Tom Pickering

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Meet Tom Pickering. The majority of Tom’s work life has been as a technical writer. His first job after graduation from the University of Alberta was to write training manuals for a company based in Edmonton. Several years after school, he returned to Ontario and continued with technical writing at IT and engineering related companies. Along the way, Tom amused himself with an avocation in art, studying at the Ontario College of Art, and in community theatre, where he performed onstage and wrote and directed plays. In later years, Tom moved to Northumberland County and continued his interest in theatre with the Northumberland Players for several years. More recently, Tom participated in the 2022 edition of the Northumberland Festival of the Arts, which brought together a wide assortment of artistic talent that was showcased across multiple venues within the county. Here he was introduced to new experiences, deepened existing friendships and made new ones. He is also a member of the Spirit of the Hills Arts Association and belongs to one of the Writer Critique groups that meet regularly to share and critique work of the group’s members. He lives in Cobourg with his wife Tracy and his dog Lily.

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Chris Cameron and John Unruh

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 Please join us to hear Christopher Cameron and John Unruh tell us about their adventures in podcasting. Christopher is presently engaged in making podcasts of his latest book. Thorneside Stories; A Mix of Sun and Cloud  and John has completed his series of podcasts of his novel The Ziggurat.  They tell us about how they found the platforms they publish on, about the programmes they use to record their readings, the challenges they faced in making the recording and why they love doing it.

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Alan Seymour

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Meet Al Seymour who grew up just north of Cobourg attending Cook’s School and CDCI West, before venturing 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 started his own contracting firm constructing sustainable buildings and quality renovations. Committed to making his community a better place, Al co-founded three charitable organizations. These were the Mississauga Food Bank, the Erin Mills Youth Centre, and the 3rd Erin Mills Scout Group. Five years ago, Al and his wife Kathy Toivanen retired to Cobourg. Al is a busy retiree – active with the Cobourg Museum, renovating his home, church, skiing, hiking, walking, and gardening.  And writing; Al has written 3 books: an historical novel, a children’s short story, and a political thriller. Only the short story has been published so far. He parked his incomplete WWI story but is finishing the first draft of an 1850’s saga. 

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Theresa Bailey

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This one’s for Moms on Mothers’ Day. For over 20 years Theresa has been training businesses and organizations and helping to plan for and adapt to change, through interactive, compelling and creative workshops and facilitated events.

As the founder of Canadian Hockey Moms, she has become a sought after and respected voice on the state of minor hockey in Canada.

With three hockey playing children across 10 years, over 32 teams (from house league to girls hockey to AAA), Theresa Bailey has managed 17 and been the president of a small association for the past three. She has built a community of over 40,000 Hockey Moms across the world to share knowledge, promote rational thought, current research, and showcase the newest hockey related brands. And now she has published a book giving a voice to hockey mums, the heart of the game. Please join us!

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James Pickersgill

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We interview James Pickersgill this week. If asked, “When did you most recently compose a poem?” James will likely be able to say, “A few hours ago” or “Earlier today, I was continuing to work on a current one.”

Any poem James writes will very often be a love poem for his wife, who consistently refuses to be identified as “his muse” and rightly so.

James has been a happy-warrior type of poetry activist in our lively Cobourg Arts scene for many years, including service as a member of the various selection Committees appointed by Town Council to discern who should be our 2nd, 3rd and 4th Poets Laureate. James is the coordinator of the Third Thursday Readings and the Cobourg Poetry Workshop.

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Kate Rogers

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Kate Rogers describes herself as a transnational poet. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals and anthologies based in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, the U.S. and U.K. During her more than two decades in Asia, Kate was inspired to write about the impact of colonialism and the destruction of the natural environment. Kate’s collection, Out of Place expresses her life in the liminal zone between countries, cultures and identities. Kate repatriated to Canada in December 2019 after spending one third of her life in Asia. The poems in Out of Place evoke for the reader the experience of being of a place, yet never belonging; they explore longing and transformation. Kate Rogers’ next poetry collection, The Meaning of Leaving, is forthcoming with Montreal-based publisher, Ace of Swords (AOS), in early 2024. Her poems recently appeared in SubTerrain, The Windsor Review and Looking Back at Hong Kong.

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Antony di Nardo

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Our celebration of Poetry Month continues with a conversation and reading  from Antony di Nardo which we made last year. Antony has written six books of poetry. His work appears widely in journals and anthologies across Canada and internationally, and has been translated into several languages. His long poem suite May June July was winner of the Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Prize for 2017 and was short-listed for a National Magazine Award. He spent the last years of a teaching career in Beirut where he launched his first book of poetry Alien, Correspondent in 2010. His collection Forget – Sadness – Grass was recently released by Ronsdale Press. The winner of the inaugural Don Gutteridge Poetry Award, Through Yonder Window Breaks is published by Wet Ink Books.

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Frances Boyle

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Meet Frances Boyle, who recently read in The Third Thursday’s Reading series in Cobourg. Frances is the author of Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House, 2022). Her earlier books are the poetry collections This White Nest (Quattro Books, 2019) and Light-carved Passages (BuschekBooks 2014), Seeking Shade (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2020) an award-winning short story collection, and Tower, (Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2019), a novella. Frances’s writing has appeared throughout North America and internationally. Raised in Regina, she has long made Ottawa home, with involvement in the literary community including serving on the board of Arc Poetry Magazine for more than 10 years, volunteering with literary festivals and leading workshops.

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Felicity Sidnell Reid

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This week, we talk with Word on the Hills’ co-producer and co-host, Felicity Sidnell Reid. After graduating from the University of London, Felicity arrived in Canada to spend seven years in New Brunswick. Then she moved to Ontario. Felicity has taught children from Grade 5 to university students and adults, in Canada, England and Thailand. She is the author of educational materials, including a book for teachers, ESL is Everybody’s Business (with Frances Parkin) and a series of textbooks for language learners. Her books include a novel Alone: A Winter in the Woods (Hidden Brook Press, 2015, e-book in 2020) and two poetry collections The Yellow Magnolia (Glentula Press, 2021) and The Many Faces (Aeolus House, 2022). Her poetry and short fiction have been published in anthologies, online journals and collections. She is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada and the League of Canadian Poets and was a Board Member of Spirit of the Hills Arts Association for two four year terms. She also chaired the Spirit of the Hills Writers’ Group for many years retiring in January 2023. In 2017 and 2019 she led the executive committees of Spirit of the Hill’s Arts Festivals and was recognised with a Distinguished Civic Award from the Town of Cobourg. She is a director and secretary of the rebranded Northumberland Festival of the Arts and headed the programme committee in 2022.

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