Herb Curtis
1949-

Herb Curtis (novelist, short-story writer, and humourist) was born 23 December 1949 in Keenan Siding, located on the Miramichi River a few kilometres south of Blackville, New Brunswick. Curtis attended a one-room schoolhouse in Keenan Siding for the first six years of his education and then attended Blackville Rural High School for several years before leaving school to guide and work in the woods. At the age of eighteen, Curtis moved to Fredericton, NB where he still lives. For the next twenty years, he continued to dabble in fiction while working for much of this time at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel as a bartender, bellhop, bouncer, and jack-of-all-trades. In the late 1970s, Curtis and a partner formed the musical-comedy act “Shadrack and Dryfly,” which played at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel on Saturday nights. In the late 1980s, Curtis left his job at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel to pursue his writing full time. Shadrack Nash and Dryfly Ramsey became the central characters of his first novel, The Americans are Coming, which was published in 1989. It was the first volume in what came to be known as the Brennan Siding Trilogy, which includes The Last Tasmanian (1991); winner of the 1992 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and shortlisted for the 1992 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Canada and the Caribbean, and The Lone Angler (1993). The trilogy was followed by another novel (The Silent Partner (1996)) as well as humourous short fiction entitled Hoofprints on the Sheet (1993) and Luther Corhern’s Salmon Camp Chronicles (1999), which was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Award. Curtis also ventured into non-fiction with the publication of The Scholten Story (1996). Two of Curtis's novels have been adapted for Theatre New Brunswick's stage: The Americans are Coming (1997), whose script was co-authored by Curtis, and The Last Tasmanian (1999). Curtis continues to write fiction and returns regularly to the Curtis homestead, where he still occasionally serves as a guide on the Miramichi River. 

Source

Rose, Ellen. "Herb Curtis." New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia, Winter 2009. Accessed 8 May 2023.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton, Keenan Siding

Archival Material

  • Location
    University of New Brunswick Archives & Special Collections
    Retrieval Number
    MG L 36
    Date Range of Material
    1988, 1990, 1996, 2005
    Extent

    12 cm textual records

    Scope and Content Note

    Fonds consists of typed manuscripts and newspaper clippings of Herb Curtis' writing. Includes manuscript copies of: The Americans are Coming (1988), The Last Tasmanian; Look What the Cat Drug In; Bee Shepard (unpublished manuscript, [ca. 199-?]); and His Purpose to Unfold: The Scholtens (1996). Also include three newspaper clippings: "Curtis writes a Miramichi Novel: and "Not that stupid Greece stuff again" from the Miramichi Leader, 8 Nov 1989, Section B; "Truths I told my father, Or, how I became a logger on the Miramichi" from The Brunswick Reader, 30 March 1996, p. 6; and, "The mourning star, The big city of Fredericton lured Kid Lauder with its promise of Hollywood, glitter and money", from The New Brunswick Reader, 19 March 2005, p. 11.

Headshot of Herb Curtis
Picture Caption

Herb Curtis

Credit

Photo from Memories of Blackville website via New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia, Winter 2009. Accessed 8 May 2023.

See the New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia entry.

Bibliography Items

Displaying 1 - 5 of 5
Curtis, Herb. The last Tasmanian. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1991, 291 pp. [ book ]

Curtis, Herb. Lone angler. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1993, 259 pp. [ book ]

Curtis, Herb. The silent partner. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1996, 266 pp. [ book ]

Curtis, Herb. Luther Corherns's salmon camp chronicles. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1999, 184 pp. [ book ]

Curtis, Herb. The Americans are coming. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2008, 280 pp. [ book ]