Meet Gordon Pitts an award winning journalist and author, who was a reporter and editor on Canadian daily newspapers for four decades. In addition, he has written eight books of Canadian business biography and a series of local histories based on his home town of Madoc, Ontario, and of Hastings County. His biographical works include his 2020 release of Unicorn in the Woods, How East Coast Geeks and Dreamers Are Changing the Game, long-listed for Canada’s National Business Book Award and named one of the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books for 2020. He won the National Business Book Award for Stampede: The Rise of the West and Canada’s New Power Elite, his book on the business leaders of the Canadian West. A former high school teacher in Brighton, Ontario, before he became a journalist, Pitts retired from daily journalism in 2013. In retirement, he has turned to telling stories of the “country north of Belleville” – as poet Al Purdy called the rugged area from the Madoc area to Bancroft – including a narrative on the murder of a police constable in 1926 and his most recent release, an account of a financial scandal that shook Hastings County in 1914. These days, he divides his time between Madoc’s Moira Lake, where his family has lived for 150 years, and Toronto
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Karen Walker
This week we talk with Karen Walker. Karen is a long-time resident of Cobourg, who began writing flash fiction, prose poetry and erasure poetry in 2019. Her work has been published more than one hundred print and digital literary publications and anthologies worldwide. Karen also contributed to Hill Spirits V published by Blue Denim Press in association with Northumberland Festival of the arts in 2022.
Dave Vaughan
Dave Vaughan’s journey through the world of drama and storytelling is eclectic. In the neon glow of the early 1980s, Dave first stepped into the spotlight, breathing life into characters on stage in productions like “Inherit the Wind” and “L’il Abner.” However, the allure of the stage soon gave way to the pragmatic call of engineering, leading Dave down a divergent path in the transportation industry. For nearly three decades, Dave’s creative spark simmered quietly, overshadowed by the demands of his career. But in 2010 he made a triumphant return to the performing arts. This time, the silver screen beckoned, and Dave answered. His pivotal moment came with “Hokum,” a film by Jared Bratt that not only showcased Dave’s compelling lead performance but also benefited from his co-writing. This award-winning project marked a turning point, steering him towards the art of scriptwriting, a skill he honed at George Brown College. The transition from actor and scriptwriter to novelist seemed a natural progression. His debut novel, Ballet of Deception, weaves a tapestry of intrigue and drama. Not content to rest on his laurels, Dave is currently putting the finishing touches on his second novel, Babe Lincoln’s Twisted Tale, due for release later this year.
Shane Joseph
Shane Joseph is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. He is the author of seven novels and three collections of short stories. Shane’s second novel, After the Flood, a dystopian novel of hope, released in 2009, won the Write Canada Award for best novel in the futuristic/fantasy category. His short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in literary journals and anthologies all over the world. His blog at http://www.shanejoseph.com is widely syndicated, he has a monthly column in The Sri Lankan Anchorman journal, and is the Book Reviews Editor for Devour Art & Lit Magazine. His most recent novel, Empire in the Sand, was released in September 2022. Shane is the owner and publisher of Blue Denim Press (www.bluedenimpress.com), a literary press he founded in 2011. He is responsible for editing, formatting, cover design, production, distribution, and promotion at his press. To date, the press has published over 40 titles (fiction and non-fiction) in paperback and e-book formats. In particular, Shane loves editing to release the story from within the words.
Frances Boyle
This week’s programme is a rerun of our interview with Frances Boyle who visited Cobourg last spring to give a reading for The Cobourg Poetry Workshop’s Third Thursday Readings series. Frances is, most recently, 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.
Marsha Smoke
This week we talk with Marsha Smoke. Marsha is the CEO and President of Moccasin Trails, a company dedicated to environmental principles and policies to protect the land. That is the impetus behind Moccasin Trails Access Matting Solutions, an Alderville-based business which takes Marsha all over Ontario and beyond. The company’s name, Moccasin Trails, comes from a story Marsha learned from her elders about the history of the grass dance.
Marsha believes in the power of storytelling to educate and heal and says there needs to be ongoing dialogue and more opportunities for residential school survivors and their families to share their stories. She sees Orange Shirt Day as giving people that opportunity. She is a one of the driving forces behind the Dibaajimowin Cultural Centre which visits towns and villages, often setting up their HQ in the tipi they travel with as they did in Port Hope this year and to Colborne where the community was invited to join in the special commemorative ceremony in Victoria Square Park for knowledge sharing and reflection, moments of silence, story-telling, flag raising and a smudge ceremony. Orange shirts were available for purchase to support the Dibaajimowan Cultural Centre.
Ted Barris
This week we are rebroadcasting our most recent interview with Ted Barris in honour of Remembrance Day. On Dec. 29, 2022, Rideau Hall announced its Honours list and Ted learned he would be appointed Member of the Order of Canada, “for advancing our understanding of Canadian military history as an acclaimed historical author, journalist and broadcaster. His writing has regularly appeared in the national press, as well as magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for most CBC Radio network programs, PBS in the U.S. and on TV Ontario. And after 18 years teaching, he recently retired as a full-time professor of journalism at Toronto’s Centennial College. He is the author of 20 bestselling, non-fiction books, including a series on wartime Canada including Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944 … Days of Victory: Canadians Remember 1939-1945 … Behind the Glory: Canada’s Role in the Allied Air War. His 17th book, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, won the 2014 Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award (shared with astronaut Chris Hadfield). Ted’s 20th book, Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory was published in the fall of 2022 and immediately landed on the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star bestsellers lists. Following the book’s publication, Ted received word that he’d received Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Award, recognizing “extraordinary contributions to our community and Canada.”
Linda Hutsell Manning
Linda Hutsell-Manning’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 just been released by Pandamonium Publications.
Peter Paylor
Peter Paylor is fast becoming one of Eastern Ontario’s favourite playwrights. His plays are heartfelt and hilarious, engaging audiences by placing likeable characters in the most unlikely situations. Peter is President and Artistic Director of River & Main Theatre Company at Theatre in The Wings in Belleville.
His own plays have been greeted with acclaim by critics and his audience.
“I laughed more at this play (Christmas in Rosewood) than I have ever laughed at any play I’ve read before. And I’m surprised to be saying that because I’m a tough audience.” – Norm Foster, playwright.
“Paylor is breaking ground in the way he writes parts for older women, giving them voice and space in a world that often renders older women invisible. What’s more, these female characters embody a kind of irreverence, flipping social conventions…he wants to challenge our expectations of what ‘old’ looks like. And he does just that, carefully, cleverly, and always with warmth and humour.” – Lisa Guthro, The Intelligencer
Carol Finlay
This week we welcome Rev. Dr. Carol Finlay, M.S.M, O.Ont., the Founder of Book Clubs for Inmates (www.bookclubsforinmates.com), a registered charity in Canada. Dr. Finlay received her BA from Trinity College in 1965; her M. Div. in 1990 from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto; and was ordained for The Anglican Church of Canada in 1992. During summers on Amherst Island near Kingston, Ontario, she sensed a call to work in one of the many penitentiaries in the Kingston area. She started the first book club for inmates in Collins Bay Institution in 2008. As of 2023, Book Clubs for Inmates (BCFI), a registered charity, runs more than 36 book clubs (although this number has fluctuated since the pandemic) in federal institutions across Canada with more than 120 volunteers. Dr. Finlay has been recognized for her work with an Order of Ontario, Meritorious Service Medal, and honorary doctorates from Trinity College, University of Toronto and St. Thomas University, in New Brunswick. Please join us.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 