Cynthia Reyes’s published writing includes 6 books and several short stories in a variety of genres. Her new Myrtle the Purple Turtle children’s books have been critically-acclaimed bestsellers. A former writer-director, executive producer and journalism trainer with CBC Television, Cynthia produced more than a hundred episodes of network TV programs. National and international awards include the Diamond Book Award for Book of the Year, the Children’s Broadcast Institute Award, The Trailblazer Award, and the Crystal Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film and Television.  Today she talks about her latest Myrtle book and her work for the Spirit of the Hills Festival of the Arts, October 24-26 2019.

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This week we interview, Jessica Outram. Jessica’s play Once Upon a Rocking Chair recently had a run of sold out performances in Cobourg, Ontario. The Writing Spiral: Learning as a Writer is a book about eight thematic spirals exploring how we can cultivate a writing life of ongoing development. From the Cottage Porch: An Anthology captures the spirit of cottage life in Ontario. Jessica is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and a proud citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. She is an elementary school principal who writes every day. Jessica is also a blogger at www.sunshineinajar.com. In June 2019, she was appointed Poet Laureate of Cobourg.

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This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Heather Chisvin. Heather was  born in Winnipeg to Jewish parents, whose own parents emigrated from Russia to escape the pogroms there. She studied English and Philosophy at university then worked as a print journalist in Winnipeg and with CBC as producer. She moved to Toronto and became a researcher with W5. Later she again produced radio documentaries for CBC before working as  a creative director in advertising. She moved to Port Hope with her partner Kurt Palka ten years ago and published her first novel in 2018.

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radio documentaries. Subsequently she went into advertising as an Associate Creative director and taught advertising copywriting at OCAD before going freelance doing all the things she had been doing or years. Ten years ago she moved to Port Hope with her partner, novelist Kurt Palka. They have 3 daughters from previous marriages and five granddaughters under five. Heather  published her first novel in 2018.

This week we interview  Patricia Calder, who started writing at age 11 in a Hilroy notebook, which she carried on field adventures. Always a lover of stories, she has taught literature, journalism, and creative writing in high schools, community colleges, and at York University. Since devoting herself full-time to writing, ten of her short stories and creative nonfiction pieces have been published, and early in 2015 she released her novel Roadblock. Since then Pat has written, and illustrated with her photographs, an account of her visit to Sable Island and now one about her visit to the Spirit Bears of the Great Rain Forest. Today we discuss her latest book, her career as a photographer and the photography contest she is running for the Spirit of the Hills Festival of the Arts.

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Eric E Wright grew up in the west-end of Toronto, studied forestry at the University of Toronto then transferred to Columbia International University in South Carolina to receive training in overseas ministry. There he met and married Mary Helen, a nurse from SC. Together they served in Pakistan for 16 years.  While there he wrote five self-teaching textbooks for the seminary he taught at.  On their return to Canada he pastored a church in Toronto for nine years until the passion to write became too strong to deny. Eleven of Eric’s books have been published, some memoirs and five thrillers.

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‘The tragic tales, outrageous gossip and fascinating history of Ontario’s Prince Edward County are all grist for the mill…” for Janet Kellough.  Janet is a well-known historical mystery writer as well as being a storyteller, performer and the co-founder and organizer of the very successful festival, Women Killing It, held in Picton over the Labour Day Weekend. Her latest novel in the Thaddeus Lewis series set in Toronto in the 1850s, The Untoward Assassin has just been released.

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Christopher Black  is an international criminal lawyer and writer. His family immigrated to Canada when he was 8 years old. He attended university in Hamilton, and then Toronto. He spent 30 years as a trial lawyer in Toronto except for 7 years in the mid-80’s when he dropped out to study acting and formed his own theatre company TheatreDynamics. When the money ran out he returned to criminal law. For the past 16 years he has spent most of his time in Europe and Africa defending generals and presidents accused of war crimes.  Since 2015 he has lived in Campbellford.  Throughout his legal career he has kept writing and has succeeded in publishing in many genres over the years.

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Word on the Hills interviews John Cosway, a Toronto-born-and-raised high school dropout who learned early in life that he had a way with words – and pictures.  Kicked out of high school twice in the 1950s for lack of interest, he embraced the news media for his self-education, delivering the Toronto Star for eight years, working as a copy boy at the Globe and Mail for three years and in 1963, thanks to Robert Turnbull, then city editor of the Globe and Mail, launching into a half century of reporting and editing at newspapers across Canada – from the Chatham Daily News to the Toronto Sun. His book highlights his numerous brushes with fame from behind the lens, from Frankie Avalon in 1959, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Hawkins and others in the 1960s, and Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Buddy Rich and others in the 1970s. In 2017, he ended his 10-year stint as a Wayback Times columnist to devote full attention to scanning his original negatives. With his 75th birthday approaching, he felt it was time to share his mostly unpublished photos and a handful of photos that had limited public exposure.

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