Festival by the Marsh and Tidewater Books present Writer’s Fest Day, Saturday, July 12.  All events are free admission!

9:30 AM Sackville Band Stand- Young people read from their works  with MC Sheree Fitch

10:  AM Sackville Band Stand- Authors K.V. Johansen and Sheree Fitch read from their books for young people.

1:00 PM Owens Art Gallery- Gerard Beirne and Harry Thurston with Thaddeus Holownia read from their newest works.

3:00 PM Owens Art Gallery- Gerard Beirne novel workshop.  Limited enrollment.

5:30 PM The Olive Branch- “Dining with Writers” supper.  $25 per person.

8:00 PM Owens Art Gallery- Bernice Morgan, Sheree Fitch and Mark Blagrave read from their works.

9:30 PM Struts Gallery- Open Mike Poetry and Performance by Tanya Davis

A book launch for Painted Poems is scheduled for Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. at Owen’s Art Gallery, Mount Allison University Campus, 61 York St., Sackville, NB. There will also be an exhibit of some of the twenty paintings in the book. Sackville artist, Angelica De Benedetti and Moncton poet, Margaret Patricia Eaton, have combined their talents to produce a book entitled Painted Poems: inspired by the natural beauty and history of south-east New Brunswick. This publication is supported by the ‘08 Cultural Capitals of Canada Project, Town of Sackville and the Westmorland Historical Society. Both the artist and poet are passionate about the beauty of the area as well as the intriguing history. When they realised that their work complimented each other’s in the portrayal of the Chignecto region, the idea of a book was born.  While De Benedetti and Eaton have been actively engaged in producing the book since January 2007, it really represents a lifetime of work. One of the twenty paintings reproduced was actually completed in 1977, while the earliest poem was written in 1985. There are also paintings and poems completed as recently as 2007. Also included are detailed historical/geographical notes and a map drawn by artist Peter Manchester of Sackville.  

Mark your calendars for the Frye Festival, taking place in Moncton from April 23-27.  Tidewater Books will host the festival bookstore in the mezzanine of the Delta Beausejour Hotel.  For a full list of authors and festival events, go to www.frye.ca

Sackville native Marilyn Lerch will launch her 2nd collection of poetry, entitled “Witness & Resist” on Sunday, April 13th at the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, at 4 pm.  There is no admission, and everyone is welcome.

 This collection solidifies her rightful place in the contemporary literary landscape.  Passionately personal and deftly political, her keen observation of the nature of humankind beckons and invites us to a view from within.  It is there that we may bear witness to and resist whatever threatens the human spirit.

 Please join us as we celebrate the publication of this exceptional collection.

Book Reading at Owens Art Gallery – March 26, 2008 at 7 PM  SACKVILLE, NB – On Wednesday, March 26, 2008, at 7 PM, Mary Connelly will conduct readings from the recently published book Reclaiming Vitality and Presence:  Sensory Awareness as a Practice for Life, at the Owens Art Gallery on the Mount Allison Campus, Sackville, NB.  This is a book on the teachings of Charlotte Selver who brought Sensory Awareness to the United States and shared it with thousands of students around the world for over 75 years. Sensory Awareness is a mindfulness practise that cultivates responsiveness and presence, and can revitalize our capacity to meet whatever is happening in our lives.  As a catalyst in the Human Potential Movement, Selver drew leading visionaries to study and work with her, including Erich Fromm, Alan Watts, Fritz Perls and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.  In Sensory Awareness classes, students explore what happens in the simplest of activities such as breathing, sitting, standing and walking as a way to discover where we carry tension or resistance.  The way we meet what arises in these simple activities reveals the way we meet what arises in all parts of our lives.  Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Zen Master and author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, described Selver’s work as “the inner experience of entire being, the pure flow of sensory awareness when the mind through calmness ceases to work – deeper than mind-made awareness”. Mary Connelly is one of Selver’s early students.  She attended her second long term study group at the Zen farm in Green Gulch, California, and became the first Canadian Leader in Sensory Awareness in 1976.  She has been practising and giving presentations, workshops and classes in the work in both the U.S. and Canada for over 30 years.  She continues to conduct weekly classes in Sackville, NB.  As well as doing readings from the publication, Mary will give demonstrations of the work.  Please wear loose, comfortable clothing. Tidewater Books will have copies of the book available at the presentation. For more information, please contact Mary Connelly at (506)536-0757.

Tidewater Books and Sybertooth Inc. invite you to join them at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 15th for a book-signing in celebration of “Love on the Marsh“, the latest book by sackville’s Poet Laureate, Douglas Lochhead.

Sackville Exposed!…and open for business

Tidewater Books is hosting a friendly competition
‘EXPOSE YOUR PROSE”

Write an original story or poem about Sackville!
Drop it in or send it to Tidewater Books (4 Bridge St.) tidebook@nb.sympatico.ca before May 1, 2007

3 Prize Categories include:
Youth (ages 8-18)
Adult
Family / Group

Judges will decide on the prize winners.
Entrants will be featured at the store during Sackville Exposed on May 5th and 6th.
Winners will receive a $50 gift certificate.
Winning entries will appear on the Town of Sackville website.

Pens ready! Get set…go!

KIRAN DESAI WINS MAN BOOKER PRIZE FOR PENGUIN

October 11 – TORONTO – Penguin Group (Canada) is thrilled to announce that Kiran Desai has won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for her novel, The Inheritance of Loss. The prize, awarded last night at a ceremony in London, is the first ever Man Booker win for Penguin’s Canadian publishing program. In a few short weeks, Penguin will congratulate Desai in person when she arrives in Toronto for the 27th Annual International Festival of Authors.

The Inheritance of Loss, called ‘a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness” by the Man Booker jury, was released in hardcover in 2005 by Penguin Canada. The paperback release followed in January 2006. Both editions received widespread critical acclaim. Said Penguin Publisher, David Davidar, ‘This incredible novel showcases our commitment not just to publishing the finest Canadian authors, but also to bringing the world’s best books to Canada as part of our domestic publishing program. Besides being a masterpiece of story-telling, Kiran’s novel, like some of the greatest novels of our time engages brilliantly with key political issues such as immigration and globalization that affect us all. ”

Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss immerses readers into life in Kalimpong, a mountain hamlet high in the northeastern Himalayas, nestled among Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. With great emotional depth, hilarity and imagination, Desai illuminates the pain of exile, the consequences of colonialism and the complexity of nationhood and class.

‘There is no mistaking the literary influences on Desai’s exploration of postcolonial chaos and despair,” wrote The New York Times in February, 2006, citing the powerful influence of V.S. Naipaul. Desai’s Booker win places her in the company of influential writers of Indian origin including Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, and her mother, Anita Desai, a three-time Booker Prize nominee.

”To my mother, I owe a debt so profound and so great that this book feels as much hers as it does mine,” Desai said as she accepted her award. ”It was written in her company and in her witness and in her kindness.”

Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India; England; and the United States where she studied creative writing at Columbia University. The Inheritance of Loss is her second novel.

Friday, April 21st is Independents’ Day, a celebration of the independent booksellers that contribute so much to the culture and economy of Canada! Bookstores like Tidewater Books are the cornerstone of the communities they serve. We cater to the cultural needs of Sackville, featuring local works done right here at home. We’re taking this day to highlight the economic, social and cultural contributions bookstores across the country make to Canada.
Join us as we offer 20% off all books for this day only.

Gilmour wins GG for fiction
by Mary Soderstrom
Nov. 16, 2005: The Governor General’s Literary Award for English fiction has gone to David Gilmour, a Torontonian who is very well known in media circles, but the two coasts, the centre of the country, and a new Canadian were also big winners in the 2005 awards, announced Wednesday morning at Montreal’s Grande Bibliothèque.

A television and print literary critic, Gilmour won for his sixth novel, A Perfect Night to Go to China. During his acceptance speech, Gilmour joked that he’d made enough enemies over the years that the list of people who would be unhappy he won the award was much longer than the list of people who would be happy about it.

But winners from other regions were much more positive about what the GGs meant to them and to the places they write from and about. Anne Compton, the PEI native who won the poetry award for Processional, said her win was another recognition of the “remarkable literary production of the region’s novelists, poets, and storytellers,” which has been flourishing since the 1990s.

Pamela Porter, the winner for children’s literature – text, said her book The Crazy Man, which takes place in Saskatchewan, was conceived as a celebration of the people, the problems, and the “big blue sky” of the heart of Canada.

John Vaillant, who won the non-fiction prize for The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed, drew gasps from the crowd when he pointed out that his book was the first story about British Columbia to win a GG since Emily Carr won for Klee Wyck in 1941. Other books about B.C. have been shortlisted but, as for wins, “It’s been quite a dry spell,” he said. “British Columbia seems to be an awfully long way from Ottawa and Montreal, but it is very good to be on the wide side of the Rockies.”

The winner of the French fiction prize came from even further away, however. Aki Shimazaki, a native of Japan who learned English before she learned French, won for Hotaru, the fifth book in a series set partly in Japan. Shimazaki and Alberta native Nancy Huston are the only two non-native French-speakers to win the top French fiction prize in the history of the GGs. “I started to learn French when I started writing my books,” Shimazaki said in accented French as she thanked her publisher, her readers, and her friends who had helped her perfect her French.

The awards announcements were made in Montreal this year as part of UNESCO’s Montreal World Book Capital celebration. The GG winners will return to the Grande Bibliothèque tonight to read from their works at an event organized by the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and the Canada Council. Next week, Governor General Michaëlle Jean will honour them at two events at Rideau Hall, a morning reception for the children’s literature winners (to which schoolchildren are invited) and a gala evening dinner.

Here is the full list of English winners:

• Fiction: David Gilmour’s A Perfect Night to Go to China (Thomas Allen Publishers)
• Non-fiction: John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (Knopf Canada)
• Poetry: Anne Compton’s Processional (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)
• Drama: John Mighton’s Half Life (Playwrights Canada Press)
• Children’s Literature – Text: Pamela Porter’s The Crazy Man (Groundwood Books)
• Children’s Literature – Illustration: Rob Gonsalves’s Imagine a Day (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster Canada), text by Sarah L. Thomson
• Translation – French to English: Fred A. Reed for Truth or Death: The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition (Talonbooks), a translation of Raconter et mourir: aux sources narratives de l’imaginaire occidental by Thierry Hentsch (Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal)