Our guest this week is Jody Glover. Jody worked in technology for nearly 30 years and began a second career as a filmmaker in 2019. Educated as a pianist at the University of Western Ontario and certified as a high school music and mathematics teacher at the University of Toronto, her work has always focused on helping others—first customers adopting new technology, and now students learning history and coping with difficult times. Her mission with the docudrama HIDDEN – The Kati Preston Story is to help Hungarian Holocaust survivor Kati Preston share her story with the public, especially young people. Kati recounts what happened to her and her family during and after World War II, and how she overcame adversity without becoming a victim of circumstance. The film offers hope to students in an era of uncertainty driven by challenges such as democracy, AI, and climate change. HIDDEN is currently screening at festivals and has won eight awards, including the Mass Impact Award at the Boston Film Festival and Best Documentary Feature at the Canadian International Film Festival in Toronto.
Recent Programs
Mary Worwood
Mary Worwood is the pseudonym for Canadian author, Mary Louise Dumka. Her writing career began as a part time journalist for a string of community newspapers. (From 2003 to 2007). And she is currently employed by the Trent Hills Public Library. Mary formed the Trent Hills Public Library Writers Group in 2015 and continues to facilitate the group. She has taken writing courses at Trent University and Loyalist College. She credits her instructor, speculative author Ursula Pflug, for recognizing and nurturing her latent talent as an author. Her post-secondary education included: theatre arts, and art history at the University of Victoria, until she was accepted into Langara College’s Studio 58 Theatre Arts Program in Vancouver. She is an avid photographer and enjoys reading, gardening, cross-country skiing, boating and when she can afford it travelling. She lives on a lake in Northumberland County with her husband, artist Jim Dumka and two cats. Her current work Overtime is her first novel.
Ursula Pflug
Her short fiction has won small press awards in the US and been a finalist for national contests and awards at home in Canada including the ReLit, Descant Novella, Aurora and others. She is a Pushcart nominee and her short fiction has been taught at universities in Canada and India. She is also an editor, writing coach and creative writing instructor. Ursula was born in Tunisia and grew up in Toronto. English is her second language, German her first. She is neurodiverse, and an obsessive gardener at her hundred-and fifty-year-old house on a river in eastern Ontario. More here: https://ursulapflug.ca
Ted Amsden
This week our guest is Ted Amsden. Ted went to university in Toronto graduating with an Honours BA in English Literature from Glendon College in 1972. During the early 80’s he became a writer for Gloucester Group at Maclaren Advertising producing TV, radio newspaper advertisements. But then he moved to Mexico with his wife Cynthia. For five years in San Miguel de Allende they ran a boutique manufacturing company, Ay Chihuahua, an aerobics studio called El Sweat. and at night in their kitchen Ted taught himself how to develop film and print photos. On returning to Canada with their two-year-old daughter, they settled in Cobourg enjoying small town life. Ted found a position at the Cobourg Star and for over 20 years covered all kind of events as a photo-journalist. In 2011, Ted became Cobourg’s 3rd poet Laureate and in 2012 he sat down to begin a new career as a novelist.
Shannon Linton
Shannon Linton is an indie songwriter with a powerful voice and stories to tell.
After narrowly avoiding a career in opera, she began performing and recording her own songs inspired by artists like Ani Difranco, Sarah Harmer and Carsie Blanton who aren’t afraid to speak the truth.
Shannon’s debut EP, In Spite of Everything, was released in 2022. She has played the Blue Skies Festival, Cultivate Festival, Hibernate Festival, and has opened for artists such as the Lemon Bucket Orkestra and the Angelique Francis Band. Her song At the End of the World has been played on CBC radio.
Shannon writes a weekly newsletter, Joy Just Because, and is passionate about building her local artistic community and championing young artists. You can listen to her music on Bandcamp or wherever you stream music.
Terry Fallis
This week’s episode is an encore presentation of an episode we made with Terry Fallis, in which we interviewed Terry and he reads from his tenth, and most recent novel, The Marionette.
Mia Burrus
This week we welcome Mia Musée Mia Burrus Mia is a writer and artist who lives in a restored one-room schoolhouse in the country north of Cobourg. But her passion is using words, images and found objects to explore the boundaries and spaces between what is spoken and silent, solid and ephemeral, known and unknowable, crafting poems, essays, and multi-dimensional, mixed-media artworks. Mia’s latest book, a memoir entitled As If Through a Window, was published in September 2025. This book, in a mix of genres, tells the intertwined tales of her father, and the cattle ranch that occupied half his life. Several of her assemblage artworks have been included in Juried Shows at the Colborne Art Gallery and Art Gallery of Northumberland. Her works may also be viewed at her own museum, her website!
Christopher Cameron
This week we are delighted to have Christopher Cameron join us for another visit. Christopher Cameron enjoyed a successful career as a professional opera singer, retiring in 2009 after 33 years in the business. A dozen years ago he began a new career as a freelance writer and editor. His first book, a memoir of his singing years, Dr.Bartolo’s Umbrella and Other Tales from my Surprising Operatic Life (Seraphim Editions), was published in 2017. His book of humorous fiction, Thorneside Stories: A Mix of Sun and Cloud (Iguana Books), was published in September 2022. This past fall, his one-act play Nail Polish – originally presented at the 2022 NFOTA – was performed at the Newmarket International Festival of One Act Plays, where its cast won a special award for their performance. He has written for and performed at Westben Centre for Connection and Creativity through Music, most recently a two-part presentation on hearing loss and music, a topic on which he has written extensively.
Liminal Spaces
This week’s episode features a discussion of the collaborative anthology of ekphrastic poetry, LIMINAL SPACES, with its authors, Katie Hoogendam, Kathryn MacDonald, Felicity Sidnell Reid and Gwynn Scheltema. Join us for an introduction to this form of poetry and an explanation of how the collection came together as well as readings from some of the poems in the book.
Final Holiday show for 2025
Welcome on this December 28th to the final show in our holiday schedule for 2025. This is an encore presentation of a Christmas show we made in 2017. Maureen Mullally, reads a poem that she and her late husband Bryan worked on together called Two Old Gents. Felicity Sidnell Reid shares her story, Stage Struck, Ron MacKay gives us his story, My Papa Invites Angels and Gwynn Scheltema reads her story, set in Africa, about her mother’s gardener and his search for mistletoe. We hope you enjoy this episode and wish you a Happy New Year!
Word on the Hills Radio Program 