Month: March 2023

Ted Barris

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On Dec. 29, 2022, Rideau Hall announced its latest Honours list and Ted Barris learned he would be appointed Member of the Order of Canada, “for advancing our understanding of Canadian military history as an acclaimed historical author, journalist and broadcaster.” Congratulations Ted! Ted’s  writing has regularly appeared in the national press, as well as magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for most CBC Radio network programs, PBS in the U.S. and on TV Ontario. And after 18 years teaching, he recently retired as a full-time professor of journalism at Toronto’s Centennial College. He is the author of 20 bestselling, non-fiction books, including Breaking the Silence: Veterans’ Untold Stories from the Great War to Afghanistan. His 17th book, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, won the 2014 Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award (shared with astronaut Chris Hadfield). In 2018, HarperCollins published Barris’s 18th book – Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid against Nazi Germany – about the famous 1943 attack on the Ruhr River dams that powered Nazi Germany’s industrial war production. The RCAF Association awarded Ted Barris and Dam Busters its 2018 NORAD Trophy for “unequalled contribution to the preservation of Air Force values, traditions, history and heritage.” Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire was Ted’s 19th book and was long-listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada. Ted’s 20th book, Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory was published in the fall of 2022 and immediately landed on the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star bestsellers lists. Following the book’s publication, Ted received word that he’d received Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Award, recognizing “extraordinary contributions to our community and Canada.” These are the books that have established Ted as the preeminent historian of Canada’s military.

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Susan Statham

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A writer, artist and teacher, Susan Statham is a graduate of Algonquin College and the University of Waterloo. She attended the Ontario School of Art and the National Portrait Academy and her quest for classical art instruction is the inspiration for her first mystery novel, The Painter’s Craft. 

An editor and a contributor to Hill Spirits I, through V, Susan won the Medli Award for most promising manuscript for her second mystery novel, True Image.

She is Chair of the Spirit of the Hills writers group, past president of Spirit of the Hills and president of the Cobourg Art Club. In 2021, Susan received Cobourg’s Distinguished Civic Award for Arts and Culture. 

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Kim Fahner

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This week we welcome Kim Fahner. Kim lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. Her most recent book of poems is Emptying the Ocean (Frontenac House, 2022) and her first novel, The Donoghue Girl, will be published in Spring 2024 with Latitude 46 Publishing. She was the fourth poet laureate for Sudbury (2016-18) and was the first woman appointed to the role. Kim is the Ontario Representative for The Writers’ Union of Canada (2020-24), a full member of the League of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada. Kim may be reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com. She is visiting Cobourg to take part in the March Third Thursday Reading organized by The Cobourg Poetry Workshop. At that event, she will read from, Emptying the Ocean.

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Karin Wells

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This week we welcome Karin Wells LLB, LLM, an author, journalist, and lawyer. She is also a sometime actress and worked – briefly – in a pea canning factory. Her latest book, More than a Footnote, a curious and often irreverent look at ten Canadian women who have been forgotten or ignored, has been well received across the country. Her 2020 book The Abortion Caravan: When Women Shut Down Government in the Battle for the Right to Choose” (Second Story Press) was the winner of the OHS (Ontario Historical Society) Alison Prentice Award and shortlisted for the 2021 Shaughnessy Cohen prize, Canada’s premier award for political writing. She regularly contributes to Watershed Magazine focusing on life in Northumberland, Quinte and Prince Edward County. Karin has been recognized as one of this country’s leading radio journalists. Over her career she worked in more than fifty countries making radio documentaries for CBC radio’s The Sunday Edition, hosted by Michael Enright. Her work ranged from on the ground pieces on post conflict resolution in Sierra Leone, South Africa and Mozambique: Canadian mining enterprises in Central and South America; dementia treatment in Denmark; and opera in the English countryside. Her radio documentary work made her a three time winner of the Canadian Association of Journalists Award for investigative journalism. She was twice recognized by the United Nations. In 2021 she produced her first video documentary “The Radio Warrior: – a Tribute to Margaret Lyons”. Karin Wells lives in Port Hope with her little dogs Mimi and Darwin. She is currently working on a new book for Second Story Press and a podcast for CBC Radio based on More than a Footnote.

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