458-7395.

Peter Behrens Reading

Author Peter Behrens will be giving a reading at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. The reading will take place on Thursday, March 22 at 8:00 pm in Memorial Hall. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Peter Behrens’ first novel, The Law of Dreams, won the 2006 Governor General’s Award for Fiction. His short fiction and essays have been published in Tin House, Brick, Best Canadian Stories, Best Canadian Essays, and The Atlantic Monthly; a number of his short stories were collected in the book, Night Driving. Behrens’ writing can also be found on the silver screen through his work as a professional screenwriter. He currently divides his time between Maine and Los Angeles.

The reading is sponsored by UNBF’s department of English, the University Bookstore and the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information on the reading, feel free to contact Ross Leckie at 458-7395.

Mark Jarman featured at odd Sunday’s at Molly’s March 4

Sunday, March 4, 2007, 2 pm
Molly’s Coffee House
554 Queen Street, Fredericton

Mark Anthony Jarman was born in Edmonton and now teaches creative writing at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Fellow at Yaddo artists’ colony in New York, Jarman’s work has appeared in virtually every Canadian literary journal worth mentioning. His books include two short story collections, (Alberta Writers’ Guild Award for Best Fiction), and a collection of poetry. Jarman also edited a book of alcohol related stories. His novels include Salvage King Ya! (1997), New Orleans is Sinking (1998), 19 Knives (2000), and Ireland’s Eye (2002).

“Jarman seems aware of every last word in the dictionary, knowing when to use them, abuse them, how to mix oily and watery words, push them side-by-side, make them cuddle or fight. . . . [Ireland's Eye] is so many things, but never strains to be any of them. Funny . . . and touching . . . and grim and self-aware and restrained when need be. . . . It is a shame more history can't be this entertaining.”—BOOKS IN CANADA

“With prose as elegant as it is tough and sinewy, as elegiac as it is no-nonsense, as moving as it is funny, Jarman explores the contemporary Ireland most travel features prefer to ignore. . . . a joyride along bumpy Irish roads that is at times rollicking, at times sad - but always revealing, always intelligent and often luminous. —OTTAWA CITIZEN

Open Set: Bring lyrics, fiction, drama, or music, to present in the open set. If it is created from words, we want it.

Please join us at 2 pm on Sunday, March 4, at Molly’s Coffee House, for an afternoon engaged with literature. For information: acalvern@nbnet.nb.ca or 459-1436. (Just say yes to poetry.)