The Frond Issue 16 Spring 2025
Land Acknowledgement
The Fiddlehead acknowledges that the land on which it is housed is the traditional unceded territory of Wəlastəkewiyik. This territory is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship which the Wəlastəkewiyik, Mi’kmaq, and Peskotomuhkati peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties did not deal with the surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognized Wəlastəkewiyik, Mi’kmaq, and Peskotomuhkati titles and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between nations.
Announcements
Our 2025 Creative Nonfiction Contest is now open for submission! You can find all our guidelines on our website.
The National Magazine Awards have nominated two pieces from The Fiddlehead: “Cobra Blue Mustang Strat” by Adèle Barclay (FH 299) and “Tea with Interpol” by Tamas Dobozy (FH 298). Congratulations Adèle and Tamas!
Congratulations to our Managing Editor Ian LeTourneau on the publication of his latest poetry collection Metadata from a Changing Climate from Gaspereau Press!
Reviews editor Christine Wu is joining Jessica Bebenek in Ontario and Quebec to launch their books Familiar Hungers and No One Knows Us There. Find all the dates a locations here!
Join the Writer’s Federation of New Brunswick on May 31st for the 2025 New Brunswick Book Awards!
Current Issue
No. 303 (Spring 2025)
Meet the Cover Artist!
Donna Rae Gibbs is Robert Gibbs’ niece. She lives in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Congratulations to Our 2024 Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem Winner Nancy Holmes!
Congratulations to Nancy Holmes, the winner of our 2024 Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem! Her story “My Mother’s Hair” appears in Issue 303 (Spring 2025) of The Fiddlehead.
We asked Nancy Holmes to tell us what writing advice she lives by. Here is her response:
I keep a few “quotes” tacked on the wall above my desk that over the years have become a collection of “writing advice.” One by Lydia Davis: “Like a tropical storm, I, too, may one day become ‘better organized’” which, for me, is how to write poetry. As is Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.” A practical list by Jane Kenyon is also pinned on my wall with reminders to “be a good steward of your gifts,” by protecting your time, feeding your inner life, avoiding noise, being by yourself, and unhooking from the phone. Oh, so hard for me! Also, I have an old Gary Larson cartoon with a bitchy clerk in a bookstore telling someone, “This is a feminist bookstore. We have no humour section,” which reminds me to avoid being a mean-spirited puritan in writing and in life.
Listen to “My Mother’s Hair”
Issue Features
With each new issue, we choose excerpts to feature on The Fiddlehead website. The works featured from the Spring issue are Lynn Easton’s “Vanishing Point" and Kirsti Mikoda’s “A Life in Moving Pictures.”
As an added newsletter bonus, we’ve asked these contributors to answer one of the following four questions:
- Can you tell us about the process of writing your story or poetry piece?
- What is your best piece of writing advice?
- Where is your favourite place to write? Or where do you normally write?
- Who would play the screen version of you in the biopic of your life?
“Vanishing Point” by Lynn Easton
Can you tell us about the process of writing "Vanishing Point"?
The writing of Vanishing Point involved a bit of serendipity. While I knew I wanted to work with definitions of the word ‘disappear’, I had absolutely no clue how the idea would take shape. So, I began to play. I found a dictionary definition of the word and typed it on the page. Then I thought about things that disappear a lot in my life and typed the word ‘keys’. My curser jumped to the next line as I accidentally hit the return key – and there it was. I had a form: definition, subhead, story. The process was freeing and allowed me to dive in. As I continued the pattern for the rest of the piece, my careless keyboard skills felt more like a little bit of magic.
Lynn Easton writes from Maple Ridge, BC on unceded q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie) territory. Her work appears in periodicals and anthologies including Sustenance (Anvil Press), Boobs (Caitlin Press), and The Malahat Review where her essay “The Equation” received the Constance Rooke Prize. She writes about her mother to remember for them both.
"A Life in Moving Pictures" by Kirsti Mikoda
Who would play the screen version of you in the biopic of your life?
Now that is a revealing question, and it hinges on two things: do I get to cast it, or does someone else? If it’s someone else, then I’ll undoubtedly end up being played by a Kristen Schaal or a Zooey Deschanel, someone known for her quirky, awkward roles. Because awkwardness is my superpower. But if I got to choose, it would be James Cagney, because he’s the opposite of awkward. He’s played a woman before and looks better in a dress than I do. He can fight, dance, speak several languages, and has an Academy Award. If anyone has the talent to portray me as vastly more interesting and athletic than I really am, it would be him. I feel like he could capture my inner imp. It’s true, he’s not exactly alive at present, but in this fantasy about my life, I’m allowing myself to dream big.
Kirsti Mikoda is from Vancouver, BC. Her story “Pam Sunday” was a winner in the Senior Short Fiction Section of the 2024 NL Arts and Letters Awards. She has another upcoming publication in Bewildering Stories, and two screenplays that finaled at the Austin Film Festival and Final Draft Screenplay Competition.
Reviews
Nadine Bachan Reviews All Our Ordinary Stories, Teresa Wong
Helena Ramsaroop Reviews Heliotropia, Manahil Bandukwala
Robert Colman Reviews In the Key of Decay, Em Dial
Rosalie Morris Reviews The Call is Coming From Inside the House, Allyson McOuat
gillian harding-russell Reviews Great Silent Ballad, A.F. Moritz
Our 2025 Creative Nonfiction Contest is Open!
The winning author will be awarded a $2000 prize and their work will be featured in the Fall 2025 issue of The Fiddlehead. Read our full guidelines on our website!
This year’s contest is being judged by Nicole Breit!
Deadline: June 2, 2025
Nicole Breit
Nicole Breit is a queer, award-winning essayist and creative development coach based on the traditional lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people in Gibsons, BC. Her writing has been widely published in journals and anthologies including Brevity, The Fiddlehead, Room, Hippocampus, Pithead Chapel, Event, Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories, Awfully Hilarious: Period Pieces and Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction. Nicole’s essay about first love and loss, “An Atmospheric Pressure,” was selected as a Notable by the editors of Best American Essays 2017. She is currently at work on a memoir that explores neurodivergence, attachment theory, queerness, polyamory and kink through the lifespan of an online relationship. When she isn't writing, Nicole mentors seasoned and emerging creative nonfiction authors through her Spark Your Story programs. Visit her at nicolebreit.com
We ask our contributors to tell us what books and music they’re excited about and share their responses on The Fiddlehead website. See their latest recommendations now and check back every week for more!
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