ARTS EAST

Frank Gogos graduated from Memorial University in 1994 after completing his education in history and Newfoundland studies. His latest effort is The Royal Newfoundland Regiment in the Great War . With more than 400 photographs and 40 maps, the work is a tribute to those who served and a guide for those who wish to retrace the soldiers’ steps. Recently we spoke with the author about the book. What inspired you to become a writer? I guess it would have been my father. He passed away when I was four years old but left behind scrapbooks of poems and short stories in both English and Hungarian. It was his dream to be a writer. I guess I picked up on that and it had become a dream of mine also. Are they the same reasons you do it today? Not really, I had always thought I would be a fiction writer and I have evolved into a historian of sorts. My first two books were for entirely different reasons than I ever imagined. What are the challenges of the profession? The biggest ...

What has  over 50 singers,   15 performances, 6 shows, 5 venues and starts this week? It’s the Halifax Summer Opera Festival! Recently AE spoke with founder and artistic director Nina Scott-Stoddart about hitting all the high notes. What are your own roots? I’m a Canadian, born in Calgary and raised in Southern Ontario. I have a degree in Fine Arts specializing in Music from York University and I’ve run opera companies in Toronto, Lunenburg and Halifax. How long have you been involved in opera, and in what capacity? My first voice teacher gave me my first opera aria when I was 19 — it was the Lullaby from Menotti’s  The Consul . It took me three weeks before I could sing it without crying — it’s a very affecting piece.  Then she took me to see my first opera: it was the COC’s production of Wagner’s “comedy”,  Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg . Over four solid hours of German opera. I loved every moment of it — it was a real revelation to me. I ...

Fishing is the most dangerous occupation in the world: in Atlantic Canada, an average of one person dies every month while working at sea.   The Deadly Sea,   by bestselling author Jim Wellman, contains twenty-five stories about men and women who work in the Atlantic Canadian fishing industry, ranging from biographies of professionals to tales of tragedy at sea. Recently we spoke with Wellman about the book. What inspired you to become a writer? Mostly, I’ve written about accidents at sea involving inshore fishing people. They are hard working people trying to earn a living in extremely harsh conditions in the deadliest industry in North America. On average, one fisherman dies every month in Atlantic Canada. They are the fishermen of small boats and, other than a short story on the evening news, not much is known about what happened to them or who they were. I write their stories for a fisheries magazine called the Navigator and then later I rewrite and publish them i...