Meet Maria Kordas-Fraser. Maria was born on Point Pelee, just south-east of Leamington, Ontario; her parents being share-croppers, arrived in Canada as DPs after WWII. Eleven days after her birth, her mother brought her to the lakeshore farm on the hill, west of Port Granby, which her father had just bought, and she grew up on this farm. After studying at U of T and Teachers’ College she taught elementary school and was a school librarian until she discovered the joys of teaching Adults at Durham College. She is grateful for the year she got to teach International Students at Niagara College. Before she retired, she took a year to study Spiritual Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction using it primarily to do her own therapy work, as well as understand others better. She enjoys writing short stories, facilitating Women’s Circles, exploring nature spirituality, bird-watching and practising compassion for animals. She has self-published a family history and is currently working on a memoir about the Port Granby Community where she grew up.
Month: March 2024
Karl Fliesser
This week we talk to Karl Fliesser, who has not chosen to write a standard biography, addressing education and career but rather to focus on present objectives. He is seeking a publisher for a children’s book, a book of short stories, and some poetry. He is also hoping to collaborate with a musician and co-write lyrics. Karl is an inveterate traveller and has visited 17 countries, mostly as a young man, and has lived in a great variety of places too, Vienna, Kitzbuhel, Salzburg, Orillia, Aurora, Windsor, Toronto, Scarborough, Bowmanville, Halifax, Victoria BC, Terrace BC, Stewart BC, Laguna Beach California and Putney and Highbury Islington in England. The accommodations were as eclectic as the cities themselves. Karl says, “I had many unforgettable adventures while navigating this “Global Village” and at times I had visits from the grim reaper to keep me on my toes!”
Lois Gordon
Lois Gordon is a writer and editor, with several humorous essays published in anthologies and articles appearing in lifestyle magazines. Her second mystery novel, “Death at Iron House Lodge”, was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis “Best Unpublished Novel” award in 2016, and several essays have won awards. Currently, she works part-time as an editor for a digital marketing company. Lois wrote her first stage play three years ago for a community theatre in Ancaster, Ontario. The new experience rekindled her passion for writing and she has since written three more scripts for the amateur acting company. Since moving to Northumberland three years ago, Lois has volunteered with community theatre and the Northumberland Festival of the Arts, hoping to become more fully involved with the vibrant arts scene in the county.
Susan Statham
Join us to hear Susan Statham discuss the sixth volume of Hill Spirits with us. Author and artist, Susan Statham is Chair of the Spirit of the Hills Writers Group. She has edited and contributed to all the Hill Spirits anthology series and is accepting submissions in prose, poetry and pictures for Hill Spirits VI to be published in September as part of Northumberland Festival of the Arts 2024.
Today she has come to tell us about that newest edition. The sixth volume in the series of writing by local and regional authors from five counties was first initiated by members of the Spirit of the Hills Writers’ Group in 2012.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 