Mark Whitney grew up and attended high school in Kitchener and Milton Ontario. After earning a diploma from Sheridan College, he attended night school for an additional seven years, finally earning his accountancy credentials in 1994, solidifying his career in the financial services sector. After 30 odd year of office drudgery, he retired in 2019 and pursued an ambition that he had harboured for decades. He wanted to write. His wife of twenty-one years, Joanne Brooks, introduced him to Northumberland County twenty-five years ago. The scenery and the history of the region has been an inspiration for his writing, providing the backdrop for three of his four books.
radio series
Antony Di Nardo
Antony Di Nardo has written nine books of poetry. His award-winning 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 is an active member of the League of Canadian Poets and the Cobourg Poetry Workshop. The winner of the inaugural Don Gutteridge Poetry Award, Through Yonder Window Breaks was published by Wet Ink Books. Antony’s present project is his collection Cloudspotting which he will present with his insights into the work of Antonio Damasio at the Accenti Festival of the Arts hosted by the University of PEI in Charlottetown this coming June.
Marie Prins
Marie Prins is the author of a middle-grade, time-travel book THE GIRL FROM THE ATTIC, published in 2020 from Common Deer Press. Her picture book WHO’S WALKING DAWG? was launched from Red Deer Press on October 15, 2024. Her short stories for children, memoir, nature pieces, and poetry can be found in the Hill Spirits Anthologies II – VI. She lives with her artist husband Ed Hagedorn in a historic, octagonal house in Colborne, Ontario.
Terry Fallis
This week we talk with Terry Fallis about his new work.
And here’s Terry’s “Really Short Bio”
Terry Fallis is a two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, he is the award-winning author of nine national bestsellers, six of them #1 bestsellers, including his latest, A New Season. His debut novel, The Best Laid Plans, won the 2008 Leacock Medal, the 2011 edition of CBC Canada Reads, and was adapted as a six-part television miniseries, as well as a stage musical. He won the Leacock Medal a second time in 2015 for No Relation. He lives in Toronto and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.
Donna Wootton
This is an encore presentation from last summer, when we talked with Donna Wootton. Donna is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. She is a member of TWUC (The Writers Union of Canada), PEN International, and SOTH (Spirit of the Hills – Northumberland). Her book about her late father, who was a charter inductee in Canada’s Lacrosse Hall of Fame, is called MOON REMEMBERED. It was published in 2009 and is archived in Trent University’s Library. Most recently her poetry was published in The Divinity of Blue (a collection from CCLA-Canada Cuba Literary Alliance), The Beauty of Being Elsewhere (a travel anthology), and Musings from the Heliconian Club. Her novels include Leaving Paradise (2008), What Maisie Missed (2018) and Isadora’s Dance(2021). Now her new novel The Age of Privilege is being released by AOS Press.
Ted Staunton
This week we welcome Ted Staunton. He is the author of nearly fifty books for young people, from toddlers to teens (though adults are allowed to read them too). His most recent book, the graphic novel The Good Fight, about the infamous riot at Christie Pits in 1933, was listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. Ted keeps up a busy schedule visiting with students around Ontario as well as teaching creative writing at George Brown College. His new novel, Comic Shift, will be published by Scholastic Canada in 2025.
Al Seymour
Al Seymour grew up just north of Cobourg in Creighton Heights, attending Cook’s School, Dale Road and CDCI West, before venturing off 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 then started his own contracting firm specializing in sustainable buildings and quality renovations. Al also was committed to making his community a better place; co-founding three charitable organizations and chairing each at the start. (FOODPATH – now Foodbanks Mississauga, The Erin Mills Youth Centre, 3rd Erin Mills Scout Group) Seven years ago, Al and his wife Kathy Toivanen retired to Cobourg. Al is a busy retiree – active with the Cobourg Museum, renovating his home, spending time at family cottages, church, skiing, hiking, walking, and gardening.
Christopher Cameron and John Unruh
This episode is an encore presentation of our discussion with Chris Cameron and John Unruh about podcasting.
Chris enjoyed a successful career as a professional opera singer, retiring in 2009 and then began a new career as a freelance writer and editor. His first book, a memoir of his singing years, Dr. Bartolo’s Umbrella and Other Tales from my Surprising Operatic Life (Seraphim Editions), was published in 2017. His book of humorous fiction, Thorneside Stories: A Mix of Sun and Cloud (Iguana Books), was published in September 2022. Now Christopher brings his respect for the beauty and power of the written word to his editing and feature-writing portfolio at Watershed magazine.
John Unruh is a Northumberland writer concerned with the value of broken things and how communities come together to fix them. He’s also a consulting technical writer and editor. John grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Cobourg with his wife and son in 2021. In the past year John has become a highly valued source of answers to technical questions. This year John has published two short stories in Hill Spirits V, Blue Denim Press, and a poem in 101 Portraits, Wet Ink Books. In 2021 he published The Mime and the Girl in the November Issue of The Green Shoe Sanctuary In 2004 his story Angelic won a contest and was published in On Spec Magazine. He has also written several novels which are in various stages of completion.
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, including over twenty radio 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.
Moon Storm Rising is part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, with strong environmental
themes. And while set in the real world, it features an unusual fantasy element that
perfectly symbolizes the inextricable link between humans and the rest of the natural
world. The book is available on Amazon.
Marie-Lynn has also worked as a copy editor for the last three decades. She copy-
edited Esi Edugyan’s first Giller-Prize winner, Half-Blood Blues, and she’s proofread
or copy-edited books by, among others, Joseph Škvorecký, Linda Spalding, Paul
Watson, and business writer Rod McQueen, and co-translated into French a book of
poems for children by Dennis Lee
Lois Gordon
Lois is a writer and editor. She has published several humorous essays in anthologies and articles which have appeared in lifestyle magazines. Her second mystery novel, “Death at Iron House Lodge”, was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis “Best Unpublished Novel” award in 2016, and several essays have won awards. Currently, she works part-time as an editor for a digital marketing company. Lois wrote her first stage play four years ago for a community theatre in Ancaster, Ontario. The new experience rekindled her passion for writing and she has since written three more scripts for the amateur acting company. Since moving to Northumberland three years ago, Lois has volunteered with community theatre and the Northumberland Festival of the Arts, hoping to become more fully involved with the vibrant arts scene in the county.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 