Frye Festival, Day #7

I’ve been procrastinating writing this blog post because it just seems so final. The magical moments, the big ideas, the sore brain will all be over for another year.

Gabriel Robichaud did a fabulous job presenting the Poem flyé at the airport yesterday (soon to be posted on our website) to all his assembled subjects who are now “Deep Frye’d Frye Fans”. Les Paiens were absolutely amazing as usual (Susan Juby is busily working on a rap piece just in case she gets invited back to the Festival and has an opportunity to play with a band again…for many of the authors, performing at Frye Jam with a band is an inspiring first-time experience!). When Gabriel completed his poem, he relinquished his crown and tossed it into the audience. What is the significance of Sarah Donaldson, Frye Academy participant and first-prize winning short story writer in the Festival’s contest, catching the crown? Was this a set-up? I don’t think so. It was destiny!

We unveiled the plaque that will be placed on a building in Downtown Moncton (as we have done for the last 11 years, sometimes the Festival seems ephemeral, but the plaques are my constant reminder that we actually do have a Festival each year!), with a quotation by Atwood from The Blind Assassin:

In Paradise, there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.

I know that Margaret Atwood made it as far as Montreal since a big Festival supporter and Frye Fan (Bill Watson) personally escorted her to the departure gate in Montreal (I saw her to the departure gate in Moncton…we provide full service here at the Frye!). The Frye Fan stories are coming in fast and furious (thank you Facebook!) and I know that they will continue for a while yet. Thank you everyone for taking the time to write. It is so helpful to us to be able to plan next year’s Festival. I’m still waiting for the perfect connection to J.K. Rowling, so if you have any ideas on how we might entice her to participate in next year’s Festival, please let me know!

The authors have left, the epic poem has been delivered and the wrap party is over (well, at least I think it is…I left at 9:00 last night, but it looked like it was still going strong then!). I’ve even cleared my bedside table and started on the new pile of books for next year.

I hope that all the team members are sleeping. Danielle LeBlanc, Roxanne Richard, James Fogerty, Angele Cormier and the whole team were absolutely amazing throughout the Festival, despite their complete and utter lack of sleep. They should all be so proud of what they accomplished since all the events went off without a hitch. The biggest complaints we received had to do with our box office ticket sales and I’m sure that we will rectify that for next year.

Thank you for reading, for participating in the Festival, for volunteering and for all your support.

A deep Frye’d fan, back to the piles of laundry!

Dawn

Frye Festival, Day #6

What an amazing day! Saturdays at the Frye are always about kids for me, starting with KidsFest.

My daughter and I grabbed the big tub of kids’ books we had gathered from the basement along with the huge bingo machine I had borrowed from the Riverview Lions Club and we raced to KidsFest (especially after we had received the panicked call that three volunteers were no-shows).

Suzanne Cyr organized a very special event for an Atom hockey team from Shediac that has an incredible coach. Shane Doiron insists that the boys on his team read books…and that they bring them to practice each week and discuss them together! He’s been doing this for a while and the boys love it. So, in order to make a better story for Radio-Canada TV, Suzanne invited the team to have a private session with Geronimo Stilton. With their jerseys on, the boys had a great time meeting and chatting with Geronimo and then telling their stories about how much they enjoy reading and playing hockey.  (For more on the story: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/atlantic/young-hockey-players-hit-the-ice-then-the-books/article1939486/).

Thanks to the masterly organization by our coordinator James Fogerty (you may be interested to know that this wunderkind is heading off to England for his Masters in Composition at King’s College in the fall) the event was simply spectacular. Hoards of kids and their families arrived, ready for all kinds of word play. They swapped books, read books, played animal bingo, made cat puppets, fished for words, wrote poetry, created letter-filled door knob hangers, watched some great theatre presentations, mobbed a rodent (we may need one every year now!), participated in writing workshops and of course, heard authors.

I met some fascinating kids: Kenneth Oppel fans who had driven from far and wide for the chance to meet him; young writers who have been actively writing books for three years (and they are only ten!); Reynald Cantin fans who were absolutely determined to find the book that he had read in their classroom; Annie Groovie fans who had adored meeting her in their classroom and had come out in droves to introduce her to their parents (and buy her books!). It was a great event with about 1,500 kids and their families through over the course of the morning. Phew!

After cleaning up (which went incredibly smoothly this year thanks to our hard-working volunteers!) I raced on to Budding Writers. The lobby was packed at the Capitol Theatre as 16 students from Grades 5 to 8 read their own creations. What diversity, although I must comment that there was division along gender lines! The boys wrote compelling arguments almost exclusively (the need for a Moncton-based NHL team, the need to change the Riverview bi-laws and why the “band” the Gorrilaz are the best band of all time!) and the girls took on a more storytelling role. All the presentations were excellent and the students were just so polished and professional. Both Susan Judy and Annie Groovie who acted as mentors for the event were completely blown away by the talent. 

I unfortunately missed the literary trivia contest at Navigator’s Pub, but it sounded like a lot of fun…maybe my clone will be ready for next year? Next on the agenda was the literary lounge which was fun, chatting with fans and authors in such an informal setting.

Time for a quick shower and back to the Capitol. I was just picking up the Frye Academy Award at the office when Danielle gave me the call at 7:35: where was Atwood? Where was Rhonda Whittaker who was interviewing her? They were supposed to be back stage at 7:00 for a sound check and there was no sign of either one! Yikes! (I had visions of myself reciting French poetry on stage…and it wasn’t good!) All I knew was that Rhonda had asked me if it was OK to take Margaret on a tour in the afternoon and I had visions of them going “off piste” somewhere in Fundy! I tried to make my way through the throngs in the Capitol Lobby but quickly gave up. I raced out the front door and along Main Street when I heard Rhonda yell “Dawn, here we are!” and sure enough there was Rhonda along with a dark-hooded incognito character, who was thankfully Margaret! Phew. We rushed them in back stage for a quick sound check, some pointers on how she likes book signings to go and then to the stage. For a terrific account of the “lecture” and Q&A, see Bob Mersereau’s blog: http://www.cbc.ca/nb/features/fryefestival/ (I completely agree with him…brilliant and funny!)

Immediately after the event, the line formed…and formed, and formed! More than 200 people stood in line for up to an hour and a half to get a book signed. Margaret was incredibly good-natured about it all and never stopped. In fact, when a certain partner of a certain board member waited at the end of the very long line to ask a special favour of Margaret, she completely indulged him, writing copiously in the book and analyzing this board member’s difficulty with “ring” stories. It was very funny. I literally had to entice her to leave with her coat. Rhonda had two good friends who were enormous fans who desperately wanted to walk Margaret back to the hotel, so they got their wish and I set out for Frye Jam.

WOW! I knew it was going to be crowded, but this was crazy! You could not move at City Grill. What a great location for events (despite the columns). Lots of familiar faces, but lots of new ones too. I did a quick tour, but since I had been receiving texts from my family all night that they would like me to make contact, I decided at 11:30 I should probably miss the fun and go home. Too bad. I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I still had to think about what I was going to say at the Poet flyé dit Bye-Bye event…so I had better get some shut-eye!