This week we offer an encore performance of a show we made with Mia Burrus in February 2024 Mia is a writer and artist who lives in a restored one-room schoolhouse in the country north of Cobourg. Also known by her given name of Anne-Marie, she still provides occasional accounting support to charities in the GTA. 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, mindful and mindless, crafting poems, and multi-dimensional, multimedia artworks. Her poetry collection, What I Don’t Know, published in 2021, is a selection from years of careful observation and carefree wonder and is available through her website.www.miaburrus.com Two of her altered book artworks were included in the 2022 Juried Show at the Colborne Art Gallery, and a new work was part of the Juried Show at the Art Gallery of Northumberland in 2024.
Recent Programs
Kim Fahner
This Sunday our guest is Kim Fahner. Kim lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. Her latest book, a novel, is The Donoghue Girl (Latitude 46 Publishing) and her next book of poetry, The Pollination Field, will be published by Turnstone Press in 2025. Kim was a finalist for the 2023 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and she recently won first place in The Ampersand Review’s 2024 Essay Contest for her essay, “What You Carry.” Kim is the First Vice-Chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, a member of the League of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She read for The Third Thursday Reading series in Cobourg recently and gave a workshop.
Terry Fallis
This week we talk with Terry Fallis about his new work.
And here’s Terry’s “Really Short Bio”
Terry Fallis is a two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, he is the award-winning author of nine national bestsellers, six of them #1 bestsellers, including his latest, A New Season. His debut novel, The Best Laid Plans, won the 2008 Leacock Medal, the 2011 edition of CBC Canada Reads, and was adapted as a six-part television miniseries, as well as a stage musical. He won the Leacock Medal a second time in 2015 for No Relation. He lives in Toronto and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.
Donna Wootton
This is an encore presentation from last summer, when we talked with Donna Wootton. Donna is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. She is a member of TWUC (The Writers Union of Canada), PEN International, and SOTH (Spirit of the Hills – Northumberland). Her book about her late father, who was a charter inductee in Canada’s Lacrosse Hall of Fame, is called MOON REMEMBERED. It was published in 2009 and is archived in Trent University’s Library. Most recently her poetry was published in The Divinity of Blue (a collection from CCLA-Canada Cuba Literary Alliance), The Beauty of Being Elsewhere (a travel anthology), and Musings from the Heliconian Club. Her novels include Leaving Paradise (2008), What Maisie Missed (2018) and Isadora’s Dance(2021). Now her new novel The Age of Privilege is being released by AOS Press.
Marion Fuessel
This week we welcome back Marion Fuessel to Word on the Hills. Marion came to Canada as a child. Her immigrant parents were not wealthy but were able to create a comfortable life. It was expected that she would find a stable life, get married and have children. She managed the first two quite quickly but decided to wait before beginning a family. Since she did not have the option of going to College in her younger years, she decided to pay for her own education later in life and became a late bloomer. Her income from office work allowed her to get a College degree and pursue a degree in Montessori. At the same time, she had her three children so it took some time to complete her diploma. She was also influenced by her connection with a Yogi who encouraged her to read the Bible, Koran, Upanishads, Buddhism, etc. in order to educate herself about the various religions. This opened her eyes to a universe that accepts many different beliefs.
Marnie Hare Bickle
Marnie Hare Bickle worked most of her career in music academia for the Music Library, Faculty of Music, Western University; Ontario Regional Director, Canadian Music Centre; and Concert Manager, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. She combined her pursuit of music and writing in essays and articles to promote and showcase classical musicians. In 2004, she and her husband moved to a family home just north of Port Hope in the hamlet of Canton. There she discovered long forgotten letters, manuscripts and other writings by her husband’s relative, John Thomas David Ford. His stories of growing up in the East Arctic (1910 – 1930), written down before he left the Arctic to enlist for WWII, were researched, reworked and edited by Marnie into Native Born Son: The Journals of J. David Ford published by Blue Denim Press, 2018. Now she has released a second book, On Display which tells the story of the first exhibit of Innuit art in southern Canada and David Ford’s role, acting as translator and guide for its artists.
Ted Staunton
This week we welcome Ted Staunton. He is the author of nearly fifty books for young people, from toddlers to teens (though adults are allowed to read them too). His most recent book, the graphic novel The Good Fight, about the infamous riot at Christie Pits in 1933, was listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. Ted keeps up a busy schedule visiting with students around Ontario as well as teaching creative writing at George Brown College. His new novel, Comic Shift, will be published by Scholastic Canada in 2025.
Holiday Show 3
Our final holiday show for 2024 is an encore presentation of one of our 2021 shows, filled with stories suitable for the season. We hope you enjoy it. The Word on the Hills team wishes you a very Happy New Year.
Holiday Show 2
Welcome once again to Word on the Hills with me Felicity Sidnell Reid and our studio editor Anne Sidnell. This week we’re broadcasting our new Christmas program for 2024. Our guests today are storytellers well known to you, Gwynn Scheltema, Christopher Cameron, Ron Mackay and poet, Katie Hoogendam. Gwynn’s story, set in Zimbabwe, recalls how her mother celebrated Christmas in a tropical setting, while Ron’s story is about a young woman struggling to achieve her ambitions in Tenerife. Chris has once again written a new story for this show and Katie will read one of her collection of poems, which she has just released as a chapbook to celebrate the Winter Solstice.
Holiday show 1
Welcome once again to Word on the Hills with me, Felicity Sidnell Reid, my co-host Gwynn and our audio editor Anne Sidnell. The approach of Christmas and the holiday season prompts us to make different kinds of programmes from our usual ones. It is a season for stories and poems and songs, so instead of interviews with one writer, we have asked a number of them to read their work for us. This is a re-run of the show we first broadcast in 2019. Today we welcome Shane Joseph, Linda Hutsell Manning, , Chris Cameron, Allan Seymour and Les Robling to read for us and singer songwriter Marie-Lynn Hammond, who will sing one of her own songs.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 