Writers Radio

A ballerina and a psychiatrist, who is a Holocaust survivor, embark on a tentative romance in 1960s New York. “An affecting chamber piece with plenty to say about art, trauma, and healing.” Kirkus starred review. "In plac­ing the arc of a ballerina’s career oppo­site that of a Holo­caust sur­vivor strug­gling to live in a changed world, Toll has craft­ed an engag­ing romance, with poignant re...

In the sequel to A Theory of Expanded Love, meet Annie Shea, an irrepressible and irresistible seventeen year old from a large Catholic family, (fourteen kids), who lives in Pasadena, CA in 1968.  Annie has been cast in a singing role for a showcase of songs from Hair. Also in Hair is Lucas, a black dancer from Watts. The director of the production is lecherous Father Sullivan. Annie’s older siste...

“Some people travel to the ends of the Earth to help others. Dr. Maureen Mayhew is one such person, a fearless humanitarian who takes readers on an adventure to the outermost reaches of Afghanistan in her beautifully written and searingly honest memoir." Roberta Staley, author of Voice of Rebellion: How Mozhdah Jamalzadah Brought Hope to Afghanistan In 2000, Dr. Maureen Mayhew reluctantly acc...

Title: How To Clean A Fish Sub Title: And Other Adventures In Portugal Episode: P061 START: May 29, 2023 ENDS: June 11, 2023 Length:  23' mins Host/Producer: Ingrid Rose Perhaps it is saudade (longing, love and loss combined) that pulls me back to visit my other country as often as possible. When the opportunity arose for our family to live in Costa da Caparica for an extended period, it took...

Title: Dead And Alive (part 3), Living With Ancestors Sub Title: Surviving Conquest Episode: P060 START: May 15, 2023 ENDS: May 28, 2023 Length:  28' mins Host/Producer: Carole Harmon Veni, vidi, vici. This oft quoted Latin phrase, I came, I saw, I conquered, attributed to Julius Caesar in ca. AD 46, expresses the prevailing sentiment of western colonialism for the last 2000 years In Healing...

Title: On The Edge Of Fear Episode: P059 START: May 01, 2023 ENDS: May 14, 2023 Length:  29'' mins Host/Producer: Ingrid Rose Jan Redford's End of the Rope: Mountains Marriage and Motherhood, caused ripples when it was released by Penguin Canada in 2018.  Journalist Marni Jackson, who authored The Mother Zone, a shortlisted finalist for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour...

Title: Dead And Alive (part 2) Sub Title: An Unprecedented Level of Imagination Episode: P058 START: April 17, 2023 ENDS: April 30, 2023 Length:  21' mins Host/Producer: Carole Harmon Sharon English and Sharon Simone are writers and friends who have been deeply influenced by the writing of Barry Lopez, in particular his final book, Horizon, which issues the call for "an unprecedented lev...

Title: What I Miss Sub Title: Swimming In Stories Episode: P057 START: April 03, 2023 ENDS: April 16, 2023 Length:  28'' mins Narrator Veda Hille Host/Producer: Ingrid Rose Join Ingrid Rose and Veda Hille in celebrating the remarkable life of Veda's mother Rosanna Hille, as revealed in her recently self-published memoir, Swimming in Stories, The River of My Life. Rosanna Hille'...

Title: Dead And Alive (part 1) Sub Title: Being With Ancestors Episode: P056 START: March 20, 2023 ENDS: April 02, 2023 Length:  28' mins Host/Producer: Carole Harmon Dark Matter Women Witnessing, an online literary journal founded and edited by Lise Weil of Montreal, Canada publishes writing and visual art created in response to an age of massive species loss and ecological collapse. It is a...

Allen 'Mercy' Quincy, the protagonist of this novel, writes as he begins his journal: If I go to my memories directly I'll never survive. I will take the longer road and lay an ambush. I will describe my world. I will tell you about Ruby. The Mercy Journals is set 1n 2047 in the wake of a third world war. Owing also to runaway effects of climate change and the collapse of nation/sta...

Immersions: KAREN McDIARMID                                               Ski to Assiniboine: JANE NEWMAN beauty and terror—flux is at the crossroads Karen McDiarmid and Jane Newman are friends, visual artists, writers, cold water swimmers and lovers of wilderness adventures at the edge of safety. Both lived in the Canadian Rockies for many years but now live on Cortes Island off the west coast of...

Susan McCaslin, Canadian poet, essayist, and literary scholar, lives in Fort Langley, BC, in Canada.  She first met Ted Blodgett in 2011 in Calgary, Alberta, where both read from their recent volumes of poetry published by the University of Alberta Press in its Currents series. Demeter Goes Skydiving, Susan McCaslin Apostrophes vii: Sleep, You, a Tree, E.D. Blodgett I looked up, way up, into the e...

Edward Feuz Jr : A Story of Enchantment is part biography, part personal memoir. It is remarkable in telling the story of client and guide from the point of view of the client, not as journal accounts of mountains climbed, but in remembrance of an enduring life-long friendship. It is full of anecdotes and history. In 1899 Christian Haesler and Eduard Feuz, mountain guides from Interlaken, Switzerl...

Two Poets write of their homeland, and their dislocation. Shadi Eskandani and Sareh Farmand are Iranian born Canadian immigrant writers and friends. Join them in readings from their poetry and in conversation with Ingrid Rose. SAREH was born in Tehran and lived there until she was two; she lived briefly in Germany and Italy, and finally immigrated to Canada. Her new release, Pistachios In My Pocke...

A DOOR IS OPENING : Part 2 of 2 We invited contributors to Writers Radio to share with us their thoughts on this theme as we approach 2023 . Shoes are a metaphor for journey and transformation. This was Canadian novelist Katherine Govier’s inspiration when she founded The Shoe Project in 2011. This collaborative project connects women immigrants to Canada with Canadian writing and performance ment...

A DOOR IS OPENING: Part 1 of 2 We invited contributors to Writers Radio to share with us their thoughts on this theme as we approach 2023. In Nova Scotia, Chad Norman , confronts his life as he looks forward to challenges and hopes of a new poetry project. Kate Bird of Vancouver embarks on an unintentionally solo walking tour which re-invigorates her perspective on life. In the changing urban envi...

Featured Songs: Fine Tuning • Afghanistan: The Lost City • Dervish Drums. Gary Sill will entertain you with his music in the third of a three part series featuring the work of producers of Writers Radio. This program touches on highlights of Gary's musical career as a young rock musician in the band, Wayboard ; producing programming for ACCESS Educational Network and CKUA radio; and as studen...

No glasses, playing in the snow; this is a black-and-white photograph of my mother taken by my father before I was born, likely in the first year of their marriage. I hand coloured the print many years later, in the 1970's, when I was her age. Each fall the writers radio team takes a turn at presenting our own work. This is my turn for 2022. Ingrid and I both chose to write of our mothers; ou...

Jon Whyte (1941-1992) was a Canadian author whose soul work was poetry but who also wrote books of history about his beloved Canadian Rockies. Unlike many Canadian artists who pursue careers in America and Europe, or in academia, Jon Whyte chose to root his life and work in the Canadian west, its people and history, especially the mountains, and in particular the Bow Valley. He was born in Banff a...

Jon Whyte (1941 - 1992) was a Canadian author whose soul work was poetry but who also wrote books of history about his beloved Canadian Rockies. Unlike many Canadian artists who pursue careers in America and Europe, or in academia, Jon Whyte chose to root his life and work in the Canadian west, its people and history, especially the mountains, and in particular the Bow Valley. He was born in Banff...

"You called up love as rainmakers call upon the rain" Ingrid Rose writing about her mother in "Embracing Her" In keeping with our Harvest theme, Ingrid Rose re-members her mother in Embracing Her. Writers Radio launched in November 2020. On our first anniversary we inaugurated an annual tradition of including work by our three producers: Ingrid Rose, Gary Sill, and myself, Caro...

Episode: P043 Broadcast dates: September 19 to October 02, 2022 Length:  38'' mins Host: Carole Harmon New releases by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch and Tariq Malik share themes of the human consequences of war which continue to play out long after the war has ended. Winterkill is set during the Holodomor, which means death by starvation in Ukrainian. This was a man made famine created in 1932...

In the spirit of HARVEST, this autumn’s programs will recall people and events, underscoring their importance which reverberates in today’s world when we remember. Elizabeth Cunningham of Nelson, British Columbia is a writer, teacher and visual artist who loves collaborating with others. Both her life and her work demonstrate a wide range of interest and commitment, which seem to flow through time...

Smoke and Mirrors , a chapter from Sheila Martineau’s memoir, I Wanted to Tell You This: a memoir of magic, music, and madness , untangles the challenges she endured as the ‘disobedient daughter’ of brilliant but brutal, misguided parents and the strategies she used to combat and escape. Her father was a professional magician and commercial artist. Her mother was a gold-medal classical pianist. Th...

Families, in turn, are knit together or torn apart by the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Clarissa Green understands the world-creating power of stories. The author, who died in August, 2020 after seeing her book to publication, practised as a family therapist in Vancouver for decades, specializing in the dilemmas of adult children and their frail, elderly parents. Clarissa reads from he...