ARTS EAST

Author, poet, publisher, professor, performer, and hard-core surfer Lesley Choyce is a man for all seasons and reasons. Recently, in celebration of his 100th book, Saltwater Chronicles, he found the time to take the infamous Proust questionnaire. What is your idea of perfect happiness?   Living a creative life with someone I love. What is your greatest fear? Fear itself. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Ambition. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Selfishness. Which living person do you most admire? Barack Obama. What is your greatest extravagance? New surfboards. What is your current state of mind?   Bursting with ideas to write about and not enough time. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?   Thriftiness. On what occasion do you lie?   Never. What do you most dislike about your appearance?   I don’t look like a teenager anymore. Which living person do you m...

Nova Scotia singer/songwriter Izra Fitch has just released her latest single, The Hollywood Kids. Recently we spoke her about her passion for her profession. When and why did you start playing music? It really started when I was a teenager. I grew up as a fairly reserved and observant person, with a really dramatic way of thinking underneath. Maybe it was from watching movies or feeling like an underdog or being raised by artists. In any case, I felt things deeply. Those first teenage heartbreaks and initial bouts of mental illness tied in with hormones, paved the way for me to put it into noise. Writing songs - and singing them – became a real outlet for those feelings. Are they the same reasons you do it today?   Absolutely. Although where I used to compose solely for myself, I now love the opportunity to share songs with an audience that can relate to them. Each song comes from a very personal place, and I try to ensure that they can be felt universally. W...

For a poet and author, publishing a book is a major milestone. To publish 100 books is truly something else. Lesley Choyce recently hit that century mark with the publication of  Saltwater Chronicles , a memoir set by the sea. What are the major influences for your writing? It was surfing that brought me to Nova Scotia in 1978, where I settled into an old farmhouse at Lawrencetown Beach and started writing novels and poetry and soon started teaching at Dalhousie, making for the most perfect combination of activities. Everything about the sea has influenced my work. Even lessons from surfing are powerful in professional activities. When you wipe out, you stay deep until the wave passes over, then surface, regain your board and dignity and paddle back out to the line-up and try again. I’m originally from New Jersey, where I started surfing at 13. My move to Nova Scotia changed my life in many ways and, as soon as I settled here, I committed myself to becoming a better su...

Anytime you are on a road signposted by the silhouette of a bagpiper, music beckons an elegant finger. Don your Scottish tam and seek this treasure: The Celtic Music Interpretive Centre (CMIC) in Judique, on Cape Breton’s Ceilidh Trail. Once you pass the waves caressing the rocks below Creignish Mountain on Route 19, watch for the steeple of a brown stone church. Across the road, you will hear the soul of a ceilidh. The license plates tell me who is there today - Rhode Island, Maine, Ontario, South Carolina, Maryland and, of course, Nova Scotia locals. The last time I was there, I was a “home from away” - my current residence in Halifax being just a bit away. As soon as I got out of the car, I heard my childhood nickname called out from a trim fellow in sunglasses sitting on the patio eating a quesadilla and an oatcake for lunch. Here, when that happens, reply by asking them how they are in Gaelic - Caimar a tha thu? - and that will give you enough time to realize who i...

Last Spring, Briana Corr Scott released her debut literary effort, a children’s book titled She Dreams of Sable Island. Following a young, female protagonist, the story explored the natural beauty of Sable Island, an isle off the southeastern coast of Nova Scotia. The tome was an instant success thanks to both its poetic prose and alluring artwork. But this wasn’t your typical children’s book; snug behind the story’s final page sat an old-school, impeccably rendered paper doll kit. Born and bred in Salem, Massachusetts, Corr Scott knew that she wanted to be creative from the age of three. “That is my oldest memory of it,” she tells Arts East over the phone. “When I was little my mom would fold pieces of paper in half and staple it like a book and I would write in it.” In addition to authoring a book, Corr Scott has also plied her trade as a professional artist for more than six years. “I make and sell paper doll kits for children - another thing I loved to do whe...

One the country’s finest and funniest comedians, Derek Seguin, visits the Maritimes over the coming week. Recently we spoke with him about his passion for his profession and what audiences can expect to experience. What are your roots? Both of my parents have French Canadian, Irish/English blood. Both of my grandmothers spoke English, and both of my grandfathers were French. When and why did you start performing comedy? I started in comedy in April of 2004. I had met a comedian at a party and was super intrigued as I had never heard of him. His name is Kevin Gasior and he remains a friend today. I asked him how one went about trying stand-up and he explained the whole open-mic night concept to me and brought me out to one. I watched it a couple of times and then went up. I was immediately hooked and took stand up on as a hobby immediately. After only 16 months, I was offered my first Just for Laughs festival and was convinced I was destined for fame and fortune so proceede...

I n 2006, Arts East spoke with musician and author Neil Peart.  Neil Peart has been busy. Since returning to full-form in 2002, the 54 year old drummer for Rush, the Canadian mega-rock trio, has been preoccupied with a series of personal and professional projects; two studio albums, subsequent concert tours, DVDs, a website, and the writing of three books, including his latest work  Roadshow; Landscape with Drums. Speaking from a recording studio in Toronto where he and his bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are at work on their 18th original studio album, Peart explains his motivations for chronicling his motorcycle journeys during Rush's 2004 thirtieth Anniversary tour. "This book works on different levels. On the one hand it became the logical culmination of so many desires to try and explain what it is really like to be a touring musician and the kinds of personal and artistic conflicts that exist in trying to survive and make a living doing something crea...