Poet Laureate

The City of Fredericton Poet Laureate is an ambassador of the literary arts, promoting and celebrating the joy, beauty, and value of literature, poetry, and the spoken word. During their term, the Poet Laureate crafts original literary works to present at community events and engages the public through a variety of activities, programs, and special events.

Fawn Parker (Poet Laureate, 2024–2026)

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Photo of Fawn Parker

 

Fawn Parker is a novelist, poet, researcher, and community organizer in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her novel What We Both Know was nominated for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize and her poetry collection Soft Inheritance was awarded the 2023 JM Abraham Atlantic Book Award and the 2023 Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize. Parker’s fiction, poetry, essays, and interviews have been published in leading national publications such as The Walrus, Maisonneuve, The Literary Review of Canada, and Hazlitt. Her work has been nominated for the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and multiple National Magazine Awards.

She currently holds a four-year SSHRC research grant in support of her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick where she is writing a dissertation in Mad Studies. Parker’s work deals with themes of mental illness and mental healthcare, grief and loss, and family and relationships. She has taught literature and creative writing at the undergraduate level, through arts festivals and residencies such as the Banff Centre for the Arts and the PEI Wild Threads Literary Festival and worked as an MFA thesis supervisor at the University of Guelph in Ontario. She hosts a monthly reading series at Westminster Bookmark called “The Catch-Up,” every fourth Sunday of the month.

Past Poet Laureates

Call for Applications for the Poet Laureate Position

Current Call for Applications

There is currently no open call for applications for the Poet Laureate position.