Congratulations to our friends and colleagues in Moncton!  We wish you the very best, and look forward to hearing from you.

We wish we were there!!

Update: Here’s a report from Ed Lemond on day 1:

The Official Launch of the Festival is this morning at 11am, with bells and whistles, musicians, sponsors and politicians, and our own Poet Flyé, Jesse Robichaud, whose task is to follow the festival for a week, make notes and come up a long poem to present at the closing next Sunday.  Since Jesse is also a reporter at the local newspaper, we’re assured of some good coverage. There’s snow on the ground, so it must be Frye Festival time.  We always get at least one snowstorm during the festival, or at least a dusting.  In 2001 the plane carrying Robert Bly and Marie-Claire Blais had to be diverted to Halifax because of a major snowstorm.  They finally got here in the early morning hours, in time for their events. We’re lucky that we haven’t lost any authors to the volcano.  Craig Stepenson, scheduled to give a talk Wed. evening (“Reading Frye Reading Jung”), fortunately decided to visit friends in Toronto before coming to Moncton.  He left Paris last Wed. or Thur., before flights were grounded.  I’ll meet him tomorrow and drive him to a local school, for a ‘school visit.’  It will be interesting to see how a Jungian Analyst based in Paris, France, addresses a class of high school students in Riverview, New Brunswick. The main event today, after the Official Launch, is called Prelude: Emerging Writers of New Brunswick, featuring 6 young writers, 3 French, 3 English, each with one or two books to their credit, just beginning their careers.  8pm, we’ll be there.  Tomorrow things start to heat up.