Writers Fest Day Saturday, July 24
The Fourth Annual Writers Fest Day (presented in collaboration with Festival by the Marsh) will be held Saturday, July 24 all around Sackville New Brunswick. The day includes a wide variety of events, along with a new “Community Reads” initiative presented in collaboration with Tidewater Books. The fest begins with a “Breakfast with local Young Writers” event at 9 a.m., featuring author Kate Inglis, who will read from her work and conduct a workshop. At 10:30 a.m., there follows a reading by Dr. Kevin O’Brien of “An Apostle for the Arts – Oscar Wilde in Canada” and the performance of the play “The Importance of the House Beautiful – Oscar Wilde in Moncton” by Ron Kelly Spurles at the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre. At 11:45 a.m., Beth Powning will host a Writer’s Workshop (for those interested in talking with a published writer about the art and the trade), and at 1 p.m., Charlie Scobie will read from his book “Roberts Country: Sir Charles G.D. Roberts and the Tantramar”. Both of these events also take place at the Heritage Centre. At 4:30 p.m., a “Dining with Writers” event (sponsored by Mount Allison University) will take place at Cranewood, which will lead into the readings of Beth Powning and Lisa Moore at the Heritage Centre at 6 and 7 p.m. respectively. The closing reception will take place with original music by Landon Braverman at Joey’s Restaurant at 10 p.m. featuring the Festival Poet-in-Resident Kenzie Reid.
Kate Inglis, who will host the “Breakfast with local Young Writers” event, is a writer and photographer and lives on the far eastern coastline of Nova Scotia where she was born. She aided in the founding of “Glow in the Woods,” a collaborative blog for baby-lost parents which has established an affectionate and embracing online community, and has also been a founding contributor to “Shutter Sisters.” Her first novel, “The Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods”, was published in November 2009 with a second edition being released earlier this year, and has been acclaimed as “a spirited tale, gorgeously rendered,” by January Magazine. It is from this novel for young people that Kate Inglis will be reading, which will be closely followed by a workshop for young writers, all taking place at Cranewood on Main St.
Kevin O’Brien, who will read from his work “An Apostle for the Arts – Oscar Wilde in Canada” at 10:30 a.m., was an English professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, NS, for thirty four years beginning in 1966. With his research interests in the biographies of literary figures, he has published numerous biographical studies of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Robert Harborough Sherard (1861-1943), and Irene Osgood (1869-1922), among others. The new edition of the work from which he will be reading will be published in the summer of 2010.
Parallel to this reading will be the performance of “The Importance of the House Beautiful – Oscar Wilde in Moncton”, a new play written by Festival by the Marsh Artistic Producer Ron Kelly Spurles. Spurles has based the play on true details from Wilde’s 1882 visit to Canada, creating a comedic love story in the very style of Wilde’s plays. Originally produced for the Capitol Theatre’s “Resurgo Redux” Festival in June, it is now being remounted to be presented alongside Dr. O’Brien’s talk on Wilde’s visit to Canada.
At 11:45 a.m., the fest continues with Beth Powning and her writer’s workshop at the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre. Currently living in Sussex, NB, and considered one of Eastern Canada’s rising literary stars, Beth Powning is the author of two novels, “The Hatbox Letters” (2004) and “The Sea Captain’s Wife” (2010), the memoir, “Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss” (1999), and the non-fiction essay “Edge Seasons” (2005), among other significant works.
Charlie Scobie, who reads at 1 p.m. at the Boultenhouse, is a native of Scotland, and taught at McGill University in Montreal before taking up the position of Professor and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at Mount Allison University beginning in 1972. Retiring in 1998, Scobie has written many books and articles in the field of Biblical Studies, but has equally contributed several books on Maritime history, including a study on “The Father of Canadian Literature” entitled “Roberts Country: Sir Charles G.D. Roberts and the Tantramar”, which was published in 2008.
At 4:30 p.m. the “Dining with Writers” event takes place at Cranewood. At this event members of the public will have the chance to interact with the featured authors and other book literary enthusiasts. Beth Powning will follow the dining with a reading at the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre at 6 p.m. from her novel “The Ship Captain’s Wife”.
This reading will then be followed by another at 7 p.m. at the same location by author Lisa Moore. Moore, who lives in St.John’s Newfoundland, has published several collections of work, her second of which, a collection of stories, “Open” (2002), was nominated for the Giller Prize. Her first novel, “Alligator” (2005), was also nominated for the Giller Prize, was long-listed for the 2007 IMPAC Award, and won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award for the Caribbean and Canada Region. Her most recent work, the novel “February” (2009), draws on the story of the oil rig Ocean Ranger which sank off the coast of Newfoundland during the Valentine’s Day storm of 1982.
The Writer’s Fest Day closes with a reception at Joey’s Restaurant at 10 p.m. which will feature the Festival Poet-in-Residence Kenzie Reid. Kenzie is a nineteen-year-old writer from Sackville, NB, who currently studies at the University of Waterloo and who has often drawn inspiration for her poems, in one way or another, from the Tantramar Marsh, She has participated in several youth poetry events in both Sackville and Moncton. The reception will be accompanied with original music by Mount Allison University music student Landon Braverman, who is gaining a reputation as one the regions top up and coming songwriter/singers.
Writers Fest Day is sponsored by Sackville SaveEasy and is presented in collaboration with Festival by the Marsh. For more details please phone (506) 364-2179, toll free 1-866-890-6329 or visit www.festivalbythemarsh.ca.