Wouldn’t you know it, I’m writing again! After a few years as an editor, they’ve been getting me writing at Brunswick News, and after spending some time covering a vacancy at the Kings County Record in Sussex I have officially signed on to the Telegraph-Journal’s Times-Globe newsroom in Saint John.
It’s been fun writing again! And I thought it might be good to share some of that writing on the blog here so you can see what I’ve been working on. So here are some of my April writing highlights:
‘She can’t wait’: Ukrainians joining relatives in Sussex
After staying with relatives in Warsaw for two months, Mariia Poznakhovska can’t wait to be reunited with her aunt and cousins.
Poznakhovska, 18, her mother Lesia, 40, and sister Cristina, 13, left their homes in western Ukraine when Russia began its invasion of the country in February, leaving behind her father, who chose to join the military. Now they’ve applied for visas, and Poznakhovska said they’re eager to join her aunt in Sussex.
“My aunt who lives in Canada calls us every day. She can’t wait for our arrival, as well as our cousins,” Poznakhovska said by email.
The Multicultural Association of Sussex has said it is preparing to welcome more displaced Ukrainians as part of the federal government’s Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET), including Poznakhovska’s family and another family coming soon. The measure allows Ukrainians and families to come to Canada with streamlined visa and travel requirements and stay as temporary residents for three years, with availability for an open work permit.
Chelsie Nightingale, MAS executive director, said the group is looking to formalize how to handle placing newcomers with verified volunteers, but in the meantime, it’s facilitating cases like Poznakhovska’s where the family and hosts are known to each other. Nightingale said the group will be helping her family with medical items, finding work, and assessing their language needs.
Click here to read more… (Kings County Record, April 27, paywalled)
Rental cap not enough protection for tenants: advocates
Rent control advocates say a dispute involving the province’s proposed rent cap that left two Hampton tenants looking for a home shows lack of protection for renters.
Jennifer Taylor and Michelle Cheslock, two single mothers who had rented out separate suites in a duplex at 27-29 Acadia Crescent, say they were given eviction notices, notifying them their apartments were being turned into Airbnbs. They said the notices came one day after they refused to sign new leases that included rent increases of as much as 40 per cent.
Matthew Hayes, spokesperson for the New Brunswick Coalition for Tenants’ Rights, said unless better protections are added with the 3.8 per cent rent cap the province announced this year, including making it permanent, tenants are at risk.
“We’re really seeing that the lack of rights is contributing to housing insecurity and the housing crisis for many, many people,” Hayes said. “If they impose a rent cap without improving tenants’ rights, we are going to be seeing a raft of the same type of evictions … because landlords can do whatever they want to evict tenants.”
Click here to read more… (Telegraph-Journal, April 11, paywalled)
Peter Powning exhibit finally opens after pandemic delay
It’s been a long wait, but an exhibit celebrating one of New Brunswick’s most celebrated artists is finally opening to the public.
Peter Powning: A Retrospective opens Saturday at the New Brunswick Museum location in Market Square in Saint John. Originally scheduled to open in Fredericton in the fall of 2020, the exhibition of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery is curated by John Leroux and features works from throughout the sculptor’s five-decades-long career.
“The New Brunswick Museum is always proud to feature such an important event in the life and career of … one of our internationally-renowned artists,” said Peter Larocque, the museum’s art curator.
The exhibit follows the book of the same name, released in 2020, which featured photos of Powning’s collected works as well as items that were privately held and large public installation pieces. This exhibit represents the works that were available to display in person, such as the ones in the New Brunswick Museum collection, and is organized in chronological order, according to Powning, who has lived in Markhamville, N.B., just outside of Sussex, for over 50 years.
Click here to read more… (Saint John Times-Globe, April 8, paywalled)
‘That’s my cat’: Owner IDs feline lost a decade ago
Alica Henry always thought her cat Louie died more than 10 years ago, but then she saw him on Facebook.
Henry, a 32-year-old former Sussex resident now living in Moncton, said she came across a post from Strays of Sussex (SOS), a group that helps stray or abandoned cats. She says the post, about a cat named Bruce who had been roaming a local neighbourhood for more than three years and was taken in with an injury, seemed familiar.
“When I saw it, I was like, that’s so strange. That looks just like my cat,” Henry said. “I went back through all my pictures from years ago, and I was… 100 per cent was my cat,” she said. “These people are going to think I was crazy if I message them, but she didn’t think I was crazy.”
Terri Peck, a member of the SOS executive board and foster for Louie, said the cat hung around the neighbourhood for three to four years, with herself and another neighbour feeding him and offering him shelter at winter. She said they had a feeling he wasn’t a feral cat.
“Normally, a feral cat, if they see you, they run and hide,” she said. “He would come to the door looking for food, and if you open the door to go out, he would go so many feet away and watch you while you put the food out.”
Click here to read more… (Telegraph-Journal, April 6, paywalled)
N.B. director takes helm Monday for network TV show
A New Brunswick-born director hopes her upcoming episode of The Good Doctor can be a major turning point in her career.
Cayman Grant, from St. Martins, has directed an episode of the ABC medical drama that is scheduled to air Monday at 11 p.m. The award-winning director with 14 years experience says having a TV episode opens doors and can push her career to bigger heights.
“I’ve been directing for a long time and I’ve been around television stuff for a long time, and it’s definitely culminated to this being my time and I’m very excited about it,” Grant said from Los Angeles in an interview with Brunswick News.
Grant said she has had success in her career, including a Sports Emmy for a 2015 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, but early on it was hard for female directors to find agents and get opportunities, so she turned to writing. Now after getting on the roster of the Creative Artists Agency in 2015 and landing a few previous mentorship programs, she said she’s in a Disney mentorship program which offered her to direct an episode at the end.
“One of the issues you have breaking over into the TV world is that you need an episode. Once you have that episode, things open up for you, but you have to manage a crew of eighty people on set,” she said. “It’s a big undertaking that I’m very grateful for. When this opportunity came up, I jumped on it and didn’t look back.”
Click here to read more… (Saint John Times-Globe, April 2, paywalled)