This week we welcome Susan Statham. Susan is an author, artist and editor. She’s a graduate of Algonquin College, the University of Waterloo, the Ottawa School of Art and the National Portrait Academy. She is president of the Cobourg Art Club and Chair of the Spirit of the Hills Writers’ Group. A former librarian, Susan lives in an Ontario hamlet with her husband and their French Bull dog, Arthur Conan Doyle, aka Artie. Susan has very busy life as a visual artist but she is also a novelist and the editor of Hill Spirits VI an anthology of writing by authors from our region. Today she is here to discuss her latest novel TRUE IMAGE.
Recent Programs
Matthew King
This Sunday we welcome you to an encore presentation of an episode we made last spring with Matthew KIng. Matthew taught philosophy at York University for a number of years before, in 2015, he moved to the Marmora area—or, as he likes to say, “what Al Purdy called ‘the country north of Belleville’”—where he tries to grow things, counts birds, and takes pictures mostly of flowers with bugs on them. Over the last several years, catalyzed in part by winning the Spirit of the Hills Festival Poetry Prize in 2019, he has increasingly been concentrating his energies on poetry. In 2020 he won the FreeFall magazine poetry contest; in 2023 he was a runner-up for Plough Quarterly’s Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award, won Arc magazine’s “Award of Awesomeness” for June, and had a poem selected for Best Canadian Poetry 2024. Others of his poems have appeared in various magazines in print and online.
Patricia Calder
WORD ON THE HILLS Sundays at 1.00 (wordonthehills.com.)
Patricia Calder is a writer and photographer, who loves nature. As a photographer, she created a website, showed her horse images at the Royal Winter Fair, visited Sable Island to photograph the feral horses and BC’s Great Bear Rain Forest to capture images of the Spirit Bears, and mounted several solo shows around Northumberland. As a writer, she has published a novel, Roadblock, short stories in anthologies, and articles in newspapers; the most notable of these were “Stand down, soldier” written during the war in Afghanistan, and “The Gifts of Alzheimer’s” published in the Globe and Mail. In recent years she has edited and published her Grandmother’s WW2 scrapbook, successfully submitted, written a commentary on the series of documents, and helped prepare and arrange the material for publishing in The University of Windsor’s digital archives where the story of her Uncle Jack will be stored and available to readers from anywhere and at any time. She has been working on a fictional account of Jack Calder’s life as a navigator in the RCAF and a newspaperman and his relationship with his mother based on such letters as have been preserved, articles, written during the war by Jack Calder and Pat’s own close relationship with her Grandmother. I FLEW INTO TROUBLE is about to be released.
Fabian Arciniegas
Fabian Arciniegas is a versatile Colombian-Canadian singer-actor. He brings a wide range of repertoire to life, from Baroque to Contemporary. Inspired by his love for chamber singing, Fabian discovered a passion for new composers and successfully toured in Canada and internationally as part of the series Crossing Borders. He has premiered new compositions by composers such as Saman Shahi, Chia Yin Wu, Mario Gómez Vignes and has performed with prestigious organizations including the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Opera in Concert among others. He is the creator and performer of The Colores, a show that invites audiences to engage with classical and contemporary music through pop music and storytelling. He is premiering his new show Yo And My Shadow in September 2024 as part of the Northumberland Festival Of The Arts.
Ken Morden
This week we welcome Ken Morden. Ken has run and owned several businesses – printing company, marketing company, horse breeding farm and an online art gallery.
Four years ago, he took up writing, fulfilling a long term objective to write a historical fiction of his family. Since then, he has written four thrillers and is currently working on a fifth.
He resides in rural Port Hope with his wife, Caroline, and 2 dogs and is president of two community arts organizations, Friends of Music and Spirit of the Hills Arts Association.
D’Arcy Jenish and Samantha Clark
D’Arcy Jenish has written histories of the Stanley Cup, the Montreal Canadiens and the NHL, an acclaimed biography of David Thompson and an award-winning account of the 19th century Canadian West – from the perspective of four great Indigenous leaders— Piapot, Poundmaker, Big Bear and Crowfoot. His most recent: The Making of the October Crisis: Canada’s Long Nightmare of Terrorism at the Hands of the FLQ. His play The Tilco Strike was produced at 4th Line Theatre in July 2023 and his two short plays – Ray’s Big Day and The Last Time- were performed at the Port Hope Arts Festival in 2022and 2023 respectively. He will be back at Port Hope again this year with Tick Talk – a play set at the Peterborough Westclox factory in May 1969 which will also be [performed at Northumberland Festival of the Arts, NFOTA 2024
Samantha Clark grew up in the Northumberland arts community; dancing competitively, studying voice, and volunteering in all aspects of theatre production. She studied Drama and English at Queen’s University and completed a summer intensive inside The Shaw Festival’s 2017 season. Sam then earned a Graduate Degree in Arts Management specializing in marketing from Queen’s and her Bachelor of Education from Trent University. This September will be Sam’s second year running the Port Hope High School Drama Department. Sam recently appeared in the staged reading of Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson at the Peterborough Theatre Guild but she feels most at home in the world of Musical Theatre. She has performed leading roles in Guys and Dolls (Sister Sarah), White Christmas (Judy Hanes), Company (Joanne),and in Nunsense (Sister Mary Leo).
Shannon and Jakeb
Shannon and Jakeb are a folk-pop duo known for their dynamic vocal synergy and vibrant performance style. Characterized by percussive guitar and soaring harmonies, their songs are honest and vulnerable with a lighthearted spirit. Shannon Linton is a classically trained singer whose love of singing harmonies found its perfect match with multi-instrumentalist and vocal powerhouse Jakeb Daniel. They are both proud to call Cobourg, Ontario their home, and to be part of its flourishing music community. Shannon and Jakeb have played the Blue Skies Festival, Cultivate Launch, Hibernate and Cultivate Festival. They are looking forward to returning to the Cultivate stage this September, hosting and performing a show at the Northumberland Festival of the Arts, and performing at the Shelter Valley Concert Series in October. Follow @shannonandjakeb on Instagram and Facebook for news and show upcoming announcements.
Shane Joseph
WORD ON THE HILLS, Sundays at 1.00 pm, archived at wordonthehills.com
Shane Joseph is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers in Canada. He is the
author of eight novels and three collections of short stories. Shane’s second novel, After
the Flood, a dystopian novel of hope, released in 2009, won the Write Canada Award
for best novel in the futuristic/fantasy category. His short fiction and non-fiction have
appeared in literary journals and anthologies all over the world. His blog is widely
syndicated, he has a monthly column in The Sri Lankan Anchorman journal in Toronto
and is the Book Reviews Editor for Devour Art & Lit Canada magazine. His most recent
novel, Victoria Unveiled, will be released in September 2024. Shane is the owner and publisher of Blue Denim Press (www.bluedenimpress.com), a literary press he founded in 2011.
More details on Shane’s work, blog and book reviews can be found on his website
Fringe Fest episode 2: Dave Carley, Celia McBride and Dave Dines
Today, we are delighted to have a visit from Celia McBride, Dave Dines and Dave Carley, who are all playwrights and have written 10 minute plays which will be twice presented at Fringe Fest on September 14th as part of Northumberland Festival of the Arts. Dave Carley is a Canadian playwright. His plays for stage and radio have had close to 500 productions across Canada and the United States, and in many countries around the world. They include Writing with our Feet (nominated for the Governor General’s Award), The Last Liberal, The Edible Woman and, most recently, Twelve Hours, and Canadian Rajah. Celia McBride is a writer and spiritual director from the Yukon now living in Port Hope. She had a 20 year career as a playwright and theatre artist. Celia published a memoir called “O My God: An Un-Becoming Journey” in 2022. Her plays have been produced across Canada and she is still writing new ones. Dave Dines is the co-owner and manager of the Ganaraska Brewery in Port Hope built by and for local people. Growing this successful business has kept him very busy since its opening in 2021 but in his spare time he writes plays.
Gwynn Scheltema
After over 20 years of diversified experience in accounting, education, and administration GWYNN SCHELTEMA decided to stop counting beans and start counting words. Since then, Gwynn has been a columnist, magazine article writer, ghost writer and a fiction editor for Lichen Arts & Letters Preview literary journal. Her award-winning fiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies and, Ten of Diamonds was published in 2021 by Glentula Press. Her latest poetry collection Everchild was published by Aeolus House in 2023. Gwynn co-hosts and co-produces Word on the Hills radio series on Northumberland 89.7FM and writes, edits, coaches and teaches creative writing. At present however her focus is on the preparations for NFOTA24 which she leads. This year the festival will take place in September again and Gwynn is here to tell us all about it.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 