Christopher Black  is an international criminal lawyer and writer. His family immigrated to Canada when he was 8 years old. He attended university in Hamilton, and then Toronto. He spent 30 years as a trial lawyer in Toronto except for 7 years in the mid-80’s when he dropped out to study acting and formed his own theatre company TheatreDynamics. When the money ran out he returned to criminal law. For the past 16 years he has spent most of his time in Europe and Africa defending generals and presidents accused of war crimes.  Since 2015 he has lived in Campbellford.  Throughout his legal career he has kept writing and has succeeded in publishing in many genres over the years.

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Word on the Hills interviews John Cosway, a Toronto-born-and-raised high school dropout who learned early in life that he had a way with words – and pictures.  Kicked out of high school twice in the 1950s for lack of interest, he embraced the news media for his self-education, delivering the Toronto Star for eight years, working as a copy boy at the Globe and Mail for three years and in 1963, thanks to Robert Turnbull, then city editor of the Globe and Mail, launching into a half century of reporting and editing at newspapers across Canada – from the Chatham Daily News to the Toronto Sun. His book highlights his numerous brushes with fame from behind the lens, from Frankie Avalon in 1959, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Hawkins and others in the 1960s, and Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Buddy Rich and others in the 1970s. In 2017, he ended his 10-year stint as a Wayback Times columnist to devote full attention to scanning his original negatives. With his 75th birthday approaching, he felt it was time to share his mostly unpublished photos and a handful of photos that had limited public exposure.

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This week we interview Stephen Skyvington. about his new book. His columns regularly appear in newspapers all across Canada, under the banner Opinions and Observations. Formerly the manager of government relations for the Ontario Medical Association, where he spent six and a half years lobbying elected officials and civil servants at all three levels of government, Stephen is currently the president of PoliTrain Inc., a public relations firm he founded in 2001. In addition to being a full-time registered lobbyist, Stephen also has a great deal of experience in community and stakeholder relations, as well as media and government relations. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

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We are devoting this week’s episode to the exciting festival, now in its third year, organized by authors, Vicki Delany and Janet Kellough. WOMEN KILLING IT is a hugely successful festival celebrating Canadian women crime writers and all the genres of crime and mystery writing. It takes place in Picton, Prince Edward County, on the Labour Day weekend. Join us to hear all about it!

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