Feeding imaginations for 11 years:

The Frye Festival announces its line-up of 2010 bestsellers!

Canada’s only bilingual international literary festival is heading into its second decade and has again attracted some of the world’s best authors to Moncton. The Festival unveiled its line-up today for the 2010 edition which will be held from April 19-25. These renowned authors will ALL meet with students in their classrooms and auditoriums; they will conduct workshops, participate in on-stage conversations, chat with booklovers in book clubs, and feed imaginations of all ages.

“The Frye Festival has grown and flourished in the last ten years thanks to our many partners, sponsors, volunteers, and a great team. We are set to enter this new decade on excellent footing,” says Festival Chair, Dawn Arnold. “We have been privileged to witness many memorable moments over the last ten years and literature has gained great grounds in our schools, among our youth, and throughout our entire community. There is truly something for everyone at this year’s Festival,” says Arnold.

A Great line-up

Thirty invited authors from Canada and France will take part in the event including three who are currently on national bestseller lists and two who are long-listed for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Heading the bestseller list is Linden MacIntyre, author of the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning novel The Bishop’s Man. MacIntyre will be joined on stage by Annabel Lyon and Nino Ricci for an evening of English Canadian literature, hosted by journalist and radio broadcaster, Noah Richler (author of This is My Country, What’s Yours?). Annabel Lyon won the 2009 Rogers Writers Trust Award for Fiction for her novel The Golden Mean and Nino Ricci’s most recent novel, The Origin of Species, earned him his second Governor General’s Award for Fiction.

As always, the Festival will feature local New Brunswick authors such as Beth Powning, author of The Sea Captain’s Wife, children’s authors such as Cary Fagan and Nancy Wilcox Richards, and poets such as Christian Bök, winner of the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence for his book Eunoia. Fred Stenson (The Great Karoo) and Steven Galloway (The Cellist of Sarajavo) are also among the invited authors.

On the Francophone side, bridging the two solitudes like no other living Canadian author is the award-winning novelist Daniel Poliquin. Poliquin’s novel A Secret between Us (Douglas & McIntyre 2007, short-listed for the Giller Prize) will be featured in a giant Community Read during the Festival. Daniel Poliquin is the author of nearly a dozen books in French and all have been translated into English. He is also the author of a book on René Levesque which has been nominated for a number of awards. The author is a noted literary translator himself, who has translated many important books into French, including works by Mordecai Richler, Jack Kerouac, and W.O. Mitchell.

Fans will surely be looking forward to meeting and hearing from Guy Gavriel Kay whose books have increasingly blurred the boundaries between history and fantasy. Other invited authors not to miss: Jungian analyst Craig Stephenson; children’s author and performer Jacob Berkowitz; novelist and creative writing professor Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer; folklorist and storyteller Kay Stone; and playwright and poet Robert Moore.

New location, new events

This year, the Frye Festival will hold many of its activities in the congenial atmosphere of the second floor of the City Grill Restaurant in Moncton. The location will be the venue for the first edition of Beer and Books as well as the popular Night Howl evenings. For the 2010 edition, the Festival welcomes a new Poète Flyé: young up and coming Moncton poet Jesse Robichaud.

Connecting with the Festival’s audience will take on new impetus this year. With the help of WestJet and the Poète Flyé, audience members can give their feedback on who they would like to see at future festivals to be eligible to win a trip for two anywhere WestJet flies. Residents of Moncton, Dieppe, and Riverview should keep their eyes open for the Poète Flyé who will be riding Codiac Transit buses during the Festival with the ballots while on his quest to create the best Poem Flyé ever!

Story telling at its best: the Frye Festival joins forces with the McCain Research Chair in Acadian Ethnology and Folklore to present an evening of Anglophone, Francophone, and First nation’s stories.

Again this year, the public is invited to join the authors in the Delta Beauséjour Lobby on Saturday afternoon for a chance to meet, have a chat, and even get a few books signed!

As always, a great list of must-see events: Antonine Maillet-Northrop Frye Lecture, Frye Jam, KidsFest, Brunch and Books, round tables, book clubs, and dialogues. This year’s popular events such as Soirée Frye and Night Howls will have a Pay What You Can (p.w.y.c.) policy.

The Festival is keeping up with the times: more events will be recorded and added to its YouTube channel, the event’s Facebook page will feature additional information and photos, and the Festival will be tweeting the latest news for its followers via @FryeMoncton on Twitter!

The Frye Festival is Canada’s only bilingual international literary festival. Every year thousands of New Brunswickers meet face-to-face with some of the brightest literary minds of our times. The Frye Festival has hosted winners of all the major international literary prizes bringing globally renowned literary talent to New Brunswick communities. Tickets for the 2010 edition of the Frye Festival can be purchased from the Greater Moncton ticketing network. For more information on the Frye Festival and its program, go to www.frye.ca.