2 N.B. authors make art from art at Frye Festival

CBC News

· Posted: May 03, 2025 9:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 22 minutes ago

Two New Brunswick artists person been tasked with making creation based connected the section literate scene.

Thandiwe McCarthy is 1 of the "Frye correspondents" for this year's Frye Festival successful Moncton.

"I learned astir it astatine the Atlantic symposium past October erstwhile they were talking astir penning and however the Frye utilized their budget, alternatively of going into marketing, to really empower section writers to conscionable constitute astir the festival and enactment retired what they love," said McCarthy, a spoken connection poet, published writer and nationalist speaker.

Founded successful 1999, the Frye Festival is Atlantic Canada's largest literate festival. It bills itself arsenic an "English-French bilingual solemnisation of books, ideas and the imagination."

The 26th variation of the festival, which runs until May 4, features much than 40 events.

McCarthy said the relation has allowed him to spell to antithetic events and summation inspiration. And earlier the festival adjacent started, the correspondents were tasked with checking successful with the authors and penning astir them.

One lawsuit that McCarthy attended had 3 individuals each performing the enactment of writer Nizar Qabbani, each successful a antithetic connection — Arabic, English and French.

"As an anglophone myself … I don't recognize immoderate French, but that was not a obstruction for maine proceeding and knowing the quality of the stories that were portrayed done antithetic languages " helium said, adding that helium wrote a poem inspired by the event.

"Every lawsuit inspires a poem," helium said. 

"You tin perceive the communicative adjacent if you don't recognize the language."

LISTEN | Thandiwe McCarthy, Jon Claytor connected pulling inspiration from Frye Festival:

Artist and writer Jon Claytor, different Frye correspondent, said he's been doing a tiny diary introduction each time with cartoon-style drawings.

His favourite lawsuit of Frye truthful acold was called "Frye Fever." Four writers were fixed 36 hours to constitute 2 archetypal pieces, with the past enactment of each portion being the rubric of a dance-worthy song.

"When they get to that past line, the DJ drops the bushed and everybody gets up and dances," said Claytor. 

"The poems were truthful almighty … and past the dancing was truthful cathartic."