Lionel Bennett grew up an air force brat. His father, Gordon Bennett, was in the RCAF, and was stationed in different locations in Canada, the U.S. and France. Lionel attended University, in Ottawa, but did not think about writing until much later. He had an assortment of jobs before starting a career as an insurance broker for over forty years. It was during that time that he took a fiction writing course at Loyalist College and a seed was planted. After his retirement from insurance, the writing seed sprouted and his first book was published in February 2024. He is currently writing his second book while enjoying life at his home north of Marmora with his wife Laurane on the shores of the Crowe River. He is a member of the Canadian Heritage Warplane Museum, an active member of Westben and sings in the Festival Chorus.
Month: November 2025
Josée Segouin
Josée Sigouin is French Canadian and lives in Toronto/Tkaronto with her Chinese Canadian husband and their two sons. Watching South Korean films and television series in the mid-2000s launched Josée on a quest to understand the fascinating culture in ever greater depth. She has learned the rudiments of the Korean language, visited the Land of the Morning Calm multiple times, and read extensively about its past and present. She also turned her attention to creative writing, taught by Dennis Bock and Kim Echlin at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, and mentored by Omar El Akkad at a writing residency in Bangladesh. An early excerpt from Our Fifth Season was shortlisted for the 2011 Random House of Canada Student Award. In addition to travelling, Josée enjoys cycling, gardening, and welcoming birds to her tiny garden. Our Fifth Season is Josée’s first novel.
John Hill
This week our guest is John Hill. John is a retired lawyer living in Cobourg. Before retiring, he specialised in criminal and prison law, often representing some of Canada’s most notorious criminals. Now that he is retired, he has taken to writing. He is a columnist for Law360 Canada, an online newspaper for the legal community. He has contributed chapters to several books and has recently published three books of true crime stories based on his former clients. In 2022, he published Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement. Last year, he published The Rest of the [True Crime] Story, which was a finalist for the Best Canadian Non-Fiction Award of Excellence by Crime Writers of Canada. In July 2025, his third book, Acts of Darkness, was released.
Sue Davidson
Our guest this week is Sue Davidson. After finishing a Bachelor of Journalism degree at Carleton University, Sue worked on a weekly newspaper in Renfrew and then went on to complete a Master of Library and Information at Western University. She was a librarian in Ottawa for many years, working in departmental libraries with the federal government. Her interest in short stories began in the mid-1990s when she took workshops with Ottawa writer Richard Taylor. She attended a summer week-long workshop at the Humber School for Writers and, more recently, began courses in the Creative Writing certificate program at the University of Toronto. Sue has had three short stories published. Dread Comes at Daybreak is her debut novel.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 