Artists’ Retreats in Haliburton and Prince Edward County

This week is a repeat broadcast of a programme about local artists’ retreats in Haliburton and Prince Edward County. Administrators, Ruth Walker and Jean Baird and a 2022 resident, sophie anne edwards talk about the opportunities for writers at these special places. Please Note that the Hall’s Island retreat has extended the time for applications to January 31st this year.

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Ted Staunton

This week is an encore episode from last summer, featuring Ted Staunton. Ted is the author of over 40 books; he writes everything from YA and mid-grade novels (including titles in the popular SEVEN series) to Hi-Los, non-fiction, early chapter books, and of course picture books. His YA novel Who I’m Not won the 2014 CCBC John Spray Mystery Award. Ted’s work has also been nominated for Silver Birch, Red Maple, Hackmatack, Arthur Ellis, and BC Stellar awards, and many of his books are on CCBC Our Choice lists. Trained as a teacher, Ted is a speaker, performer, and workshop leader in schools, libraries and venues across Canada. As well, he teaches the Writing Children’s Fiction courses at George Brown College. He has also travelled to Ethiopia several times to work with English language writers and editors there. When he’s not writing, Ted plays in the MAPLE LEAF CHAMPIONS JUG BAND. Ted and his family live in Port Hope, Ontario.

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Holiday Programme 3

Join us for our final holiday show for this year and listen to readings by Donna Wootton, Antony Di Nardo, Sharon Ramsay Curtis, Gwynn Scheltema and John Unruh. We all wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Holiday Programme 2

Join us for our second Holiday Show and listen to short fiction by Chris Cameron and from Ronald Mackay, read by Lynn Bilton. Anne -Marie Burrus, Katie Hoogendam and Felicity Sidnell Reid will read their poems about winter and the holiday season. 

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Holiday programme 1

 This week we are presenting the first of three special holiday programmes, this one a repeat from 2019 is a prelude to two completely new shows on December 18th and Christmas Day. Today’s is filled with four stories about Christmases past and present as viewed by Shane Joseph, Linda Hutsell Manning, Allan Seymour and Les Robling. We’re sure you’ll enjoy them as you prepare for your holiday celebrations and send you our very best wishes for a happy holiday season.

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John Unruh

WORD ON THE HILLS Sunday at 1.00 pm. Meet John Unruh. John  is a Northumberland writer concerned with the value of broken things and how communities come together to fix them. He’s also a consulting technical writer and editor( and occasionally a very competent painter) John grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Cobourg with his wife and son in 2001 where he began his career in civil engineering, working as a documentation specialist and editorial advisor.. In the past year John has put in many volunteer hours to set up and run the ticketing system for the Northumberland Festival of the Arts and has become a highly valued source of answers to technical questions. This year John has published two short stories in Hill Spirits V, Blue Denim Press, and a poem in 101 Portraits, Wet Ink Books. In 2021 he published The Mime and the Girl in the November Issue of The Green Shoe Sanctuary In 2004 his story Angelic won a contest and was published in On Spec Magazine. He has also written several novels which are in various stages of completion. Felicity, Gwynn and Chris are happy to announce that John will be taking over the sound editing for WOTH in January as Chris focuses on other aspects of his busy life. All best wishes to Chris and welcome to the WOTH team, John.

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Celia McBride


This week our guest is Celia McBride. Celia is a multi-disciplinary artist originally from the Yukon, now living in Port Hope. As a playwright, Celia’s work was developed by numerous theatre companies in Canada (infinitheatre, Nightwood, Factory), and produced internationally by Red Kettle Theatre (Ireland) and Looking Glass Theatre (New York). She was commissioned by the Stratford Festival of Canada for the Studio Theatre’s inaugural season, and Walk Right Up premiered there in 2002. From 2005-2011, Celia was the Co-Artistic Director of Sour Brides Theatre, touring her play So Many Doors (Playwrights Canada Press) across Canada. In 2015, she released a feature film, Last Stop for Miles, adapted from one of her first plays. Since 2014, Celia has been working as a spiritual director and providing spiritual care in long-term care homes. She published O My God: An Un-Becoming Journey, a memoir, in 2022. Please visit celiamcbride.com for more information.

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Janet Stobie

Meet writer, storyteller and ordained minister, Janet Stobie from Peterborough, Ontario. During the last two years she has been working on a picture book for children, Rajah Finds his Wisdom and Breakthrough Moments that are two very different books. Rajah finds his Wisdom has just been released. Including these two new ones, Janet has written and published four children’s picture books, three short story collections, two novels and one worship resource. In addition Janet writes a column for the Millbrook Times, writes a blog that is part of her website, enjoys filling in for colleagues on Sunday mornings at church, and doing guest speaking at fundraisers and group meetings. Janet likes variety.

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Ken Morden

Today we welcome Ken Morden who lives on a country property with his wife and 2 dogs near Cold Springs. He owned a marketing company in Toronto for 25 years but sold it ten years ago. He and his wife bred, raised and raced Standardbred horses on a farm near Garden Hill for 17 years. They usually had 30+ horses at any one time and another 5 or 6 at the track. They sold this business two years ago. Caroline still has one riding horse but Ken doesn’t ride, having a negative reaction to falling off. President of Friends of Music for the past 10 years, he also sits on the Board for Spirit of the Arts Association Hills, was a member of the NFOTA steering Committee and led the very successful fundraising team for the festival. He took up writing 3 years ago and has written and self- published four books with a fifth due out by year end. He has a short story in Hill Spirits V and belongs to two critique groups. He is now concentrating on developing a series which follows the career of a professional criminal.

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Karen Palmer

Karen Palmer lives in Prince Edward County, and works for the municipality as their Economic Development Officer. She is also the author of Spellbound: Inside West Africa’s Witch Camps, a work of non-fiction that capped nearly four years of freelance journalism, based largely in Ghana. She graduated from Carleton University with a degree in journalism and worked for the Globe & Mail and Toronto Star, falling in love with deadlines, turning complex ideas into plain prose, in depth research, crafting interview questions and developing an ear for delightful quotes. Her journalism has appeared in the Toronto Star, Washington Times, Sydney Morning Herald and South China Morning Post. Her fiction has appeared in Don’t Honk Twice: A Prince Edward County Anthology and the Dalhousie Review. These days, she writes a lot of emails and municipal reports, and sometimes writes short fiction, character sketches, outlines of potential books, and a radio play that was part of the Northumberland Festival of the Arts. 

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