Frye Festival Breaks Records

It was another banner for the Frye Festival, with Moncton’s annual celebration of words setting a new attendance high of over 16,000. “That’s an increase of nearly 25% from last year and far exceeds our goal for 2009,” chair Dawn Arnold said.

Credit goes in large part to its stellar line-up of authors, with such literary luminaries as Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford, Russell Banks, Heather O’Neill, Ami McKay and Nancy Huston on the festival marquee.

“These absolutely remarkable authors fed our imaginations in so many ways and inspired kids in record number,” Arnold said at yesterday’s closing. This year, more than 10,000 students in New Brunswick welcomed the internationally acclaimed authors into their classrooms, with school visits totalling 180, another new record for the festival.

The five-day festival’s wide-ranging program of workshops, dialogues, readings, debates, lectures drew standing-room only crowds to venues throughout the city and several events were sell-outs, such as the The Antonine Maillet-Northrop Frye Lecture by Alberto Manguel on “Why Homer Must Be Blind”.

Saturday’s KidsFest, an action-packed, fun-filled event that promotes the joy and discovery of reading and writing to youth, drew 1,200 people to the Moncton Public Library.

Thanks to the passion of its 150 volunteers, the generosity of its patrons and the support of government leaders, with private and public partnerships now totalling 60, the festival donated more than $6,000 worth of new books to schools and gave out $4,000 in prize money to winners of its Great-West Life — London Life Writing Contest.

The success of the 2008 festival raises the bar high for the 10th edition of Canada’s only bilingual literary festival in 2009. This not-for-profit, volunteer-driven event was established in 1999 to honour the literary contributions of its namesake and world-renowned educator and author Northrop Frye, who spent his formative years in Moncton. Its 10th anniversary will be celebrated with a 10-day festival, April 17-26, 2009.

The 2008 event ended with a farewell reception, hosted by the Greater Moncton International Airport, and featuring the grand finale reading by the festival’s very own poet laureate, Poet flyé and Moncton writer Paul Bossé, accompanied by popular local band Les Païens.His epic poem, entitled #9, will be permanently displayed in the airport art gallery, next to his work from last year.

At yesterday’s closing, a plaque was unveiled to commemorate the 9th annual Frye Festival. It will be permanently displayed at the French Consulate building and features a quote from one of the 2008 festival’s world-renowned authors, Nancy Huston, which reads: “Imagination is an essential part of human reality”.