This week we welcome Rev. Dr. Carol Finlay, M.S.M, O.Ont., the Founder of Book Clubs for Inmates (www.bookclubsforinmates.com), a registered charity in Canada. Dr. Finlay received her BA from Trinity College in 1965; her M. Div. in 1990 from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto; and was ordained for The Anglican Church of Canada in 1992. During summers on Amherst Island near Kingston, Ontario, she sensed a call to work in one of the many penitentiaries in the Kingston area. She started the first book club for inmates in Collins Bay Institution in 2008. As of 2023, Book Clubs for Inmates (BCFI), a registered charity, runs more than 36 book clubs (although this number has fluctuated since the pandemic) in federal institutions across Canada with more than 120 volunteers. Dr. Finlay has been recognized for her work with an Order of Ontario, Meritorious Service Medal, and honorary doctorates from Trinity College, University of Toronto and St. Thomas University, in New Brunswick. Please join us.
Janice Barrett
This week we welcome Janice Barrett to WORD ON THE HILLS. Janice is a mother of three. Her children are her proudest accomplishments. She is a journalist, playwright, ghostwriter and now a novelist. Her debut novel, Authorized Cruelty was released this month by Blue Denim Press She has also written a memoir and gives workshops on memoir writing. She is a member of the Canadian Authors Association. Please join us!
Shane Joseph
This week meet Shane Joseph. Shane is a Canadian novelist, blogger, reviewer, short story writer, and publisher at Blue Denim Press. He began writing as a teenager living in Sri Lanka and has never stopped. He is the author of seven novels and three collections of short stories. His short stories and articles have appeared in several Canadian anthologies and in literary journals around the world. His latest novel, Empire in the Sand, (2022) is a tale of pharmaceutical scandals, robocalls electioneering, and family breakdown. You can find out more about Shane at his website www.shanejoseph.com
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Simon Constam
Meet Simon Constam! Simon is a Toronto poet and aphorist. Since late 2018, Simon has been publishing, under the moniker Daily Ferocity, an original aphorism every day on Instagram and for an email subscriber base. His first book, BROUGHT DOWN, was published in 2022 to considerable acclaim. His second book, DOMESTIC RECUSALS will be published in early 2024. Simon and his wife, Janice Waugh, live in the Beach where they operate Solo Traveler, www.solotravelerworld.com. Simon and Janice have 8 children and 11 grandchildren. Simon was born in Toronto, but lived for 15 years in Abbotsford, British Columbia where he owned and operated a bookstore. He is a member of The Cobourg Poetry Workshop and has often read at their Third Thursday Readings.
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Beverley Brewer
This week meet Beverley Brewer. Beverley was born and raised in Ontario; she lived in Toronto until she moved to her Muskoka cottage in 2021, with her husband Jack and their two black labs. When Bev graduated from the University of Toronto her ambition was to become a teacher, a missionary or a social worker. Her introduction to life skills teaching methodology and group facilitation at Seneca College set the stage for her life’s work. At Seneca, Bev’s life skills groups supported adult students in job readiness and academic upgrading. When Bev took a position in the social service worker diploma program at Seneca, she taught what she loved doing––group work and counselling and had the privilege of teaching in the program. Bev retired in her thirty-sixth year of teaching and learning in the community college system. In retirement, Bev writes short-fiction, and completed her first psychological character-driven novel, No One Knew. Her second large project is Dance into Light, a memoir. When she’s not writing, you can find her in a kayak or when the water freezes over, on snowshoes somewhere on the lake. She’s happy to have found like-minded friends who like to sing, hike and play pickle ball year-round.
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Gwynn Scheltema
Today we talk with Gwynn Scheltema, an award-winning fiction writer and poet whose work has been published online and in print in various media. Many of her stories and poems are influenced by her experiences growing up in Africa. Fascinated by words, she enjoys sharing her love of language and has taught for over 25 years in community and private colleges at conferences and many workshops. With her business partner, Ruth Walker, she runs Writescape.ca, which offers coaching, editing, writers workshops and retreats. She is the co-host of Word on the Hills which has been running on 89.7 FM since the fall of 2013. She is also the president of Northumberland Festival of the Arts and will be deeply engaged in this volunteer work for the arts in the coming months as NFOTA prepares for the 2024 festival. Her most recent publications are two books of poetry; a chapbook entitled Ten of Diamonds (Glentula Press, 2021) and a new collection of poems, Everchild, published by Aeolus House and released this month.
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Janet Trull
This week our guest is writer and novelist, Janet Trull. Janet’s essays and short stories have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Canadian Living Magazine, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, subTerrain Magazine, and Geist among others. She has won several writing awards, including a CBC Canada Writes challenge, a Western Magazine Award nomination and a Commonwealth Fiction prize. Her collection of short fiction, Hot Town and Other Stories, was published in 2016 by At Bay Press (Winnipeg). Once a Storm, published as part of At Bay Press’s “From the Heart” series, is a small volume memorializing those who have lost their struggle with drug addiction. Trull’s new collection of short stories, Something’s Burning, was a CBC Recommended Read for Fall 2022, and is now available worldwide. Janet Trull is excited to announce that her novel, The End of the Line, is due for publication by Blue Denim Press on October 1, 2023.
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Karin Wells
This show is an encore presentation of Karin Wells’ discussion of and readings from her book More than a Footnote. KARIN WELLS is an author, journalist, and lawyer. She is also a sometime actress and worked – briefly – in a pea canning factory. Her latest book, More than a Footnote: Canadian Women You Should Know, is a curious and often irreverent look at ten Canadian women who have been forgotten or ignored. Her 2020 book The Abortion Caravan: When Women Shut Down Government in the Battle for the Right to Choose (Second Story Press) was the winner of the OHS (Ontario Historical Society) Alison Prentice Award and short listed for the 2021 Shaughnessy Cohen prize. She regularly contributes to Watershed Magazine focussing on life in Northumberland, Quinte and Prince Edward County. Karin has been recognized as one of this country’s leading radio journalists. Over her career she worked in more than fifty countries making radio documentaries for CBC radio’s The Sunday Edition, hosted by Michael Enright. Her radio documentary work made her a three time winner of the Canadian Association of Journalists Award for investigative journalism.
Karin Wells lives in Port Hope with her little dogs Mimi and Darwin. She is currently working on a new book for Second Story Press and a podcast for CBC Radio based on More than a Footnote.
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Michael Fraser
Michael Fraser is published in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2013 and 2018. He has won numerous awards, including Freefall Magazine’s 2014 and 2015 poetry contests, the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize, the 2018 Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Competition, and the League of Canadian Poets’ 2022 Lesley Strutt Poetry Prize. His latest collection, With My Eyes Wide Open is published by Exile Editions.
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Ruth E Walker
Award-winning author Ruth E. Walker loves the broad landscapes novels provide but occasionally challenges herself to write in the demanding confines of poetry and short fiction. An eclectic writer, she follows inspiration, characters and questions to the page. Her novels are represented by Ali McDonald, 5 Otter Literary and Ruth lives, writes and edits at her home in Oshawa and her riverside cottage in Haliburton County. She is an active volunteer in the arts community, including serving on the Haliburton Arts Council’s Literary Arts Roundtable.
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Word on the Hills Radio Program 