The Fiddlehead: Atlantic Canada's International Literary Journal

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The Fiddlehead: Atlantic Canada's International Literary Journal

Campus House, 11 Garland Court PO Box 4400, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, E3B 5A3 The Fiddlehead was first established in 1945.

What began as a mimeographed 8-page journal stapled together by Alfred Bailey is now a veritable institution of literary culture in Canada. For the last 65 years, The Fiddlehead has continually upheld its mandate to publish accomplished poetry, short fiction, and Canadian literature reviews; to discover and promote new writing talent; to represent the Atlantic region's lively cultural and literary

diversity; and to place the best of new and established Canadian writing in an international context. To quote John Metcalf, “The Fiddlehead was, and is, an essential part of Canada’s literary life. Its editors have always taken seriously their responsibility to seek out and encourage new young writers and give them a hearing in the company of their elders.”

06/11/2025

There is less than one month to our 2025 Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem!

Submit your best poem for a chance to win $2,000 CAD and be published in The Fiddlehead! This year’s judges are Bertrand Bickersteth, T. Liem, and Douglas Walbourne-Gough.

More details here: https://thefiddlehead.ca/poetry-contest

04/11/2025

Out now on our website, Fiddlehead Editorial Assistant Caitlyn Sinclair's interview with Shelley Pacholok explores how form and tone engage with content in Pacholok's 2025 Creative Nonfiction Contest winning story "How Not to Say Good-Bye to Your Professor."

Read the interview here:
https://thefiddlehead.ca/content/interview-shelley-pacholok

31/10/2025

For our Summer 2026 issue, Disability: The Revolution! The Fiddlehead has brought on a team of amazing editors! Our final genre editor almost needs no introduction. The well-loved Phillip Crymble, one of The Fiddlehead's very own poetry editors, is joining the team as poetry editor!

Phillip Crymble is a poet and upper-limb amputee from Belfast now living in Atlantic Canada. A poetry editor at The Fiddlehead, he holds a MFA from the University of Michigan and a PhD from the University of New Brunswick. His work has appeared in The Walrus, The Literary Review of Canada, Maisonneuve, The Malahat Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, The Forward Book of Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2015, Not Even Laughter, his first full-length collection, was released by Salmon Poetry, Ireland. In 2020 he was chosen as the winner of the Penny-Farthing Prize for Lyric Poetry by Diane Seuss.

If you are a disabled author and would like to submit to the issue, check out the full call for submissions on our website: https://thefiddlehead.ca/revolution

24/10/2025

For our Summer 2026 issue, Disability: The Revolution! The Fiddlehead has brought on a team of amazing editors! Joining Amanda Leduc, Therese Estacion is our Creative Nonfiction Editor for the issue!

Therese Estacion is the author of Phantompains (Book*hug Press), a poetry collection that explores her Filipinx heritage and physical disability. In 2021, the book was a finalist for both the Foreword INDIES Award for Poetry and the Firecracker Award for Poetry. She has been a guest editor for Arc Poetry magazine and Feels zine, and curated Smutburger’s 2023-2024 series. Based in Toronto, Estacion has been an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies and is training as a psychotherapist.

If you are a disabled author and would like to submit to the issue, check out the full call for submissions on our website: https://thefiddlehead.ca/revolution

23/10/2025

Our Autumn Issue is here, featuring a collection of stories and poems to drink in alongside your favourite fall beverage!

Also included are reviews of:
• The World After Rain by Canisia Lubrin
• Aqueous by Nathanael Jones
• The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits by Ben Berman Ghan
• As Is by Ben Robinson
• She’s a Lamb! by Meredith Hambrock

Plus, we’re excited to share the winning story from our creative nonfiction winner written by Shelley Pacholok

And don’t miss the beautiful cover art by multi-disciplinary artist, Ann Manuel.

This issue is now in the mail on its way to subscribers!

Read a preview here: https://thefiddlehead.ca/issue/305

17/10/2025

For our Summer 2026 issue, Disability: The Revolution! The Fiddlehead has brought on a team of amazing editors! We are going to take some time over the next couple of weeks to introduce them!

We are so excited to have disabled author and activist Amanda Leduc overseeing and serving as fiction editor for the issue!

Amanda Leduc is the author of DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE, which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Nonfiction. Her latest novel, WILD LIFE, has been longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize. She is also the author of the novels THE CENTAUR’S WIFE (2021) and THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN (2013). Amanda’s essays and stories have appeared across Canada, the US, and the UK, and she speaks regularly across North America on accessibility, inclusion, and disability in storytelling. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

If you are a disabled author and would like to submit to the issue, check out the full call for submissions on our website: https://thefiddlehead.ca/revolution

10/10/2025

We're excited to announce the winner of our 2025 Creative Nonfiction Contest is Shelley Pacholok for her essay "How Not to Say Good-Bye to Your Professor"! Shelley Pacholok will receive $2000 in prize money and her essay will appear in the Autumn 2025 issue of The Fiddlehead. Keep an eye out for when our autumn issue goes live to read an excerpt from "How Not to Say Good-Bye to Your Professor"

Read judge Nicole Breit's editorial now on our website:
https://thefiddlehead.ca/content/congratulations-our-2025-creative-nonfiction-contest-winner-shelley-pacholok

Shelley Pacholok’s current manuscript narrates a personal journey of brain injury. Her autoethnographic writing appears in Prairie Fire and the brain-injury anthology Impact. She was longlisted for the 2024 Upstart & Crow writer’s residency and was the second-place winner in the PRISM International Creative Non-Fiction Contest.

Thank you again to judge Nicole Breit and to all who entered the poetry contest!

08/10/2025

Fiddlehead reader Ian Clay Sewall has shared his short film "Mirage," which was recently screened at the Edmonton International Film Festival, on our website. Filmed on 3000 feet of 35mm film, the fictional short film chronicles a chaotic fight outside a rural gas station. Watch it now on The Fiddlehead's website:

07/10/2025

In this week's Stop! Look! Listen! Kim Pittaway recommends something different: Art-scrolling!

Listen to how she accessibly finds art that inspires here:

26/09/2025

Congratulations to our fourteen 2025 Creative Nonfiction Contest finalists! Thank you to everyone who submitted; there was some stiff competition this year. And lastly, thank you to our judge Nicole Breit!

The contest's winner will be announced on October 10th!

Visit our website to see who made the shortlist: https://thefiddlehead.ca/content/2024-creative-nonfiction-contest-shortlist-0

25/09/2025

Disability: The Revolution!

Special Issue Call for Submissions, Deadline November 30, 2025

Revolution: from the old French revolution, originally referring to the motion of the stars. Later versions of the word in the 15th century played on this sense of cyclical revolving — in the changing of the seasons, but also — crucially — the revolving of the wheel.

For our Summer 2026 issue, The Fiddlehead seeks work from disabled writers on the theme of revolution. You can interpret the theme as broadly as you like. If you identify as disabled and would like to answer this call, please submit! We would love to hear from you.

Send us your fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and review pitches that call for change — change in the world we know and change in the world that might come to be.

The issue will be overseen by disabled author and activist Amanda Leduc, who will also serve as the fiction editor alongside poetry editor Phillip Crymble, nonfiction editor Therese Estacion, and reviews editors Grace R. Taylor and Christine Wu.

See the full call and instructions on how to submit here: https://thefiddlehead.ca/revolution

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