radio series

Terry Fallis

felicity936 Leave a comment

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

felicity936 Leave a comment

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

felicity936 Leave a comment

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

felicity936 Leave a comment

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

felicity936 1 Comment

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

felicity936 1 Comment

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

felicity936 1 Comment

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.

Marie Prins

felicity936 1 Comment

This week we welcome Marie Prins 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.

Linda Hutsell Manning

felicity936 Leave a comment

This is an encore presentation of one of our interviews with Linda Hutsell-Manning. Linda’s publications include 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, which was premiered by VOS Theatre, a memoir, about her experiences as a teacher of eight grades at S.S.#2 Hamilton Township; a one room, one stove, cold water tap elementary school west of Cobourg from 1963 to 1965. She has also written many pieces of short fiction and poetry published in literary magazines. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she now lives near Cobourg Ontario where she writes in a century farmhouse. www.lindahutsellmanning.ca. Her children’s story Finding Moufette, has been released by Pandamonium Publications.

Janice Barrett

felicity936 1 Comment

Janice Barrett is a proud mother of three. She worked at the Unemployment Insurance Office in Hamilton from 1973-1988 at which time she became a stay-at-home mom. She was a freelance journalist for The Weekend Focus and The Grimsby Independent newspaper where she was given her own column. An article she wrote for The Ottawa Citizen garnered attention from the producer of W5 who invited her to be a guest on their show, which she declined. She was the opening act for Coast to Coast Canada’s Tenacious Literary Series held at The Laura Secord Homestead. She gave a seminar at The Niagara Falls Literary Festival on How to Write a Memoir. The first play she wrote, Dearly Departed, won a playwright contest where she was paid and a snippet of her play was performed at The Essential Collective Theatre. That afforded her an interview at The Tarragon Theatre. Her first historical fiction, Authorized Cruelty was published on October/1st/2023. Please join us for our conversation with Janice.