Recent Programs

Jessica Outram

felicity936 Leave a comment

This week we talk to Jessica Outram.Jessica says, she’s been lucky to have time to pursue the things she loves. She’s a playwright, director, actor, singer, publisher, reader, teacher, principal, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and poet. She’s member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, a proud citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario and a Creativity Coach and Reiki Practitioner. In June 2019 she was appointed Cobourg’s Poet Laureate. For more than twenty years, she’s worked as an educator in Ontario in both Elementary and Secondary schools. This year she begins her new appointment as Principal of Indigenous Education for the Kawartha Pine Ridge School Board. Creativity-in-community is important to her. She is a member of a number of local groups to which she contributes her many talents, including Northumberland Players, SONG and Safe Haven as well as the Northumberland Festival of the Arts.

Part 1:

Part 2:

P. J. Thomas

felicity936 1 Comment

Meet PJ Thomas. Born and raised on Lake Ontario, PJ relocated to Peterborough to attend classes and became editor-in-chief of the Trent University newspaper, Arthur. She went on to edit several local publications and was the first executive director of the 4th Line Theatre Company. Thomas also promoted contemporary Canadian music until becoming disabled. She has since marked a triumphant return to literature with two novels published to critical acclaim. In autumn 2020 she launched her first book of poetry, Undertow. Thomas also wrote lyrics that were nominated for a 2021 Juno Award as part of Rick Fines’ album, Solar Powered Too. In 2021 her work was showcased twice in the online publication, Poetry Present, by Cobourg’s Poet Laureate. Thomas was one of five poets featured in 2021 National Poetry Month’s Show and Tell Poetry Series Poster Project. Her poems have appeared in The River Magazine, The 2021 Festival of Light and Dark, and will be included in the Bill Bissett anthology, Poemdemic! Thomas makes her home by the Otonabee River with her cat.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Terry Fallis

felicity936 1 Comment

This week’s guest is Terry Fallis. A two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, Terry  is the award-winning author of seven national bestsellers, all published by McClelland & Stewart (M&S). His debut novel, The Best Laid Plans (2008),won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was crowned the 2011 winner of CBC Canada Reads as the “essential Canadian novel of the decade.“The High Road (2010)was a finalist for the 2011 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Up and Down (2012), debuted on the Globe and Mail bestsellers list, was a finalist for the 2013 Leacock Medal, and won the 2013 Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. Terry published more award winning novels in the years that followed; No Relation (2014),  won the 2015 Leacock Medal. M&S published  Poles Apart (2015), One Brother Shy(2017)and  Albatross, (2019) and has just released Terry’s new novel Operation Angus. Terry has written for many publications including Maclean’s, Canadian Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Toronto Star. Terry earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from McMaster University (1983) where he became engulfed in university politics and somehow persuaded the undergraduates to elect him President of the Students Union.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Gwynn Scheltema and Felicity Sidnell Reid

felicity936 3 Comments

Gwynn Scheltema’s poetry has been published in anthologies, journals and magazines in Canada, Europe and South Africa, online and in print. She is one of five featured poets in One Ticket Five Rides. (Whirling Dervish Press). Gwynn writes from her peaceful home on the shores of Lake Seymour on the Trent Severn Waterway system in Ontario, Canada, but she was born and raised amid drought and dust and civil war in Southern Africa. These two contrasting landscapes vie for attention in her writing.  Ten of Diamonds was her COVID project, published in June this year.

Felicity Sidnell Reid is a poet who also writes short stories and nonfiction. Many of her poems have been published in anthologies, in print and online journals, magazines and blogs. Her novel, Alone: A Winter in the Woods was released by Hidden Brook Press in 2015 and published as an e-book in 2020. She is the co-editor with Kim Aubrey of Our Pandemic Times, A Journal in Times of Pandemic and Lockdown. (Blue Denim Press 2021.) She released The Yellow Magnolia and Other Poems in June 2021.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Christopher Briggs

felicity936 1 Comment

Our guest today, Christopher M. Briggs, graduated from Trinity College, University of Toronto, with a degree in English Literature and Philosophy. He spent forty years underwriting insurance contracts for large construction projects. He also served as a Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve. Christopher holds a Creative Writing Certificate from the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies as well as a post-graduate Certificate and Letter of Distinction from the Humber School for Writers. Trial is his first novel. Chris lived in Cobourg for 20 years and was an “extreme commuter” to Toronto on VIA Rail. Currently living in Toronto, he still has friends in Northumberland and loves to visit whenever he’s able.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Anne Marshall

felicity936 1 Comment

Our guest today, Anne Marshall, is an adventure seeker. She and her partner have travelled the world by small aircraft, motorcycle, by foot and most recently in their camper van.Her extensive career in Hospitality has allowed Anne to live across the country, create lasting friendships and experience great opportunities in the airline, hotel, food service and resort industries.She calls The Kawarthas home – keeping busy with association and charity work, the family business Elmhirst’s Resort and continuing to write. Please join us.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Ken Morden

felicity936 1 Comment

In this episode meet Ken Morden. Ken has had an eclectic career. He grew up in Northern Ontario, graduated from McGill and obtained his CA designation in Quebec. Since then he has been a finance executive for two steel companies, a bank executive, president of a large printing company and lastly, for 25 years, owned a marketing company in Toronto. For the past 15 years he and his wife owned and ran a racehorse breeding farm north of Port Hope. Ever since he came to Northumberland Ken has been a patron and supporter of the Arts in this region. Recently he released a novel The Fraudulent Racehorse, about shenanigans in the racing world. Please join us.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Dale Patterson

felicity936 1 Comment

Our guest today, Dale Patterson loves the media, be it print, broadcast, or online. At present he is a fixture on 98-7 FM with a popular show that airs every Monday afternoon from 1-4 pm. Graduating from Ryerson’s journalism program in 1974, Dale started his 35 year career working for Canadian Press. He began as an editor in the sports department but after 11 years he moved to the radio side of CP as an editor-reporter at Broadcast News. In the ensuing years Dale moved back and forth in many departments of Canadian Press including the Business Information Wire and CP’s Editorial Service Desk, writing and editing for CP’s cable news service. He moved to CP Online in 2002 and added Broadcast News editing duties in 2004. In 2008 he added duties on the World Desk. After 35 years and seven months at CP-BN, Patterson retired from the national news agency in May 2010. Somehow Dale also found time to write books during those years, the latest Close But No Cigar: Runnerups, Nearly-Weres and Also-Rans won the Bronze Medal in Humour at the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards

Part 1:

Pat 2:

Sharon Ramsay Curtis

felicity936 1 Comment

Today we talk with Sharon Ramsay Curtis who is the author and illustrator of EDWARD COVERED and GLADIOLA SLEEPS IN, two lovely picture books for young children. She is also a watercolour artist, potter and gardener. Sharon says, “as a human being I seem to be the most at ease when I am making, doing, and/or creating. I love that creating seems to keep my brain sharp and being in the presence of other creative persons seems to inspire me to venture further along my own creative path. I love useful things and my pottery, while decorative, is always functional and ergonomically designed. I am inspired by growing things, change, words and their meanings, colours, lines, and patterns. These are elements, which show up in my work most frequently. I create because creating is the conduit by which I am able to most understand the world and myself.”

Part 1:

Part 2: