This week we are pleased to re-run a programme we made with Linda Hutsell Manning in the fall of 2023. Linda has published four picture books, three juvenile plays, two mid-grade novels and Polka Dot Door scripts as well as a literary novel, That Summer in Franklin, a two-act comedy, A Certain Singing Teacher, a memoir, Fearless and Determined about her 1960’s teaching experiences a one room elementary school west of Cobourg. Her latest picture book, Finding Moufette, was released in 2023. A novella, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, was released in 2024 and another small book was published this year called The Killing Room. These are available in local bookstores and on Amazon. Linda has also written many pieces of short fiction and poetry published in magazines. Find out more at lindahutsellmanning.ca.
poet
Phyliss Wright
WORD ON THE HILLS wordonthehills.com
This week we are playing a re-run of interviews we conducted last spring with Phyliss Wright. Phyliss Wright’s journey as a poet started in university days, when she edited a literary magazine in Colorado during the tumultuous sixties, where she also taught mountain climbing and piton-craft. She returned to writing poetry after a stint in the Marines as an air traffic controller. Poems are a way she explores the world and her own thoughts about life. Her work is shaped by her adventures in Afghanistan, Spain, Poland, and Siberia. But her formative work began in widowhood, when she served as a hospital director in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan, and then as a teacher in the United Arab Emirates. She wrote with the Kent State University Writers Group for over twenty years and still meets with them remotely. Recently she married Canadian, Eric Wright, who is a Northumberland writer. A new resident of Port Hope, she writes with the Cobourg Poetry Workshop, has two children, four grandchildren and a cat who came with her from the United Arab Emirates.
Linda Hutsell Manning
Welcome Linda!
Linda has published four picture books, three juvenile plays, two mid-grade novels and Polka Dot Door scripts as well as a literary novel, That Summer in Franklin, a two-act comedy, A Certain Singing Teacher, a memoir, Fearless and Determined about her 1960’s teaching experiences a one room elementary school west of Cobourg. Her latest picture book, Finding Moufette, was released byPandamonium Publishers in 2023. A novella, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, released by AOS Publishers is available in bookstores and on Amazon. Linda has also written many pieces of short fiction and poetry published in magazines. Find out more at lindahutsellmanning.ca.
Brandon Hahn
This Sunday, June 15th we welcome Brandon Hahn to Word on the Hills. Brandon wears many hats. Mostly a poet, the author of a small pile of chapbooks and a self-help book called Trigger Happy, and a bit of a comedian, Brandon W Hahn has been a professional mental health advocate since 2002 and has written and spoken about mental health all over Ontario. Brandon’s most recent written effort, another self-help book, Trigger Happy Too! – Glimmer Edition is due out in late Spring of this year. His current endeavors centre on his website snackablementalhealth.ca Through this podcast and blog Brandon hopes to reach an international level, speaking and writing about mental health conditions from his personal experiences.
T J Best
This week’ show is an encore presentation of our interviews with TJ Best. TJ is the host and organizer of a monthly poetry Open Mic held in Madoc, called First Tuesday Muse, 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.
J. D. Carpenter
This week we talk with J David Carpenter, a poet and novelist who lives in Prince Edward County. He grew up in Toronto and attended York University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and Queen’s University, for his B. Ed. He first worked as a journalist for Daily Racing Form and as a freelance writer, then taught high school English for 25 years. David began his writing career as a poet, publishing four books of poetry between 1976 and 1994. He then turned to crime fiction during the 1990s and has published six novels: The Devil in Me (McClelland &Stewart, 2001) This first novel appeared on the Globe and Mail’s bestseller list and was nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award; his subsequent novels have also received critical acclaim, His most recent books of poetry are All Us Cats on Stage (Cressy Lakeside Books, 2021) and A Road through the Corn: Prince Edward County Poems, 1982-2022 (Cressy Lakeside Books, 2022). He has just completed an MS of list poems and is currently working on a new project which may become a novel. He is also locally known for writing and performing jazz poetry with musical accompaniment.
Marie-Lynn Hammond
This week we offer an encore presentation of a programme we made last year with 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; 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.
Mia Burrus
This week we offer an encore performance of a show we made with Mia Burrus in February 2024 Mia is a writer and artist who lives in a restored one-room schoolhouse in the country north of Cobourg. Also known by her given name of Anne-Marie, she still provides occasional accounting support to charities in the GTA. But her passion is using words, images and found objects to explore the boundaries and spaces between what is spoken and silent, solid and ephemeral, known and unknowable, mindful and mindless, crafting poems, and multi-dimensional, multimedia artworks. Her poetry collection, What I Don’t Know, published in 2021, is a selection from years of careful observation and carefree wonder and is available through her website.www.miaburrus.com Two of her altered book artworks were included in the 2022 Juried Show at the Colborne Art Gallery, and a new work was part of the Juried Show at the Art Gallery of Northumberland in 2024.
Kim Fahner
This Sunday our guest is Kim Fahner. Kim lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. Her latest book, a novel, is The Donoghue Girl (Latitude 46 Publishing) and her next book of poetry, The Pollination Field, will be published by Turnstone Press in 2025. Kim was a finalist for the 2023 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and she recently won first place in The Ampersand Review’s 2024 Essay Contest for her essay, “What You Carry.” Kim is the First Vice-Chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, a member of the League of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She read for The Third Thursday Reading series in Cobourg recently and gave a workshop.
Allan Briesmaster
Our guest this week is Allan Briesmaster. He is a poet, freelance editor and publisher who’s been active on the Toronto-area literary scene for many years. He has been a workshop leader and reading series organizer and was a partner in Quattro Books in 2006-2017. He currently operates his own small, independent press, Aeolus House, specializing in custom-designed, limited-edition books of poetry.
The most recent of Allan’s nine poetry collections are The Long Bond: Selected and New Poems, from Guernica Editions in 2019, and Windfor, from Ekstasis Editions in 2021. His new book Later Findings has just been released. He has read his poetry, given talks, been on panels, and hosted events at venues from Victoria to St. John’s. He is a Life Member of The League of Canadian Poets and of The Ontario Poetry Society.
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