Month: September 2021

P. J. Thomas

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Meet PJ Thomas. Born and raised on Lake Ontario, PJ relocated to Peterborough to attend classes and became editor-in-chief of the Trent University newspaper, Arthur. She went on to edit several local publications and was the first executive director of the 4th Line Theatre Company. Thomas also promoted contemporary Canadian music until becoming disabled. She has since marked a triumphant return to literature with two novels published to critical acclaim. In autumn 2020 she launched her first book of poetry, Undertow. Thomas also wrote lyrics that were nominated for a 2021 Juno Award as part of Rick Fines’ album, Solar Powered Too. In 2021 her work was showcased twice in the online publication, Poetry Present, by Cobourg’s Poet Laureate. Thomas was one of five poets featured in 2021 National Poetry Month’s Show and Tell Poetry Series Poster Project. Her poems have appeared in The River Magazine, The 2021 Festival of Light and Dark, and will be included in the Bill Bissett anthology, Poemdemic! Thomas makes her home by the Otonabee River with her cat.

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Terry Fallis

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This week’s guest is Terry Fallis. A two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, Terry  is the award-winning author of seven national bestsellers, all published by McClelland & Stewart (M&S). His debut novel, The Best Laid Plans (2008),won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was crowned the 2011 winner of CBC Canada Reads as the “essential Canadian novel of the decade.“The High Road (2010)was a finalist for the 2011 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Up and Down (2012), debuted on the Globe and Mail bestsellers list, was a finalist for the 2013 Leacock Medal, and won the 2013 Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. Terry published more award winning novels in the years that followed; No Relation (2014),  won the 2015 Leacock Medal. M&S published  Poles Apart (2015), One Brother Shy(2017)and  Albatross, (2019) and has just released Terry’s new novel Operation Angus. Terry has written for many publications including Maclean’s, Canadian Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Toronto Star. Terry earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from McMaster University (1983) where he became engulfed in university politics and somehow persuaded the undergraduates to elect him President of the Students Union.

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Gwynn Scheltema and Felicity Sidnell Reid

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Gwynn Scheltema’s poetry has been published in anthologies, journals and magazines in Canada, Europe and South Africa, online and in print. She is one of five featured poets in One Ticket Five Rides. (Whirling Dervish Press). Gwynn writes from her peaceful home on the shores of Lake Seymour on the Trent Severn Waterway system in Ontario, Canada, but she was born and raised amid drought and dust and civil war in Southern Africa. These two contrasting landscapes vie for attention in her writing.  Ten of Diamonds was her COVID project, published in June this year.

Felicity Sidnell Reid is a poet who also writes short stories and nonfiction. Many of her poems have been published in anthologies, in print and online journals, magazines and blogs. Her novel, Alone: A Winter in the Woods was released by Hidden Brook Press in 2015 and published as an e-book in 2020. She is the co-editor with Kim Aubrey of Our Pandemic Times, A Journal in Times of Pandemic and Lockdown. (Blue Denim Press 2021.) She released The Yellow Magnolia and Other Poems in June 2021.

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