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.
Recent Programs
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.
TJ Best
TJ Best is the host and organizer of a monthly poetry Open Mic called First Tuesday Muse in Madoc and has been published in a number of journals in both Canada and the United States including: The Waterwheel Review, Ghost City Press, Untethered Magazine, and above/ground Press. TJ (formerly known as Tamara ‘tah-mah-rah’) is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. After spending many years in Toronto, TJ moved to the Quinte Region in 2011 and homeschooled their two children for ten years. TJ is also an experienced Community Worker with a focus on client support. In addition to these many “hats”, TJ also maintains a medicinal garden at a historic site and is passionate about outdoor education.
Al Seymour
Al Seymour grew up just north of Cobourg in Creighton Heights, attending Cook’s School, Dale Road and CDCI West, before venturing off to the University of Guelph to earn a degree in Microbiology. For the next 40 years, Al worked in the GTA as a microbiologist, senior food manufacturing manager, logistics consultant and then started his own contracting firm specializing in sustainable buildings and quality renovations. Al also was committed to making his community a better place; co-founding three charitable organizations and chairing each at the start. (FOODPATH – now Foodbanks Mississauga, The Erin Mills Youth Centre, 3rd Erin Mills Scout Group) Seven years ago, Al and his wife Kathy Toivanen retired to Cobourg. Al is a busy retiree – active with the Cobourg Museum, renovating his home, spending time at family cottages, church, skiing, hiking, walking, and gardening.
Christopher Cameron and John Unruh
This episode is an encore presentation of our discussion with Chris Cameron and John Unruh about podcasting.
Chris enjoyed a successful career as a professional opera singer, retiring in 2009 and then 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. Now Christopher brings his respect for the beauty and power of the written word to his editing and feature-writing portfolio at Watershed magazine.
John Unruh 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. John grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Cobourg with his wife and son in 2021. In the past year John 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.
Marie-Lynn Hammond
Alongside a music career as a singer-songwriter and co-founder of the seminal Canadian
Folk group Stringband, Marie-Lynn Hammond has, for the past 40 years,
written magazine and newspaper articles; essays, including over twenty radio essays;
stage plays, all professionally produced; one feature film (co-written); a handful of
short stories; and poetry. More recently she’s co-written, with writer Michael
Kaufman, a young adult novel, Moon Storm Rising, under the pen name Kayden
Quinn.
Moon Storm Rising is part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, with strong environmental
themes. And while set in the real world, it features an unusual fantasy element that
perfectly symbolizes the inextricable link between humans and the rest of the natural
world. The book is available on Amazon.
Marie-Lynn has also worked as a copy editor for the last three decades. She copy-
edited Esi Edugyan’s first Giller-Prize winner, Half-Blood Blues, and she’s proofread
or copy-edited books by, among others, Joseph Škvorecký, Linda Spalding, Paul
Watson, and business writer Rod McQueen, and co-translated into French a book of
poems for children by Dennis Lee
Lois Gordon
Lois is a writer and editor. She has published several humorous essays in anthologies and articles which have appeared in lifestyle magazines. Her second mystery novel, “Death at Iron House Lodge”, was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis “Best Unpublished Novel” award in 2016, and several essays have won awards. Currently, she works part-time as an editor for a digital marketing company. Lois wrote her first stage play four years ago for a community theatre in Ancaster, Ontario. The new experience rekindled her passion for writing and she has since written three more scripts for the amateur acting company. Since moving to Northumberland three years ago, Lois has volunteered with community theatre and the Northumberland Festival of the Arts, hoping to become more fully involved with the vibrant arts scene in the county.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 