Andrea Torrey Balsara always dreamed of being an illustrator, but her first published book was one that she wrote. She published many books for the educational market, including the novels The Present, for young adults, and Parker Shanahan: Survivor Against All Odds for middle-grade readers. Finally, the opportunity arose to illustrate her own book, Greenbeard the Pirate Pig. Now her new novel, The Great and the Small, for young adults which she has written and illustrated, has just been released.

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Poet, Michael Topa was born in Michigan and has lived and studied in many countries, including Canada, USA, and Afghanistan. He also travelled to India, Pakistan and Nepal.He spent four years in the United States Air Force as a Weather Observer during the Vietnam War and immigrated to Canada when his tour of duty ended, He has worked for many years as a Psycho-educational Consultant and is the co-founder and Director of Greenoaks Educational Services. He has been writing poetry for over 50 years.

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Jan Thornhill is the recipient of many awards for her writing and illustrations and this year was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Young People’s Literature, Illustrated Books for The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk. EXTRA EXTRA! 

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Drew Monkman  is a naturalist and writer whose nature column, “Our Changing Seasons,” appears regularly in the Peterborough Examiner. He is the author of three books. Two explore what is happening in the natural world each month of the year. They are Nature’s Year in the Kawarthas (2002) and Nature’s Year: Changing seasons in Central and Eastern Ontario (2012) Drew also co-authored The Big Book of Nature Activities: A year-round guide to outdoor learning (2016) with Jacob Rodenburg executive director of Camp Kawartha . The book is the winner of four awards including the Nautilus Book Award, which is a major American award for environmental writing.

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Hope Bergeron and Maggie Harper are the winners of Spirit of the Hills Festival of the Arts Writing Contests 2017. We hear about Hope’s writing and cartooning and listen to her story, The Gift. Maggie Harper tells us why she chooses to write haiku and reads her winning series of poems.

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Find out all about Spirit of the Hills festival of the arts, November 3rd and 4th at St Peter’s Anglican Church, in Cobourg

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This week we introduce the new anthology by writers from Northumberland County, Hill Spirits 111. Publisher Shane Joseph of Blue Denim Press in Cobourg talks about the growth of the artistic community in our region and the role of small publishers in giving a voice to local authors. A number of contributors including Donna Wootton, Port Hope, Rene Schmidt, Trenton, Alan Bland,Campbellford, Marie Prins, Colborne as well as Word on the Hills host, Gwynn Scheltema read passages from their contributions to this volume.

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The members of Spirit of the Hills are visual artists, sculptors, potters, fibre artists, photographers, artisans, performers, singer-songwriters and writers. The Festival has drawn together members of every kind in festival events. Judy Hopkins, chair of the Visual Arts Committee talks about the art show which will be part of the festival. Sherry Turner and her colleague Rosanne Dolin speak about the workshop they are giving on Saturday November 4th, called The Art Experience.

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Grace Young has been blogging weekly at IntoFullBloom.net for over a year.  She has self published one book The Crow and the Dove and is planning to release a second in the near future. Grace is 18 years old and working hard to become a full-time author, thus making her dreams come true and spreading her message of hope and positivity.

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Diane Taylor has had several careers as a medical lab tech, a teacher, a sailor and a writer. She   is the author of The Gift of Memoir and is well known as a workshop presenter and teacher of memoir writing. She started writing while sailing in the Caribbean because life on the ocean and in the islands was so fresh and immediate, she felt an urgent need to record it, to re-experience it in words. A book resulted: The Perfect Galley Book. Diane will give a workshop on writing a memoir of your own at the Spirit of the Hills Festival of the Arts on Saturday November 4th at St Peter’s Church in Cobourg. Tickets and information available at spiritofthehills.org

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