This week Word on the Hills talks by Zoom to Bruce Kauffman. Bruce is a poet, editor, event organizer, workshop facilitator and lives in Kingston. He has had four collections of poetry published, the most recent – last year’s, ‘an evening absence still waiting for moon’. He also produces and hosts a radio show called ‘finding a voice’ at CFRC 101.9 FM Kingston. And he organizes and hosts a monthly poetry open mic. which began in 2009.

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This week we talk to Erika Rummel. Erika  is the author/editor of many non-fiction, historical works, and an established novelist. Last year one of her historical novels, THE INQUISITOR’S NIECE, a story from the time of the Spanish Inquisition, received the award for “best historical novel” from the Colorado Publishers’ Association. This year has been particularly busy; three books on which she worked during 2018/19 have come home “to roost” all at the same time: the first, a translation from the German of a biography of the philosopher and humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam; the second a non-fiction book about the man who was Austria’s Chancellor when the Nazis occupied the country in 1938 and who was imprisoned until he was liberated by the Allies in 1945. The book is about the strategies he and other prisoners used for their emotional and intellectual survival. The third book is a new historical novel, THE ROAD TO GESUALDO, set in 16th century Italy which is about to be released and has received enthusiastic pre-publication reviews.

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Jan Thornhill was born in Sudbury and grew up living on the outskirts of small communities where the fields and woods became her world.  She chose to go to OCAD after leaving school and when she graduated, decided to try free- lancing as an illustrator and to her surprise found employment this way for over 10 years.  After she met her husband Fred in 1981, Jan started writing, and in 1987 wrote and illustrated her first children’s book – the Wildlife ABC, which is still in print. Jan has won many awards including the 2015 Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People, a lifetime achievement award presented by the Writers’ Trust of Canada,^[2]  and, most recently, the TD Children’s Literature Award for The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk. Jan lives with her husband Fred in a house they built in the woods near Havelock, Ontario.

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This week, we talk to Karen Ralley, from Prince Edward County, on Zoom. Karen was raised in Milford, the village where her great-great-grandfather William Byron Scott (1843-1921) owned and operated historic Scott’s Mill. One of her early articles was a history of Scott’s Mill which was published in The County Magazine in 1977. Karen’s short stories, poetry and journalism have been published in Lake Effect, The Queen’s Feminist Review, Ultraviolet, County Magazine, express, Umbrella, and Independently Reviewed.  One of her short stories was recently published in The County Wave, an anthology of stories by county writers. She is currently working on a novel and now lives outside Picton in a century farmhouse on 12 acres of land, with her husband writer, J D Carpenter.

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Carole Payne first came to Port Hope to start the Port Hope archives in 1994. She has lived here for 23 years, since 1997 when she took a job as a part time research librarian at Cameco. In 2000 she established BOUND TO LAST, a book bindery which she ran out of her own home. She made books and boxes, and repaired books for many years, but now is mostly retired.  A naturalist, Carole served as president of Willow Beach Naturalists from 2001-2003. She is the mother of four grownup children and now a writer and the editor of THIS IS US DOING CHURCH, a book of 76 stories written by 50 authors, past or current members of the congregation or associated with Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, published as part of the celebration of Metropolitan’s 200th anniversary in 2018.

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